Try a 2-Week Weight Loss Program Using Caloric Density
People often complain to me that they absolutely can’t lose weight.
Many even insist that they are eating a vegan or plant-based diet, but declare it certainly hasn’t helped them lose weight. They say things like, “I know when I first started eating plant-based I was told I didn’t have to count calories because the weight would just come off.”
What should they do?
Should they give up and just learn to ‘love’ their body the way it is?
According to the latest report from the American Institute for Cancer Research:
The evidence linking body fatness to cancer is overwhelming and has grown stronger over the past decade. Our findings show strong evidence that being overweight or obese is a cause of 12 cancers.
The AICR report also says,
Next to not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight is the most important thing you can do to reduce your risk of cancer. Aim to be at the lower end of the healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) range.”
To me that means figuring out what it’s going to take for you to lose weight.
One simple approach is based on caloric density and a 2-week trial period.
Anyone can do something new for two weeks, and if they find it’s working, they are much more motivated to continue with their new lifestyle changes.
Researchers have found that study participants all lost weight if the calorie density of the food they ate was below 400 calories per pound, no matter how much they ate.
If the participants ate food between 600-800 calories per pound, and did some moderate exercise, they lost weight.
However, when the research subjects ate foods which were between 800-1200 calories per pound, they gained weight, except for those with very high activity levels.
But eating foods over 1200 calories per pound, caused all of the participants to gain weight, even if they exercised vigorously.
Here is an easy-to-read list to help you see the caloric density of groups of foods.
100-200 CALORIES/POUND – Vegetables
300-400 CALORIES/POUND – Fruits and sweet potatoes
500 CALORIES/POUND – Whole grains and starchy vegetables (corn, quinoa, steel cut oats, potatoes, yellow squash, millet, buckwheat, teff, pastas, brown rice, sweet potatoes, hot cereals)
600 CALORIES/POUND – Legumes (pinto, garbanzo, & black beans, peas and lentils), olives, white rice, spaghetti
700 CALORIES/POUND – avocados, fast food coleslaw, eggs,
1100 CALORIES/POUND – Meat (pork, chicken, beef, fish), dried apricots, sun-dried tomatoes, sweet potato fries,
1200 – 1300 CALORIES/POUND – Processed foods and dried fruit, bagels, jams, fat-free muffins and breads, including sourdough rolls, bagels, pita breads, and baguettes, raisins, French fries,
1500 CALORIES/POUND – Cereals (including shredded wheat without sugar), breads, chips, fat-free potato chips, fat-free cookies, pretzels, brown rice flour,
1800 CALORIES/POUND - Popcorn w/o butter, salad dressing, sugar
2200 CALORIES/POUND – Junk foods (Oreos, M&Ms, chocolate bars, croissants, doughnuts), banana chips, chocolate,
2800 CALORIES/POUND – Nuts, seeds, nut and seed butters and regular potato chips
3200 CALORIES/POUND – Butter and margarine
4000 CALORIES/POUND – Olive oil, corn oil, avocado oil, lard
When weight-loss doctors or nutritionists look at the food logs of people who can’t lose weight, they find that they are eating a lot of their calories in the higher calorie density categories. They are eating a lot of processed carbs, a lot of cereals, a lot of breads, a lot of dried fruits, a lot of packaged, processed foods, and they are eating more than just a small handful of nuts and seeds.
If you are willing to try this for two weeks, eat liberally from groups below 700 CALORIES/POUND and limit your intake of foods from the higher categories.
Drink water and watch that you are not drinking your calories in the form of juices, milks, sweetened drinks, or alcohol.
It's about your whole diet so choose mostly plant foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes with low calorie density. This will help you trim calories without wrestling with hunger pangs.
If you decide to try this two-week plan, let me know how it goes!
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Much of the information in this blog post came from Dr. Anthony Lim, medical director at the McDougall Program, in a 45-minute video interview, that you can watch here.
