Article: Making calories disappear...
"I literally don't feel like I ate anything today. I'm hungry and I've honestly only had a few bites." This was my husband's experience snacking on high-calorie foods left over from my demonstration, and it mirrors how so many of us who are struggling to lose weight feel. Despite snacking all afternoon and not feeling full in anyway, my husband managed to passively consume more than he typically eats at a single meal. 800+ Calories vanished. Some foods just do not make us feel full.
Making calories disappear... Yesterday marked day 1 of our 12 week weight loss kick start program (this is the last week to sign up if you plan to join us!). To start off the program, we compared the difference in volume between 100 calories of various foods. We were able to see how easy it is to consume extra calories from calorie-dense foods. And while this was eye opening, it also meant bringing calorie rich and processed foods (CRAP) into our home. Something that we deliberately choose not to do.
Understanding satiety versus satiation.
"Satiety refers to the feelings of fullness between meals, whereas satiation reflects feelings of fullness during ingestion of a meal, acting as a terminating factor" (1). The nuance matters and this is critical to fully comprehend. Let me explain why.
Most of us think of volume when we think about satiation. For example, we might say that mac and cheese is more satiating than a large vegetable dish, because we can eat a smaller portion of it to feel full. And while we are not wrong, we hopefully are eating smaller portions of mac and cheese than greens and veg, we are completely missing the point. The amount of calories that we need to eat to feel full varies widely, and this strongly depends on which mix of foods we are choosing to consume at each meal. When we are focused on weight loss, we on a fixed calorie budget, meaning that optimizing satiation per calorie is key.
This is where the concept of calorie density comes in. Think about this as satiation per calorie. Imagine that we have a savings jar. If our goal is to build savings (gain weight), then we would put as many $100 bills as we can in that jar. Once full, we'd have a lot of savings (fat storage). In this example, the large denomination bills represent high calorie foods. Contrast that to a goal of weight loss. If our goal was to fill the jar with as little money as we can, then we would focus on adding penny's. In the end, both jars would be full, but the difference in amount would be stark.
Successful long-term weight loss focuses on finding the right balance between $100 bills and penny's. If we try to fill up only on metaphorical penny's (please don't eat money) then we likely won't be able to fit enough in the jar to feel full (because other factors aside from food volume effect satiation -- more on that soon). If we fill up on $100 bills, then we are likely to gain weight. The goal is to transition from filling the jar with $100 bills, to slowly adding more penny's. At some point we are going to find a combination that works for us and our goals.
While most of us might be thinking, "I'll just put less $100 bills into the jar", this will-power strategy does not work for the vast majority of people and has not been found to be a successful long-term strategy. Why? Because we always fill the jar. Everyday. Even though we can white-knuckle it for a few days, only filling the jar half way increases our hunger, and hunger always wins.
When we eat, it takes an average of 1.5 liters of food to fill our stomach (4). My suggestion is that we focus on choosing foods with a lower calorie density to slowly crowd out high calorie foods, as an effective strategy in our weight-loss toolkit.
References
Satiation or satiety? More than mere semantics. Klaassen. The Lancet. (2021) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00245-2/fulltext
Whole Foods Mac and Cheese. Nutrition Value. (n.d.) https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Mac_%26_cheese_by_WHOLE_FOODS_MARKET_735768_nutritional_value.html?size=5+onz+%3D+142.0+g
Mixed Vegetables. Nutrition Value. (n.d.) https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Vegetables%2C_unprepared%2C_frozen%2C_mixed_nutritional_value.html
A Study of Variations of the Stomach in Adults and Growth of the Fetal Stomach. Karnul et al. Cureus. (2022) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9515405/#:~:text=The%20stomach's%20capacity%20varies%20from,and%20length%20of%20the%20organ.
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