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Weight loss is a simple matter. If you eat more calories than your
body needs you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than your
body needs you will lose weight. It doesn't get any simpler than
this. Yet we humans tend to analyze and theorize even the simplest
things until they're so complicated nobody can figure them out. We do
this when it comes to losing weight.
We confuse the above principle when we rephrase it as “Eat
Less, Move More”, or “Eat Less, Exercise More”. We've all heard
it phrased this way often enough and it has become the standard
formula for losing weight. And it sounds like the same thing as the
principle above, doesn't it? It isn't. One is talking about eating
fewer calories, the other is talking about eating less food. When we
rephrase it to say “Eat Less” we focus on eating less food under
the mistaken belief that doing so is the best way to eat fewer
calories. It isn't. The truth is that we eat the amount of food we do
for a reason. We have a biological drive to eat food and we tend to
eat the same weight of food every day. If one day we eat more or less
than our normal, we tend to compensate for it the next. If we
repeatedly eat less food than our biological drive tells us to, we
find ourselves spending every waking moment thinking about food and
feeling like we're starving to death, until eventually we give in and
eat our fill. This is why diets fail so many people.
While some people do succeed with this, they're few and far between.
They're the ones with superhuman willpower, or they're sadists and
like self-torture! But most people only suffer and fail. Repeatedly.
Countless diets come and go, and all of them work under the same
principle, which is that we can muster the willpower to do something
different for a certain period of time, and the hope is that you'll
lose enough weight to make you happy before you run out of willpower.
These diets fail because they work against the powerful biological
drive we all have to eat. Some people, because they can lose the
same 25 pounds over and over every time they try their specific diet,
actually believe what they're doing is working! They eat what they
want until they decide they're too fat, then starve and deny
themselves until they're at a more acceptable weight, then repeat the
process over and over. That is not health or success, that is a cycle
of abuse.
Fortunately we don't need to east less food. We only need to eat
fewer calories. They are NOT the same thing. Repeat that to yourself!
Eating fewer calories is NOT the same thing as eating less food.
Eating fewer calories leads to weight loss and success. Eating less
food leads to hunger, pain, and eventually, failure. What's the
difference? Some foods have more calories than other foods. Once you
understand the fact that you tend to eat the same weight of food
every day it's as simple as satisfying your appetite on those foods
that will do it with fewer calories! You will not find it easy to
lose weight eating cheeseburgers, french fries, ice cream and
milkshakes. Those foods have enough calories in relation to their
weight that you'll find yourself hungry again before you've burned
off the calories they provide. On the other hand, you'll find it hard
not to lose weight if you ate nothing but broccoli. Broccoli is so
low in calories compared to it's weight that you would likely be sick
of eating it before you consumed enough calories to gain weight. In
fact, it is so low in calories that you'd waste away into nothing,
even if you ate pounds of it at a time. Fear not! I am NOT pushing an
all broccoli diet! I am only explaining the concept of Calorie
Density.
Calorie Density is the
relationship between how many calorie a food has compared to how much
the food weighs. Since we tend to eat the same weight of food every
day we can satisfy our appetites with foods lower in calorie density
and consume fewer calories overall for the same volume of food we're
used to, and start to lose weight while satisfying our appetite. Or
we can satisfy our appetites with foods higher in calorie density
and consume more calories overall, staying at our current weight or
perhaps even gaining. The basic principle one needs to understand is
that if we are not losing weight on our current diet then we need to
start eating more of the foods that are lower in calorie density.
With the mental focus being
on eating MORE of the lower calorie density foods we are not setting
ourselves up for failure. We are not setting ourselves up for the
pitfalls that await people who try to eat less food. We are, instead,
setting ourselves up for success! It is nice to step on a scale and
see that your heroic efforts to eat less have caused you to lose
weight. It is a far greater joy to lose weight and realize you didn't
have to deny your God given appetite for food! The one lasts only as
long as your willpower holds out, the other lasts as long as you want
it to because you aren't denying your appetite, you're satisfying it.
For our sake, we'll define
Calorie Density as the number of calories in a pound of a specific
food. I know, we seldom eat an entire pound of any one food, but
that's not the point. We're not measuring actual food we're eating,
and WE ARE NOT COUNTING CALORIES. We're measuring the difference in
calories between different foods of the same weight. With Calorie
Density it's not important how many calories are in any one serving
of food, it's important to know how that food compares to the same
weight of another food. I've chosen to use a pound as the measure of
weight because some low calorie foods would read 0 if we measured in
too small an amount. We could use any weight we wanted to. It could
be calories per ounce, kilogram, or ton, as long as we measured each
food the same.
