I was doing some Coaching Calls on Monday.
And, in a number of different conversations, people told me that they’d been struggling with “being hungry”.
In each case we then had a look at what that person was eating.
And the same thing jumped out for each of them.
The things those people are eating were fairly energy dense.
Meaning they had a fair number of calories per unit of weight.
So they weren’t able to get all that much volume of food for the calories that would put them in maintenance or deficit.
Without realising it, if our plan is to create a calorie deficit with calorie dense foods………
Our plan is to go hungry.
To use willpower to force ourselves through that.
And, as I’ve said many times before, a plan that requires willpower is a plan doomed to failure.
What we can do instead is look at some lower calorie density food options.
Ideally ones that we like, give or take, just as much.
That maybe cost the same and are just as convenient.
Because if we can make some tactical swaps in what we eat to drop the calorie density by a half or a third………
We can potentially increase our volume of food whilst decreasing the amount of calories.
And this is an easy thing to work out.
Calorie density is just the number of calories per 100g.
It has it on the labels of most foods.
Or it’s a quick Google or search on an app like MyFitnessPal if not.
And I’ve got several hundred foodstuffs at www.myrise.co.uk/density if you’d like to check that out?
Less than 60 calories per 100g is considered very low density.
60 to 150 is low.
150 to 400 is medium.
And over 400 is high.
As a quick example from www.myrise.co.uk/density, If you were looking for 1,200 calories a day, that would equate to 250g of chocolate.
Or 12 kilos of cucumber.
Now of course, in reality we’re not just going to eat one of the other of those.
But, also in reality, we can change the average of what we’re having to reduce that density whilst still not going hungry.
Much love,
Jon ‘Caterpillar’ Hall
P.S. If you like the sound of an approach that doesn’t just require you to cut out your favourite foods, go hungry and do boring exercise that you hate, then try our 4 week trial via www.myrise.co.uk/apply
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
