In this episode we will talk about calorie density and how It is different from counting calories.
Calorie density will help you lose weight without feeling hungry and also improve your health.
What is calorie density
What foods do we consume and how does it help us lose weight
Eating calorie dense food will give you nutrients and fiber that your body needs.
Much Love
Clarissa
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(00:43):
I am feeling just blessed and I'm happy to be here with you guys today. We're going to talk a little bit about calorie density. Okay. A lot of people are familiar with counting calories. You may have heard little things about calorie density, but what is it? Right? It basically is the measure of how many calories are in a given weight of the food. And this is very important because depending on the choices in the food that you're making, it will affect your health and your weight. So it's good to aim for foods that have a low calorie density compared to high calorie density so that it can help you feel fuller longer because your eating patterns can lead you down the path to gaining that excess weight, and then also affecting your health as well. Okay. And then if you are just counting your calories, it's just pretty unsustainable, to be honest.
(01:34):
So we want to focus on that quality food, right? And so a lot of times they're hired and seafood is going to be that processed food. So we don't even really have to think about the calories. So if we're trying to eat more whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, oh, it's those non starchy veggies. It gives you that fiber. Right? And it's so good for us. And these foods naturally have a lot of water content in them, right? So even if you are not used to eating your plants, a lot of times we do not eat enough of fruits and vegetables on our plate. A lot of times that is one of the issues we face because we're not getting the nutrients because we're not eating our veggies. Like our whole plate might be a steak. And then there might be a baked potato.
(02:18):
The baked potato itself is not bad. It's what you put on the baked potato. Okay. So if you had your potato and you have like a pound of butter on it, some bacon bits and all the things, you'd be like, man, this is good. And you getting down, but you have like this one little half piece of broccoli on your plate. That's like a garnish to make the plate look pretty or something like that. That's not doing it. You need to just maybe adjust that up a little bit. Okay. So maybe try 90% of your plate. That might seem a little drastic if you're just starting out. So even maybe 70, but the more you get the better even having like starting with one meal a week, or like one meal a day, for instance, having a beat lunch, having that be a plant-based meal.
(03:04):
Okay. Or something that the majority of their plate is mostly vegetables or like fruit as like your sweet item. So if you have like a sweet tooth, just swapping that out for some blueberries or something like that, just to get you going, just to put those, that fiber there's nutrients, everything you need into your body and it, Ashley wants a filling you up. So you're not going to feel hungry. Okay. So lot of times when you're eating the process, food is lacking that fiber in that water, it's all like stripped from their food. So you wind up lots, sometimes overeating, you're really eating the right nutrient dense food. So you wind up overeating, which then leads to the weight gain. Okay. So if we just, instead of counting calories, low switch, switch our mind up a little bit and just be like, I'm just going to try to opt for more calorie, dense foods.
(03:51):
Then you don't actually need to count your calories, right? Because then naturally the food is going to be lower in calories, but also giving you what your body needs is going to be like, thankful and happy that, oh my gosh, I've got this fiber, got all these proteins, got all these things. I feel so good because fiber will also keep you full. And then you wind up not needing to eat as much. You don't want to overeating. And then it also finds a low in your cholesterol. A lot of times what might happen is animal and processed food does not have the fiber you need. Right? So you want eating more calories to that sugar in that flour, you just winds up eating more food because your body's still searching for it. Okay. It is winds up being calorie, rich and nutrient poor. And we need to just flip that around and get more nutrients into our body.
(04:44):
Okay. And that's how that weight starts creeping up on you. So if you're working long hours and then you go home and you just grab something to eat, right. You'd be like, I'm just going to make this really quick. Or I just don't have time. I can get this takeout or whatever it is. Because a lot of times you don't even know what's in your food when you're going to the restaurants. Another reason why it is good to cook at home, because you actually know what's in your food, just taking the time to prepare it. If you've got a meal, prep, do whatever it is that you need to do, just to make sure you just, you kind of just have some food set aside so that you're not grabbing and run right. Doing that grab and go, you just grab whatever's convenient, a snack.
