High-volume eating: What is it? And how it can help you lose weight.

There are many ways people ruin their diet. Stress eating, lack of planning, lack of knowledge, boredom, and many other ways. But what stands out the most is that pesky rumbling noise in your stomach: hunger.

When you are in a calorie deficit for a while, you will be hungry. It is a fact. You can implement proven ways to minimize hunger, like sleeping more and better, drinking enough water and staying hydrated, and even taking medication. Here is a new and novel way to lose weight: eat more. You may be asking why I am telling you to eat more if I have been preaching that losing weight requires a caloric deficit.

Introducing high-volume eating.

High-volume eating involves selecting foods that you can eat a high quantity of but provide fewer calories than other foods. This is why nutritionists, doctors, and personal trainers tell their patients to eat fruits and veggies. You can eat, for example, five apples which will leave you satiated for longer. Five apples provide the same number of calories as a Big Mac. Ask yourself which is going to be ultimately more filling. Eating five apples is an exaggeration, but I use this example to prove that if you are committed to losing weight, there are ways out.

Fruits and vegetables are not the only low-calorie, high-volume food out there. Every day, I incorporate these foods into my diet to guarantee my success. Some of the things I eat are lean meat, fruits, butter-free popcorn, low-calorie, high-fiber bread, cauliflower rice, and soups.

You can also replace your favorites with their low-calorie, high-volume versions of them. Let’s break down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I am going to compare a typical recipe with my version:

Typical Recipe	My Version
2 Slices of bread: 120 calories	2 Slices of low-cal bread: 80 calories
2 Tablespoons of peanut butter: 190 calories	A serving of PBFIT: 70 calories
1 Tablespoon of grape jelly: 50 calories	1 Tablespoon of sugar-free of grape jelly: 5 calories
Total: 360 calories	Total: 150 calories

Low calorie ingredients are now widely available at your local market. My favorite low calorie bread.

You can now eat two of these sandwiches if you choose!

PB&J is undoubtedly not the only recipe you can convert into a diet-friendly version. When searching for replacement ingredients, look for fat-free, sugar-free, oil/fat removed, and high-fiber items. Learning to cook with these ingredients is going to take a bit of work. I spent 20 minutes trying to thicken some corn meal, realizing that almond milk does not replace dairy milk well. It’s okay to fail. Just don’t quit.