Below is a list of some
foods and how many calories there are in a pound of that food. Keep
in mind that the foods listed below show the calories for how we're
likely to eat them. Nobody eats raw chicken, uncooked rice, or
unpopped popcorn. The only numbers that matter to us here are the
calories of the food as it is when we're ready to eat it.
| Food | Calories-Per-Pound |
|---|
| Lettuce, Iceberg | 64 |
| Zucchini, cooked from fresh | 68 |
| Celery, Raw | 73 |
| Tomato raw (includes cherry, grape, roma) | 82 |
| Peppers, Sweet, Green, Raw | 91 |
| Spinach, Raw | 104 |
| Cauliflower, Raw | 114 |
| Cabbage, Raw | 114 |
| Strawberries, Raw | 145 |
| Cantaloupe, Raw | 154 |
| Broccoli, Raw | 154 |
| Honeydew, Raw | 163 |
| Brussels sprouts, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt | 163 |
| Butternut Squash, Baked | 182 |
| Onions, Raw | 182 |
| Carrots, Raw | 186 |
| Oranges, raw, navels | 222 |
| Kale, raw, navels | 222 |
| Apples, raw, with skin | 236 |
| Artichoke hearts, canned in water | 241 |
| Blueberries, Raw | 259 |
| Mangos, Raw | 272 |
| Mustard, prepared, yellow | 272 |
| Cereal, hot, Purity cracked wheat, prepared | 313 |
| Oats, regular and quick, cooked with water | 322 |
| Artichoke hearts, marinated in oil mixture | 340 |
| Potatoes, boiled | 395 |
| Bananas, Raw | 404 |
| Potatoes, Baked | 427 |
| Corn, boiled, drained, without salt | 436 |
| Ketchup | 440 |
| Yogurt, plain, nonfat | 454 |
| Dijon Mustard | 467 |
| Rice, brown, long-grain, cooked | 504 |
| Halibut, Atlantic and Pacific, cooked, dry heat | 504 |
| Lentils, cooked from dried | 527 |
| Split peas, yellow or green, cooked from dried | 536 |
| Millet, cooked | 540 |
| Quinoa, cooked | 545 |
| Barley, pearled, cooked | 558 |
| Spaghetti, whole-wheat, cooked | 563 |
| Kidney beans, cooked from dried | 577 |
| Rice, white, long-grain, regular, cooked | 590 |
| Beans, black, boiled | 599 |
| Turkey, breast, roasted | 613 |
| Beans, white, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, | 631 |
| Barbeque sauce (BBQ), store bought | 638 |
| Clams, cooked | 644 |
| Beans, pinto, boiled | 649 |
| Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coleslaw | 654 |
| Fried rice, pork | 674 |
| Trout, rainbow, wild, cooked from fresh or frozen | 681 |
| Fish, salmon, pink, cooked, dry heat | 695 |
| Boiled eggs | 704 |
| Spaghetti, cooked, enriched, with added salt | 713 |
| Pork chops, boneless, broiled | 731 |
| Chickpeas, boiled | 745 |
| Chicken Breast, meat only, roasted | 749 |
| Beef, ground, 95% lean/ 5% fat, broiled | 776 |
| Salmon, Atlantic, wild, cooked from fresh or frozen | 826 |
| Taco Bell, Soft Taco with chicken, cheese and lettuce | 858 |
| Sour cream | 876 |
| Steak, lean, fried in olive oil | 890 |
| Taco Bell Cheesy Fiesta Potatos | 901 |
| KFC Honey BBQ Sandwich | 901 |
| Ice Cream, Vanilla | 940 |
| Taco Bell, Bean Burrito | 949 |
| Taco Bell, Taco | 970 |
| Fried eggs, whole egg | 976 |
| Ice Cream, Chocolate | 981 |
| Tortillas, ready-to-bake or -fry, corn, without added salt | 1008 |
| KFC chicken breast, original recipe | 1018 |
| Pancakes, plain, prepared from recipe | 1031 |
| Chicken thigh, meat and skin, roasted | 1040 |
| Jack In The Box Taco | 1046 |
| Jack In The Box Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich | 1048 |