(05:22):
And then it's like, you don't know what's in it. Or if you're in a restaurant, sometimes you don't know what's in it and they could be gorging your food and just all kinds of things just to give it that layers of flavor compared to when you're cooking at home, you actually know what's in it. So when you're eating that process food, you know, you're counting these calories, but then you want to being overweight, adding extra weight, which didn't affect your health because you wind up eating more. Okay? So we have this water that's bound to the food. It helps you feel full. So fiber is good, right? Even if you want to say, stop eating sugar per se, fruit is it's, it's natural. And sometimes not even that, we don't know how to cook. Right. For instance. So if you're used to eating out a lot, you're just used to eating foods with excess salt and excess sugar and excess fat in it.
(06:10):
So that when you're eating whole foods, your palette might have to adjust to it. It might take you a few days or something like that. And that's okay. It's just that a lot of times we're just used to eating that way so that whenever we're eating something fresh, we don't like it. Or cause we used to eating things that are like overly saturated with things that aren't good for us. So just give yourself that time to readjust. Like for example, you know, if you're used to eating a lot of candy and then you eat something really sweet, that's a fruit, you might not think it's sweet, but if you consistently keep eating the fruit in place of the candy, then you will taste the sweetness of the sugar. I mean, sweetness of the fruit, excuse me, because it's, it's natural sugar. It's nature's candy is what it is, you know?
(06:53):
So just give yourself the chance to enjoy the food because honestly, for lifelong weight management, without hunger, it's just better to look at calorie density of your food, your whole foods, all right. Compared to just counting calories. Cause it can also drive you crazy counting calories all the time. What do you want to do you, do you want to relax or do you want to whip out a notepad and plug food into a calculator? And then your body changes all the time. We have hormones. There's just so much going on and it's just better to just give us, give us the body what it needs, because you have just know so much going on in order to know how many calories you need and the depending on what you're eating it, you know, portion sizes and all those things. It's just, it's just kind of hard to keep track of that.
(07:42):
Plus it's just not healthy. So just because you could sit there and have 500 calories of broccoli, I'm just going to say broccoli, 500 calories of processed food. Then there could be 500 calories of oil as well. And this all going to hit your body differently. Okay? So the plants, the broccoli, it will fill you up and give you what you need compared to the processed food where you're still gonna be hungry and you're gonna be wanting to eat more of it. Then it can go to your belly, go to the hips, go all the places. Not saying we curves a good, okay, ladies curves a good, but you know, when it starts overflowing from processed foods, it looks a little different. All right. But you know, we, we can handle that. And then also it clogs your arteries up. Just all the things, you know, affects your cholesterol, your blood sugar.
(08:34):
And then if the 500 calories of oil, it's just your belly, your body isn't even processing. And that is anything. So it's just calories just sitting there. Okay. So if you ate some fried food, it's just extra. All right. It's just sitting there and you don't even have to think about it as I'm just going to stop eating this and stop eating that because that might stress you out too. And we don't want that. So just think of it as I'm going to add on more of something. So today at lunch, I'm going to add on more vegetables on my plate, right? So when I'm packing my lunch at home, I'm going to make the bigger portion, the vegetables that I have in my fridge. Maybe I have some kale that I whipped up or some broccoli or whatever it is, and then make the smaller area.
(09:19):
If you want to have animal protein, make that the size of the animal protein, right? Cause we know it's not supposed to be bigger than, than say the Palm of our hand. Sometimes we're just eating too much of it, right? Especially if we want to work on being a little bit more healthy, reducing that we're producing animal products. I don't say had not eat any of it unless you want to just make it can do that one meal where it's like meatless, Mondays and you just do Monday and you just, and you will be amazed at how good you feel. Okay guys, you're just be amazed at it. If you need to start out with one meal, then you do that. You take it slow. You do whatever you need to do. Just feed your body, all that. Goodness. So whenever you're hungry, eat, eat until you're comfortably full.
(10:05):
So you don't have to stop eating at a certain point. If you want to keep eating, eating slowly, making sure that you chew your food, just eat until you're full. You know, don't starve yourself. Don't stuff yourself. Just be mindful when you're eating, just giving yourself those extra minutes, just to get it in. You know, you could start your meal with a salad, you know, or started with some fruit, get your food in there. Okay? Try not to like drink your calories. So vegetables are going to be your lowest and calorie density. And then the fat and the oil are going to be the highest. So your vegetables, your fruits are going to be lower compared to sugars. Right? And that includes honey and things of that nature too. Sugar is sugar. So vegetables and fruit will be between like 60 to about 400 calories per pound, compared to like your breads and your muffins and your sugars and all your baked goods.
