Low Calorie Dense Diet May Aid Weight Loss

If you want to lose weight, you don’t necessarily have to starve. A recent study indicates that foods that are low in calorie density, i.e., foods that are high in water and low in fat - such as fruits, vegetables, soup, lean meat, and low-fat dairy products - can promote healthy weight loss while helping people to control hunger.

“Eating a diet that is low in calorie density allows people to eat satisfying portions of food, and this may decrease feelings of hunger and deprivation while reducing calories” said Dr. Julia A. Ello-Martin, who conducted the study as part of her doctoral dissertation in the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State. Previously, little was known about the influence of diets low in calorie density on body weight.

“Such diets are known to reduce the intake of calories in the short term, but their role in promoting weight loss over the long term was not clear,” said Dr. Barbara J. Rolls, who directed the study and who holds the Helen A. Guthrie Chair of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State.

“We have now shown that choosing foods that are low in calorie density helps in losing weight, without the restrictive messages of other weight loss diets,” explained Ello-Martin, whose findings appear in the June 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

As always, the bottomline is: eat right for a healthier you. Of course, that’s assuming you’re not eating too much in excess of the normal daily allowance.