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Weight-Loss Secret

If you think dieting success depends on discipline and willpower, you probably still have a few pounds to lose and a couple of things to learn.

The real key to weight loss is learning to feel full on fewer calories. “People will not follow a diet for a long period of time if they don’t feel satisfied, content, and full,” says Robert Kushner, MD, professor of medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Illinois. If you can achieve what nutritionists call satiety, then sticking to a healthy eating plan is easy.

Here are six science-backed strategies for achieving that all-important feeling of satisfaction while cutting calories. Try them all and discover which ones work best for you.
Limit Variety

Variety is the spice of life, right? Actually, if you’re dieting, variety may be your nemesis. Research shows that the more foods and flavors we’re exposed to--think Las Vegas buffet--the more we eat. “Eating too many flavors at any one time puts your brain’s appetite center into overdrive,” says David Katz, MPH, MD, an associate professor at the Prevention Research Center at the Yale School of Public Health and author of Dr. David Katz’s Flavor-Full Diet. This phenomenon explains why you feel stuffed after Thanksgiving dinner yet somehow have room for pumpkin pie. “You fill up on the savory flavors provided by the main dishes,” Dr. Katz explains, “but not on the sweet flavor of dessert.”

By limiting flavors--within a day, a meal, or even within a sandwich--you can achieve satisfaction before your calorie count skyrockets, he says. This is explained by a concept called sensory-specific satiety: The more you’re exposed to a food or flavor, the less enjoyable it becomes, and the more quickly you’re satisfied.

Consider this: In a week-long British study, subjects were offered either 5, 10, or 15 food items per day and instructed to eat as much as they pleased. “Calorie intake increased as much as 25 percent just by increasing variety in the diet,” Dr. Katz says.

The upshot: Don’t keep ice cream and cookies at home, and when you eat a smoked salmon omelet, don’t spread jam on your toast. Meanwhile, increase your variety of nutritious, low-cal foods like veggies and fruit.

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Pump Up the Volume

Research suggests it’s the amount of food on your plate--the volume--that provides satisfaction, much more so than the calorie count. To increase volume without increasing calories, choose foods with high water content, such as fruits, vegetables, and soups. Think about it: For the same 100 calories, you can eat 2 cups of grapes but only 1/4 cup of raisins.

Starting dinner with a large low-calorie salad is an excellent way to boost volume since veggies are 80 to 95 percent water. In a study at Pennsylvania State University, subjects consumed 12 percent fewer calories over the course of a meal when they began with a large 100-calorie salad (about 3 cups).

Other water-rich food choices include hot cereal (85 percent water), yogurt (75 percent), and fish (60 to 85 percent). Cookies, crackers, pretzels, and potato chips--even low-fat versions--contain virtually no water.

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Follow the 2:90 Fiber Rule

Fiber-rich foods, such as whole grains, fruits, veggies, and beans, promote satiety because they’re digested much more slowly than low-fiber foods. (Fiber itself can’t be broken down by human digestive enzymes.) Research shows that overweight adults eat, on average, 18 percent fewer calories when offered unlimited portions of high-fiber foods than when offered low-fiber foods.

Although the federal government recommends that women consume at least 25 grams of fiber per day and men have 38 grams, “on a good day, most Americans consume 12 to 17 grams,” says Miami cardiologist Steven A. Schnur, MD, author of The Reality Diet. To boost your fiber intake while controlling calories, Dr. Schnur recommends following the 2:90 rule: Choose foods with at least 2 grams of fiber per every 90 calories.

This rule makes it easy to compare nutrition labels. For example, you can see that a slice of bread with 3 grams of fiber and 120 calories is actually a better choice, despite its higher calorie content, than a slice with 1 gram of fiber and 90 calories.

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Eat More Protein

The Atkins Diet went too far in favor of artery-clogging fats, but boosting protein intake does help with calorie control. “One thing we’ve learned from the low-carb craze is that protein is satiety producing,” says Dr. Kushner. “In large part, the benefits weren’t so much due to low carb but rather to eating more protein.” For example, in a St. Louis University study, overweight women reported greater feelings of satiety after eating an egg breakfast than after having a bagel breakfast; also, after the egg breakfast, they ate 163 fewer calories for lunch.

Though it’s not entirely clear why protein is so satiating, Dr. Kushner says, “It’s probably due to several factors, including slower release from the stomach and direct effects on the satiety center in the brain.”

Experts recommend including three to four ounces of lean protein at each meal.
Eat More Slowly

It’s not just what you eat that matters, it’s also how you eat. “Slow down your eating so you have a chance to listen to your biological satiety signals,” Dr. Kushner says. It can take about 20 minutes for your brain to register fullness, but if you’re eating in the midst of commotion and food is flying into your mouth, you’ll blow past your signals.

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Don’t Drink Calories

Research suggests that beverages are much less satisfying than solid foods. “Liquid calories don’t register with our appetite controls,” says Barry Popkin, PhD, founder of the Beverage Guidance Panel and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Obesity at the University of North Carolina. In a study conducted at Purdue University in Indiana, test subjects were provided with 450 calories per day as either soda or jelly beans and were instructed to eat whatever else they wanted. After four weeks, the soda group consumed 17 percent more calories than the jelly-bean group.

The point, of course, isn’t that jelly beans are good for weight control, but that liquid calories will put you on the fast track to an expanded waistline. Americans now get 21 percent of their total calories from drinks--about 464 calories per day. Ideally, we should get more like 10 percent--and most of that from low-fat or fat-free milk.

http://www.betterhealthandliving.com/articles/no_1_weight_loss_secret

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