| Salmon, cooked from fresh or frozen, chinook | 1049 |
| Calamari (squid), breaded | 1066 |
| Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets | 1083 |
| Salad dressing, italian dressing, commercial, regular | 1090 |
| Beef, ground, 80% lean / 20% fat, pan-broiled | 1117 |
| Bread, whole-wheat, commercially prepared | 1121 |
| Smuckers Seedless Strawberry Jam (Preserves) | 1135 |
| Burger King, Whopper, with cheese | 1135 |
| Jack In The Box egg roll | 1148 |
| McDonald's, Big Mac | 1154 |
| Apple pie, bottom and top crust | 1171 |
| Maple syrup, pure | 1180 |
| Bread, white, commercially prepared | 1203 |
| Chicken fried steak | 1218 |
| McDonald's Cheeseburger | 1226 |
| McDonald's Sausage & Egg McMuffin | 1227 |
| Fish, fish sticks, frozen, prepared | 1258 |
| Burger King, Chicken Tenders | 1312 |
| Taco Bell Chicken Quesadilla | 1314 |
| McDonald's, Chicken McNuggets | 1321 |
| Beef, Chuck Roast, trimmed to 1/8” fat, braised | 1339 |
| Jack In The Box Sourdough Jack | 1346 |
| Jack In The Box stuffed jalapeno | 1373 |
| Honey | 1380 |
| Jack In The Box Supreme Croissant | 1385 |
| KFC hot wings | 1415 |
| McDonald's, French Fries | 1435 |
| Thousand island dressing | 1457 |
| Bread sticks, brushed with fat | 1483 |
| Burger King, French Fries | 1503 |
| Jack In The Box curly fries | 1515 |
| Pork sausage, fresh, cooked | 1539 |
| Hostess Twinkies | 1589 |
| Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popcorn Chicken | 1594 |
| Frosted Flakes (Kellogg's) | 1666 |
| Cheerios (General Mills) | 1666 |
| Wheaties (General Mills) | 1680 |
| Jack In The Box Mozzarella cheese sticks | 1719 |
| Cheese, swiss | 1725 |
| Pretzels, hard, plain, salted | 1725 |
| Kraft, Stove Top Stuffing Mix Chicken Flavor | 1730 |
| Popcorn, air-popped | 1757 |
| Rice cakes, brown rice, plain | 1757 |
| Sugars, granulated | 1757 |
| Cake, chocolate, commercially prepared | 1766 |
| Honey Nut Cheerios (General Mills) | 1784 |
| Cheese, cheddar | 1830 |
| Cereals ready-to-eat, Captain Crunch | 1833 |
| Kraft Ranch Dressing | 1857 |
| Beef Jerky, chopped and formed | 1861 |
| Crackers, saltines (includes oyster, soda, soup) | 1911 |
| Cheese, parmesan, grated | 1957 |
| Snicker's Bar | 2150 |
| M & M's Plain | 2234 |
| Tortilla chips, yellow, plain, salted | 2265 |
| Reese's Peanut Butter Cup | 2338 |
| Nutella | 2454 |
| Potato chips, plain, salted | 2461 |
| Bacon, cooked, pan-fried | 2420 |
| Milk Chocolate | 2429 |
| Nuts, Cashews, dry roasted, with salt added | 2606 |
| Peanuts, all types, dry-roasted, with salt | 2656 |
| Peanut butter, smooth style, with salt | 2670 |
| Nuts, almonds, dry roasted, without salt added | 2701 |
| Chocolate, dark, 70-85% cacao solids | 2715 |
| Margarine, regular, with salt | 3237 |
| Butter | 3255 |
| Mayonnaise, store bought | 3260 |
| Oil, Coconut | 3913 |
| Oil, Olive, Extra Virgin | 4013 |
| Oil, Canola | 4013 |
So what does all that mean
to those of us trying to lose weight? Simple. If you fill up on foods
higher in calorie density you're probably going to gain weight. If
you fill up on foods lower in calorie density you're probably going
to lose weight. If you're wanting to lose weight and it's not
happening, you need to look at the foods you eat and replace some of
the foods higher in calorie density with foods lower in calorie
density.
