The Myth of Volume As Satisfying

I watched Dr. Ornish make a variety of errors on during a TED talk. What really frustrated me were the 'studies' he refered to- for example, he mentioned his preferences beat out a 'high fat' diet in a particular study, but the lynch pin of such diets is whether or not you are eating enough carbs to cause an insulin spike. Anyway, there are plenty of folks out there who are more credentialed attacking the misinformation going around about fat. I wanted to write about something that I have noticed.

Eating large amounts of high volume, low calorie food is not actually filling. This sort of food fills the stomach, so there is a temporary feeling of fullness, but that quickly goes away as the stomach begins breaking the food down. Meanwhile, if the bulky food is high in carbohydrates, you will likely be hungry again in two hours or so.

What does bulky food really do? It trains us to eat large. Our stomaches gets used to a large payload, so when we inevitably break down and eat something more calorie dense we end up eating more of it.

This is my experience of it, anyway. The Shangri-La Diet techniques took away the 'addictive' hunger. I found small portions worked well, especially if those portions were comprised of protein and fat. Meat for instance, which actually does have a lot of nutritional value in it, by the way. I'm amazed that when people talk about vitamins and other things the body needs, they'll always have fruits and vegetables on the list, but seldom if ever mention whether or not it's in meat.

The added bonus? When you do overeat, and we all know there are times when we will, you hit the 'volume' barrier much earlier than you ever did. In other words, volume as a good thing only works when it's employed occasionally, not every day! That's why that salad isn't helping you lose any weight.