Well, welcome to lecture or lesson number six direct caloric control, as I talked about in the last one, calories are important. Everything's important. The problem is it's not just calories, right? There's so much more to it than just eating less exercising more to lose weight, or eating more exercising less to gain weight. There's just more to it than that. But calories are important.
So this presentation, we're going to talk about how to control your calories. So we're going to focus on that by not telling you how many calories you should be consuming, but how can you overall control total amounts. These methods I'm about to discuss, you probably a lot of it's common sense. But they really work. They'll be some crossover between subtle or indirect ways to control calories with this presentation, but it's important to understand there's some major things you can do to really help you limit the total amount you eat. The thing about this is all This requires some forethought.
When I mean by that you could, for example, purchase smaller dinner plates, but then still go back and eat 23 helpings of food. So it takes some for thought prior to initiating these, again, I don't want you to actually sit and count your calories just because those are that's so painful and so difficult. Yes, there's apps that do it. Yes, there's Fitbit that do it. Just go to eBay and see how many fitments are for sale. In other words, it doesn't work.
Long term, people get sick of it. I'll try to keep this quick, simple and easy. And I'm excited to share it with you because some of this stuff really, really works. So the first thing we got to look at is the three primary factors that determine quality weight loss in this context, okay, we're not going to talk hormones, gut health, toxins or anything right now we're just talking about this course right here. The energy content of the diet. macronutrient composition of the diet and the dieters body composition while he or she is dieting.
For example, if you're a larger person, you don't need to be so concerned about calories, just follow some of the steps here, and you're going to start losing fat. Once you start getting leaner, you have to become more aware of your total calories you're taking in, because your body is going to be more sensitive to it are what I call the settling point shifts and adjust. So very simple way to understand that the the total amount of calories you consume. It doesn't have to be spread out over the day. It doesn't have to be done in five to seven meals, all these different things you've heard before, like we talked about in the 12 steps. There's really no good science behind meal frequency and weight loss.
It's just understanding your total amount. So direct caloric control is simple things you can do that we'll cover and I'll walk you through each of them. So you kind of get it. Let's start with calorie density. By definition, caloric dense food is the number of calories found in a certain weight or volume of that food. Two cups of breakfast cereal, for example, have very different caloric density than one cup of cereal and one cup of fat free milk, right?
There are two cups of food there but the energy density is different between the two based on calories per unit weight or volume as an example, another example take a bowl of soup is full of potatoes, meat vegetables, majority of soup as water and therefore has lower energy density. calorie or energy dense foods are a primary reason for our obese problem in our country. They really are. It was for this reason that fat was kind of outlawed in the 70s. And we kind of talked about that already. Because people got together and saying okay, if we can remove fat from the diet, which is a how highest caloric content.
We're going to Change the color density of food and help people lose weight. Well, obviously, that didn't work, especially because they replaced fat with sugar, which caused all sorts all sorts of hormonal problems. And just made matters all that much worse, right? So that didn't work there. But still, caloric density is very, very important to understand. There's been some scattered research that suggests we eats, eat a certain amount of foods based on our weight.
If that's the case, then caloric density will have a lot to do with how we weigh in if we can lose weight or whatnot. It's amazing how many calories of food that processing can pack into tiny, little packages. Unbelievable. How many carries getting some of these processed foods. That's why I really profess and like one ingredient foods, right? God made food versus man made food.
Again, not outlawing any food, but it's just better to eat that way. So here's a simple way For you to look at food to help you understand caloric density, how much air fiber and water does that food you're about to put in your mouth. Haven't that make sense? I use the acronym p w F stands for processing or protein, water, air and fiber. pw AF. If you are about to eat, something's been processed or has low protein has very little water, very little air and very little fiber.
It's very chloric dense. That makes sense. That's how I use PWF. If I'm about to use something that has protein, or is not processed, has lots of water in it has a lot of air or fiber, or like a vegetable, maybe then it's not calorie dense and you can eat as much as you want of it. So your refined carbohydrates are very calorie dense, they're dry in the water. There's a lot about air in them.
They have no fiber in their process and they have no problem. So a great example are Grapes. Grapes are full of water full air, have fiber in them, right there's no protein but they're not processed either. But now let's take it and process it and add sugar to it and call it a raisin. Now it's chloric dense when from a grape which is fine to a raisin, which is now chloric dense because it has no water, no, maybe a little fiber, extra sugar, it's been processed and no protein. So P w AF protein or processing, water, Aaron fiber.
