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Being a smart eater is a lot like being a smart shopper.
You want to look for calorie bargains and beware of caloric rip-offs. That is, you want to eat more food but fewer calories.
So practically speaking, you might eat grapes instead of raisins as a snack (2 cups of grapes equals 100 calories, the same as 1/4 cup of raisins); add tomatoes, green peppers and onions to pizza; top sandwiches with deep-green lettuce, sprouts or tomatoes.
This is an approach advocated by Barbara Rolls, a respected nutrition researcher at Pennsylvania State University. She spells out her plan for reducing the calorie density -- or as she calls it, ''energy density'' -- of meals in her new book, The Volumetrics Eating Plan. It's a follow-up to her earlier book, The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan.
Rolls bases her ideas on numerous studies she and her colleagues have done in addition to the work of other researchers. She has found that:
* Over the course of a day or two, a person eats a similar weight of food each day.
* People often choose the same size portions.
* People feel full on fewer calories by cutting back on fat and adding fiber-rich, water-filled fruits and vegetables to their standard recipes. This allows them to eat the same portion they'd usually eat, but it'll have fewer calories.
In one of Rolls' studies, participants consumed 544 fewer calories a day by eating produce-rich recipes instead of high-calorie ones, and they felt just as full. That need to feel full is an ingredient Rolls believes is missing from many weight-loss plans.
Some people may argue that her approach requires more time for purchasing and preparing meals, but Rolls says it doesn't have to. ''I make big pots of food (loaded with fiber-rich vegetables), and I have leftovers for lunch. I'm not cooking all the time, but I have the foods that fit into my plan.''
Many people need to take a hard look at the portions they're consuming, she says.
''People nowadays are so out of touch with appropriate amounts of food that they really need to step back and start over again and retrain themselves.''
She doesn't believe in completely giving up your favorite foods when you are trying to manage your weight; she says you'll end up feeling deprived and overeating.
''Anything can fit in, but it's about calories per bite,'' Rolls says. ''If the food has only a few calories per bite, you get lots of bites.
''If it has a lot of calories a bite, you can only have a few bites. So if you have chocolate, it's only going to be a few bites.''
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