Sometimes the same food can
have a wide range of calorie density depending on how it's processed
or prepared. One example is corn. Whole kernel corn, boiled in water,
is 436 calories per pound. But if you grind that corn into corn
flour, process it into tortilla chips, and bake them with a little
oil... you now have a whopping 2265 calories per pound! It is similar
for potatoes. Boiled potatoes are 395 calories per pound. But if you
eat them in the form of McDonald's french fries you have 1435
calories per pound, and if you process them and deep fry them in oil
to make potato chips you now have 2461 calories per pound! Long grain
white rice is 590 per pound while long grain brown rice is only 504
calories per pound! Make rice cakes out of that and you now have 1757
calories per pound! Let's look at wheat. You can take whole wheat
berries and cook them up in water to make a wonderfully nutritious
breakfast cereal. So few people do this that I couldn't find a
calorie count for preparing them that way. But I did find a cracked
wheat cereal in the list that weighs in at 313 calories per pound.
Not bad! If we take that wheat and grind it into flour and make whole
wheat spaghetti out of it then we now have 563 calories per pound.
Still not too bad. But if we process that flour into regular
spaghetti we now have 713 calories per pound! And if instead of
spaghetti we make bread out of that wheat we now have 1203 calories
per pound! Process it even further into saltine crackers and you're
looking at 1911 calories per pound!
From this we learn that the
more you process a food the more calories it's going to have when you
eat it. The more you process food the more calories it has.
And the less nutrition it has. And the less hunger satisfaction it
gives you. This introduces our next point, which is Satiety.
The satiety of a food is how much it satisfies your appetite. How
much a food satisfies your appetite depends on it's weight, volume,
and how long it takes your body to digest. The longer it takes your
body to digest food the longer it's going to be before you're hungry
again. Does it do any good to satisfy your appetite on foods that
will pass right through you and leave you hungry again? No. Your body
will digest bread faster than it will digest cracked wheat cereal.
Bread is made from wheat which has already been ground into flour. It
contains millions of air pockets which immediately soak up digestive
fluids and break apart. Think about how long a slice of bread will
stay intact if you put it in a bowl of water. Not long. Within a few
seconds it's soggy and falling apart and you can't even lift it whole
from the bowl without it falling apart. Your body has to do very
little work to digest it because it's already been processed. Pasta
is also made from flour, but it's much denser and has a lot of water
infused into it. Put pasta into a bowl of water and it'll eventually
get mushy and fall apart, but not instantly like bread does! It
digests slower and therefore gives you more satiety. Cracked wheat
cereal goes even further. It will take much longer to digest. Your
body really has to work at it because it's not been ground into
flour! Notice this simple principle: The more you process the wheat
the more calories it has, the less nutrition it has, and the less
appetite satisfaction it gives you. This is true of all foods. The
more you process food the less nutrition it has, the more calories it
has, and the less it will satisfy your appetite. The more whole,
intact foods you eat and the fewer processed foods you eat, the
easier it will be to lose weight while satisfying your appetite.
What do I eat that allows
me to stuff my belly as full as I ever have, yet lose weight
effortlessly week after week, month after month? Easy!! I eat
mostly whole foods less than 600 calories per pound. I
occasionally stray to foods higher on the list, but not often, and I
am careful about how much of those foods I eat. I limit processed
foods in my diet. I don't eat any meat. It's simply too high in
calories and gives less satiety than other foods lower in calories.
Being a lifelong meat eater who swore I could not satisfy my appetite
without it, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that potatoes,
rice, and beans offer more satiety than meat does! That's right!!
Potatoes, rice, and beans will stick with you longer than meat will.
No wonder I routinely went looking for leftovers in the fridge 3-5
hours after eating a dinner loaded high with meat. I seldom do that
now because I'm still satisfied with all the potatoes, rice, pasta,
and beans I eat for dinner! You can live just fine without meat. And
if you cant give it up, then focus on eating MORE of the lower
calorie dense foods and without even thinking about it you'll
naturally eat less meat. It's true! And almost effortless, and
painless.
When I talk about not
eating meat I always here the same question. “Where do you get your
protein?” I get my protein from the same place everyone else does.
From the food I eat. Since I didn't write this to focus on protein,
let me sum this topic up shortly. The World Health Organization says
an adult needs 5% of their calories to come from protein. 6% if
you're a pregnant female. White rice meets this requirement with 7%
of it's calories coming from protein. Potatoes have 8%, brown rice
has 9%, corn has 11%, oatmeal has 15%, and black beans have 27%. An
even higher authority than the World Health Organization agrees!
Mother Nature herself! Human breast milk contains about 5% of it's
calories from protein. At no point in our lives do we grow faster
than as an infant, doubling in size in just a few short months!
