To lose weight, are calories consumed most important?
What about quality or type of food such as processed foods vs unprocessed foods? Yes, total calories are important in losing weight as reduced calories lead to weight loss. However, there are other factors involved such as degree of processing, weight and volume of food.
Humans are volume and weight eaters and on average consume about 5 lbs of food per day. Simply striving for small portions in a drive to lower caloric intake eventually gets harder as our internal desire to consume enough weight and volume of food can increase hunger.
That is why eating the same volume of food (about 5 lbs per day) with more volume and less calories is a powerful strategy. Processed foods typically have the water and fiber removed, making it more difficult to consume 5 lbs of food with reduced calories at the same time. Five pounds of processed food is much higher in calories than 5 lbs. of unprocessed food with 50% fruit and veggies.
Strive for 50% or more high water content foods (fruits and non starchy veggies) in volume per day to assist with bulking up the diet with less calories.
Does degree of processing matter? Yes it does. What is a processed food? Essentially, food processing removes or adds ingredients to the food that may lessen it’s nutritional value. Removing the fiber/bran, water and germ from plants to create white sugar and flour products such as white bread, pasta, crackers, muffins, cakes, and cookies for example, lowers nutritional value and increases the caloric density and palatability of food. Processed foods can override our natural hunger and fullness signals influencing us to overeat.
Including more whole, fiber rich foods are more satiating and filling due to the fiber and water content. In addition, fiber may bind to some calories and fats within the food and make them less absorbable thus lowering total caloric intake.
Also, many refined flours are combined with high fats and added sugars that drive up calories such as pastries, cakes, cookies, chips, muffins, pizza, and other foods leading to increased caloric intake with subsequent weight gain.
Processed foods are also typically more palatable which as previously mentioned, can lead to overeating.
Eating excess processed foods including processed meats such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs, corned beef, etc. may also increase risk of colorectal cancer, another important reason to limit consumption of processed foods.
Lastly, processed foods not only have less fiber, but also less protein, vitamins, minerals and nutrients which may lead us to seek more food in an effort to meet our nutrient needs. In the following study, those with access to unlimited processed foods ate 508 more calories per day compared to those with access to unlimited unprocessed foodss.
I encourage you to do the same and strive for an unprocessed, whole foods diet maximizing fiber, water and nutrients and minimizing processed, low fiber, low nutrient foods.
Have a healthy day!