(10:59):
And all those things will be a lot higher, like about 900 to a couple thousand. Right? And so, and then I think was even like about 4,000. And so you can eat, you can see the very difference of them, right? So it's not even like we need to count the calories. Just, you just look at the quality of the food that you're eating and looking at the density of the food and getting that good fiber in your body. So that, that water it with that food can help keep you full. Cause you don't see a lot of times I work with women and they tell me that they feel hungry and they're tired. It's because they're not eating food. Or when they are eating, they're eating the wrong kind of food, right? Like there's not good or bad food per se, but there's some food, that's a much better choice, right?
(11:41):
If you have an option, right. Choose the other option. Okay. So it's, sometimes people just don't want to eat it. So you could look at a menu and you see them up your vegetables on there, but you would just like, not order them, right. You just not go when you go into the store, there's this whole section shopping around the perimeter of the store. And there's this big produce section in there. Try to fill your cart up with that as much as possible, you know, compared to going in the house and getting all the boxes and everything that has pre-made has all the preservatives. Cause if you can not pronounce was on that box. You should not be eating it. It's all kinds of chemicals and just things in there that we do not know of to keep that food there, fresh that long. If you have to go to the grocery store every few days, that is okay, you will live longer.
(12:27):
And that's what we want. Right? So just making those adjustments, you know, so if you have to feel like you can buy this one thing over here, that's going to be instant gratification. That's going to be a couple of minutes to buying this fresh produce over here. Then that's a choice that you have to make. All right? You have to just figure out what's more important to you. Right? There was a 2007 report from the American cancer Institute and the world cancer research fund. But they recommend that we lower our average calorie density of the American diets to less than 567 calories per pound. That's not 560 calories. You know, when you're like eating your food. So that pretty much means eating a whole foods way of you life, right? A whole food more plant-based when you think about it, because that leaves us with unrefined, unprocessed fruit, veggies, starchy veggies, and intact whole grains and legumes.
(13:24):
And that's without all the salt, sugar, and all the fat and oil. So you can eat a potato, but what you put on the potato high eat, the potatoes will makes a difference, right? You can eat the broccoli, but are you gorging it with cheese? You know what I mean? See, that's the difference. Your health is key, right? A lot of our diseases are preventable or reversible. A lot of them are. There's a lot of lifestyle diseases out there. That's killing us, just taking these extra steps and then you'll feel amazing, right? It always hurts when you or someone you love gets a diagnosis. Right? But let's try to prevent that by looking at the calorie density of their foods, not counting the calories completely different things. And when you break it down, it's whole foods eating more plants on our plate, reducing the process foods.
(14:14):
Okay. It's just that your palette is so used to maybe eating all that sugar, eating on the salt, eating on the fat because sometimes we're raised like that. For instance, people might say such and such diabetes runs in our family. Like a lot of people might have type two diabetes, right. That can be reversed or prevented. Even if you have a gene that's there, you do not have to activate it, what you do and how you eat, promotes it. Right? So you nutrition and your lifestyle will pull the trigger or it will stop you and send you in the other direction. Okay. And that's ultimately the goal. So basically just try to add more variety on your plates. Just try to eat more quality food. Okay. It's just all about that because sometimes we're just not getting enough of our vegetables. We're not getting a nut-free enough of that calorie dense food.
(15:05):
It will help you. You know, the more you do that, the more you naturally lose weight without even worrying about it will just be a side effect. And then your energy will be good. Your health will start improving all the things guys. All right. So I hope this helped you and please leave me a review or a written review. Let me know any questions you have, how you feel. And also if you would like to decrease your sugar cravings, because you feel like they are taking over. Sometimes there is a free guide I have where you could go to Bitly forward slash craving fix and download that. And you'll be right to your inbox. And also there is a group on Facebook where you free to come join us. And that is Bitly forward slash wellbeing group. All right, guys. And I will talk to you soon until next time. Bye guys, thank you so much for coming by and listening. And don't forget to subscribe to wherever your favorite place to listen to your podcasts are. And if you are on iTunes, I would love it. If you would leave me a written review, it means the world to me. And it helps other peoples out as well, never know, would benefit from what you have to say. Cause your thoughts matter. Thank you for taking the time to come by until next time. Love and light.