Mother's milk is the perfect food to see us through this period of
profound growth, and it contains only 5% of it's calories in the form
of protein. Is there really any time in our lives when we need more?
No. I'm exercising and building muscle mass just fine on my current
diet, and there is a growing list of professional athletes who are
discovering they can perform better than ever on a vegetarian diet.
It's almost as if our entire education on nutrition in our country
has been paid for by the meat and dairy industry! (Smile)
Let's talk about sugar and
fat! Honey is 1380 calories a pound. Sugar is 1757. Margarine is
3237, butter is 3255. Olive oil and canola oil are both 4013 calories a
pound! Adding any of these to foods to our diet can have only one
outcome: It adds calories without adding satiety. You can easily
double the calories in food by adding sugar or fat to it, without
adding one bit of extra appetite satisfaction. You simply do not need
any added sugar or fat in your diet. Not even the “healthy” oils
like Olive Oil. You can get all the essential fats you need from
whole plant foods. But our diets are loaded with sugars and fats and
we're loath to give them up. Without them foods are bland and boring,
right? Well, yeah! But only because we've been bombarding our taste
buds with unnatural amounts of sugars and fats. If we stop
overloading our palate with them we find we actually enjoy the tastes
of food without them. It's true! It's like when the electricity goes
out and suddenly everything goes quiet. The TV goes off, the radio
goes off, the computers, refrigerators and heaters stop humming and
everything is eerily silent. For a few minutes, anyway. And then you
start to hear things. The natural sounds of the world. The wind
outside. The birds. The neighbor's wind chimes. A dog off in the
distance. By the time the power comes back on you've grown
accustomed to these new sounds and for a brief moment actually miss
them once all the noise of modern life returns. In a similar fashion
your taste buds will adapt to not loading your food with sugars and
fats, and what's more, they'll actually like the new tastes they
experience! Some people have no trouble simply cutting down on the
sugars and fats they add to their diet. More power to them! Some
other people, however, find it very difficult. That is because some
foods are very addictive. Sugars, fats, and cheeses are all highly
addictive foods. People who are addicted to them will find it
difficult to merely eat less. To those people I would suggest
eliminating those foods entirely. You wouldn't suggest to a heroin
addict that he merely cut back his habit to a more manageable level,
would you? Of course not! You'd tell him the only way to overcome
his addiction is to cut it out entirely. The same goes for food
addictions. You can't cure them by merely cutting back. To be free
from their hold you have to cut out the foods you're addicted to.
Summary
Start eating more foods
lower in calorie density and you will naturally, without even
thinking about it, find yourself eating less of the foods higher in
calorie density. At some point you may choose to eliminate entirely
some of the foods higher in calorie density, and your health and your
weight will thank you for it! Stop adding excess calories to your
food in the form of sugars and fats, and allow your taste buds to
experience a new world of subtle yet delicious tastes. Doing these
things will lead you to a diet that is rewarding, healthy, and lets
you lose weight effortlessly while satisfying your appetite fully. If
you have only a few pounds to lose you might only need to tweak your
current diet a little bit. If you have more to lose, bigger changes
might be necessary. If you have a lot to lose, like me, you may need
to make even bigger changes yet. Not everyone has to make the drastic
changes in diet that I have. While it's true that I've come to
believe that a low-fat vegetarian diet is the healthiest for all
humans to eat, you don't have to agree with that to put Calorie
Density to work for you. I had 300 pounds to lose, that called for
BIG changes! But even the drastic changes I've made are rewarding
and easy to stick with because of this one simple fact: I get to eat
as much as it takes to satisfy my appetite. And whatever level of
changes you decide to make for yourself you can be assured of that
same thing: You'll lose weight AND satisfy your appetite in the
process, making it a “diet” you can live with for the rest of
your life.
Eat Well!
Norm -aka John Smith
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-Note-
It's
very likely that some of the foods you eat aren't in the list I
included. To look up the calorie density of foods I didn't list you
can go to http://cronometer.com
and on the right side of the page towards the bottom you can “Search
Foods”. Pick the food you want, enter 454 for the number of
servings and from the pull down menu select Grams for the unit of
measure. 454 grams = one pound. Doing this will give you the number
of calories in one pound of any food in their database, and will let
you compare it to foods in the list above. If you have trouble with
these instructions, contact me with a list of foods and I'll run them
for you!
