Why Thin People Are Thin

When we look around at the size of different people, it just doesn’t seem fair. How come thin people can eat all of the french fries and chocolate that they want? Is it metabolism?

I hate to tell you this, but studies have shown that in fact, thin people do eat less. The main reason that they can eat all they want is because they don’t want so much!

It’s true that there is a difference between men and women when it comes to metabolic rate. Also, our metabolism does slow down as we approach senior status.

However, if you compare two people of the same age, height and sex, where one person is significantly thinner than the other, you will almost certainly find that the thinner person eats less and/or has a more active lifestyle.

They may only eat a little less. A person only has to eat an extra 100 calories per day (1.5 slices of bread) in order to gain 10 pounds in a year. That’s 50 pounds in 5 years or 100 pounds in 10 years.

And an extra 200 calories per day (3 slices of bread) would make us gain 200 pounds in 10 years.

Most of us gained our excess weight at that kind of rate, or slower.

So it would make sense to lose it at around the same rate.

But of course we don’t want to go that slow. We want all the weight to disappear right now. This is another reason why most diets fail.

You can expect to lose 5-10 lb in the first week of a diet, as the body gets rid of any excess retained water. But after that, the slower the better if you want to be and stay slim.

The Volumetrics Eating Plan

When you go on a diet, how do you feel? Are you happy and energized, or cranky and starving? Many diets, especially fad diets, require a drastic reduction in food intake, and that’s one of the biggest reason people cheat. And as we all know, cheating on a diet leads to failure.

A diet that leaves us feeling full while cutting fat and calories might seem like a pipe dream, but according to nutritionist Barbara Rolls, it’s not. By eating foods with a low calorie density, we can feel satiated without adding pounds. This is the idea behind the Volumetrics eating plan.

Rolls literally wrote the book on Volumetrics. As director of the Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior at Penn State, she has done extensive research on eating habits. Her first book, The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan, was published in 2002. She followed it up in 2007 with The Volumetrics Eating Plan, which includes more recipes.

What Is Calorie Density?

The Volumetrics approach to weight loss relies on the concept of calorie density. Just as it sounds, calorie density represents the number of calories in a given volume of food. For example, consider a cookie and a slice of apple, both of which weigh the same amount. The cookie has more calories than the apple slice, therefore it has a greater calorie density.

The least calorie dense foods have a high water content. Since water contains no calories, the calorie content of such foods is less than the same amount of a food that is made up primarily of oil. Yet both foods are similarly filling.

Fruits and vegetables are among the least calorie-dense foods because they are usually 80 to 95 percent water. Other foods with a low calorie density include broth, skim milk and vegetable soup. Foods that are dense in calories include nuts, chocolate, chips and butter.

The concept of calorie density is also applied to cooking. Egg whites are substituted for whole eggs, applesauce is used in place of oil, and skim milk is used instead of whole milk. Such substitutions make it possible to enjoy many of our old favorites without eating as many calories.

The Volumetrics Eating Plan includes listings of the energy density of many popular foods, as well as a formula for calculating the calorie density of any food. It also provides guidance on increasing physical activity. Rolls also suggests that dieters keep a record of the foods they eat and the physical activities they participate in so that they may identify problem areas.

Volumetrics is reported to have a high success rate, and it is reasonably easy to follow. It is also less restrictive than most diets, allowing even calorie-dense foods in small amounts. Those who attribute their diet failures to constant hunger will find that the Volumetrics Eating Plan is a welcome change of pace.

Low Fat Grilled Ginger and Lemon Chicken

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons lite soy sauce
1/2 cup red raspberry preserves
2 tablespoons fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
1 teaspoon fresh garlic, minced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
4 lemon wedges (for garnish, optional)

Instructions:

In a baking dish blend together lemon juice, soy sauce, preserves, ginger root and garlic. Marinate chicken in this mixture for at least 15 minutes (longer is even better!) Grill the chicken for 7 minutes per side or until no longer pink and juices are clear. Serve garnished with lemon wedges. Marinating before grilling helps keeps the chicken from drying out for a tender and juicier result than if you just grilled plain chicken.

