Fewer Calories with Less Hunger

Another great article from Eat Better America

 

 I can't wait to make the slow cooker minestrone!

Fewer Calories with Less Hunger

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It’s no surprise: Losing weight is often the number one New Year’s resolution.

It’s no surprise: Losing weight is often the number one New Year’s resolution. You’ve likely made it yourself once or twice—or 50 times. We know the drill far too well: We ban our favorite foods, cut portions to mouse-starving amounts, and suffer through the day famished. Soon enough we stumble because these drastic measures simply aren’t sustainable.

How about taking a different approach—one that can help you lose weight without the 24/7 ravenous feelings?

We all know that to lose weight we need to burn more calories than we take in. But here’s a lesser-known trick: If you focus on foods that contain more water and fiber, you can eat larger volumes. This helps you feel full and satisfied for longer. And helps you reach the goal of eating fewer calories overall.
Here’s an example:
¼ cup of raisins and 1 cup of grapes both have about 100 calories. But there’s a lot more water in the fresh grapes, giving you a larger, more filling portion for that 100 calories than the raisins—dried so the water has been removed.

More great tips to get started:

• Fruit: Eat an ample serving of whole fresh fruit before every meal. And add fresh, frozen or canned fruit to meals wherever you can—piled high on a bowl of whole grain cereal or on top of pancakes in place of butter and syrup.

• Veggies: Load up! Eat several times your usual amount of vegetables while cutting back on your meat and pasta servings. It doesn’t matter if your veggies are raw or cooked—add extras wherever you can. Think sandwiches, pizzas, and casseroles. Eat Better America can help you find more ways to pile on more veggies. You’ll love White Bean and Spinach Pizza, Vegetable Confetti, and Mediterranean Turkey Bagelwiches for starters.

• Soup: Start your meal with a bowl of the broth-based kind. Studies show that eating a brothy soup filled with veggies (as opposed to creamy soup) or a pureed vegetable soup before a meal may help you to eat 20 percent fewer calories at that meal. Make your own satisfying veggie soup, like our Slow Cooker Vegetable Minestrone and keep a stock of delicious Progresso® Reduced Sodium soups on hand for those days when you are short on time.

• Salad: Take a few minutes to make a salad before dinner. Researchers have found that a large salad—about 2 cups worth—before a meal decreases the amount eaten at that meal by up to 12 percent. Be sure to use a reduced-fat or reduced-calorie dressing, fill your salad bowl with only fresh vegetables, and skip the cheese, croutons, olives, and other high-fat additions. Don’t cancel out the benefits of the salad with calorie-packed toppings!

Want to learn more? Check out The Volumetrics Eating Plan by Barbara Rolls, Ph.D.