If you can focus on eating foods that have that they become more nutrient dense, not calorie dense, and that's what you need to focus on. That's where fruits and vegetables, unrefined carbohydrates, lean meats, dairy, nuts and seeds. Those are the type of foods you want to focus on. Long term A simple, direct, caloric, direct caloric way of monitoring your total calories is your food size or the size of your plate. Simply where you put your food. The size of the dishes we use everyday have a lot to do with how much we eat.
If you start using your salad dish for your main course dish and your regular dinner plate for your salad and vegetables, you're probably gonna do really well even better if you have a little girl like I had. And she had Barbie plates, you know, a little old, or maybe camping place. You're really old camping plates. I know my dad used to have these small camping plates utilize those. There are a number of studies out there that show that we tend to eat more if our plates are bigger, big dinner plate plus big eyes plus big portion sizes equals big butt. Right?
We all know that. There was a great study. Oh, I can't think of the name of off the top of my head but they use self refilling soup bowls and they this That he actually was examining whether visual cues related to portion size influenced intake volume without alternating, alternating, changing, either estimated or total intake, right. The steady recruited I think it was 57 patients or participants in a restaurant style setting. They sat them in front of a bowl of soup and the soup had a hose underneath it that kept filling their soup. Right.
The outcomes include total volume intake estimation, in other words did the did the participants think they ate a lot. They monitor consumption and satiety, how full were the patients after eating it. The participants who were unknowingly eating from self refilling bowls ate more soup than those that ate from the normal bowls. However, despite consuming up to 73% more soup through these self filling bowls, they did not believe they had consumed more, nor did they perceive themselves as more fun more satisfied than those who ate from normal bowls in that amazing. That's the power of our brains and when we look at this was unaffected by the participants size or weight This is just a human fallacy. We, if the food's there, the plates are big, the bowls are big, we tend to eat more.
It seems that people use their eyes to count calories rather than their stomachs is what basically happens. So having a good visual clue as to how much food you're about to intake by having a smaller plate or dish or serving size, really powerful, direct way to control your calories. One of the ways I like to do it is the order of intake. I love this. What I do before a big meal is sit down have a large glass of water wait a few minutes, Get set. Remember your brain can't distinguish hunger from thirst so drinking a large glass of cool water right before you eat.
Good idea. Following your drenching of that hunger. Start eating your rock bulky air and water filled foods such as your salad, your vegetables that are happily sitting on your dinner plate right? After you've devoured these non caloric dense foods, start with your protein source, and then end with your carbohydrates. It's a very simple and effective way to manage total intake. Take your time to eat as well.
If you're rushing, slamming food down, the connection between your belly and your brain isn't made and you don't get the feeling of satiety or fullness the hormones haven't really kicked in to say, Well, well, well, we're full down here. put stuff in your face. So simply start with water. Eat your salad and vegetables, have your protein and finished with your carbs. That goes if your eat now eat in a friend's house, you're not going to offend anybody by doing that. You're not going to make your wife mad SIRs if you She serves you and you eat it in this Order.
Order meeting is a really cool and easy way to directly control total chaos. It's always best if you make your own food. The probably the best thing to do if you want to be healthy and lean long term is not to eat out very often but since we all do enjoy eating out order from the child's menu, I tell you what I've done that a few times my kid gets better food choices and I get it some of the restaurants we frequent. Not only that, but if you order off the big menu, ask your server to serve half of the meal on the plate and put the other half in a bag. before they even bring it out. They'll do that restaurants or service industry they will take care of you and do what you ask.
That is a set Easy, easy, easy way to limit total caloric intake. Half the food on the plate half the food in the bag when it's delivered to your table. Avoiding liquid calories man I tell you what, if you swallow your calories without chewing them, you have issues. That is a problem. We are going to spend a good amount of time talking about the dangers of liquid calories. What it does to your liver.
How It influences diabetes and heart disease and all that stuff later on and another presentation coming up. So I'll suffice it to say right now, avoiding all liquid calories. And I should say in voiding diet, liquid calories too. There's a plenty of studies that show especially people with insulin resistance, excuse me your diabetes, when they taste something sweet, even if there's no sugar in it, they tend to stimulate hunger, and then tend to eat more. So avoiding diet sodas, avoiding fruit juices, avoiding energy drinks, any form of calorie that you have to swallow, not too great way to directly control total caloric intake by avoiding those foods. So our next presentation, we're going to talk about indirect calorie control some of this stuff we've covered.
I just want to put it into more direct reference for you so you understand any questions once again, feel free to email me any Time to see at Dr. wi Ll E. y.com.