Baby Steps to Weight Loss

Most people start on a weight loss program by making big changes. This can give a fast pay off with a lot of weight lost in the first couple weeks.

On the other hand, this can be a very stressful way to start losing weight. The diet becomes the center of our lives and almost every moment seems to be spent buying, preparing or planning our food. If we eat something that was not on the plan, we panic. Sometimes we make this an excuse for dropping out completely.

If this has often happened to you in the past, why not try a different method? Instead of starting with a two-week crash diet or induction period, try changing one thing at a time. This will slowly ease you into your new way of eating.

If you choose this method, you could start the first 3-4 days by simply drinking enough water. Aim for at least two liters (approx 64 oz, or 8 x 8 oz glasses). That’s not including other drinks – just pure water.

Then plan your breakfast in line with your eating plan. So at the end of two weeks, you are having enough water plus a healthy breakfast each day.

After that, look at your snacks. It’s good to eat little and often when losing weight, so plan 2 or 3 snacks in a day and make sure that you have healthy food available for those snacks.

Then you can move on to lunch, and finally dinner.

This way, you don’t make a big deal out of the fact that you are trying to lose weight. Your friends and family will probably not even notice. The weight loss could creep up on you without you hardly noticing yourself!

Are You Ready To Change Your Weight?

Most of us have been struggling with our weight for years or even decades before we learn to eat in the best way for our bodies. Over eating, or just eating the wrong foods, is a habit that is hard to break.

Some foods, like sugar and refined carbohydrates (white bread and pasta), can even be addicting in a similar way to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. We may start to need the feeling of calm and satisfaction that come with a blood sugar ‘high’.

Probably all of us have been eating sugar and refined carbohydrate foods since we were little kids. So it is not surprising if we go from one weight loss program to another, looking for the ‘magic’ diet that will solve all of our problems.

If you have successfully given up smoking, you may have tried many times and gone back to it before finally quitting for good. The same thing can happen with diets.

So what makes the difference between all the failed attempts and the one time that we actually quit? The answer is in the mind.

Having the right attitude is vital. We have to be sure in our minds that we really want to change our eating habits.

It’s no good thinking that you want to lose weight, if you don’t want to change your eating. This is how most people approach diets. Even if they are not aware of it, what they really want is to carry on eating and living exactly as they do now, and magically become thin.

We have to see that this is not possible. Either the food habits or the exercise habits have to change, and both is best.

So before you start another diet, sit down and write all of the reasons why you want to *change your eating and exercise habits* – not the reasons why you want to lose weight.

These might include dealing with specific health problems that you have or generally feeling healthier, being able to play with kids, being free of the addiction to certain foods, being able to eat without guilt, etc.

Then focus on these benefits as you begin your new program. You will find that focusing on eating and fitness is much more effective than focusing on weight, appearance and the scale – because eating and fitness are the things that you actually need to change. The rest will follow automatically.

Expect Success With Your Weight Loss Program

With almost every weight loss attempt, there is an underlying sense of “walking on eggshells”. Have you ever felt like you must do everything exactly right or be doomed to failure? Have you ever worried that “this time” would end up being like all the rest of the times you’ve tried to lose weight and couldn’t stick to it?

This line of thought stems from fear and it is more destructive than you can imagine. Why? Because the more you fear or worry about something, you are more likely to act in ways that perpetuate it. For example, if you fear that one wrong move will ruin your diet completely, what do you think will happen if you do slip up and eat a food that is not on your plan? Most likely you’ll conclude that you have failed and throw in the towel. Underlying this fear of failure is the belief that you will fail no matter how hard you try to succeed.

Don’t allow fear-based thinking to destroy your attempts to create a better life. Begin today by expecting success with your healthy habits and everything else you want in life. Learn to see minor slip-ups as learning experiences. Analyze them and understand why they happened, and come up with ways to prevent them from happening again. Develop a better awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses, and strive to improve in all areas – not from an unrealistic expectation of perfection, but from a desire to do the very best you can in everything you do.

Start each day with a positive expectation of success. Believe you are already successful, and you are becoming more successful every day. Just like fearing failure makes it more likely to happen, expecting success make it much more likely to happen. You just have to choose which one you will give most of your focus to.