When you understand calorie density, you could eat more and lose weight!

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Water, water everywhere and you don’t always have to drink!

Did you know that the water contained in food actually counts the same, as water you drink? For instance: a Cucumber is 96% water. If you were to eat a cucumber that weighed 12 ounces, it would be just like drinking an 11 œ ounce glass of water and because that water is part of the food, it stays in your stomach longer.

If you know the percentage of the water in a food item, you can easily find out how much water it actually contains. (12 ounces multiplied by .96 = 11.52 ounces). Most fruits and vegetables are just loaded with water. This makes fruits and vegetables are incredibly important for weight loss. High water content foods not only provide you with the water your body needs, but they also provide you the added benefit of filling your stomach while delivering fewer Calories! In the case of the cucumber, the water it contains makes it 96% CALORIE FREE!

And the story gets even better! Fruits and Vegetables are chocked full of essential vitamins and minerals as well as other vital nutrients. They are really good for you. This is not new information. The fact is that we eat very few fruits and vegetables in this country and we are one of the fattest countries in the world. When you do a WAN*D (What About Now is Different) test on the American diet, you will see that as we got fatter, our consumption of fruits and vegetables also decreased!

Table of the water content of various foods

Fruits & Vegetables

• Food – % Water
• Apple – 84%
• Broccoli – 91%
• Apricot – 86%
• Cabbage (green) – 93%
• Banana – 74%
• Cabbage (red) – 92%
• Blueberries – 85%
• Carrots – 87%
• Cantaloupe – 90%
• Cauliflower – 92%
• Cherries – 81%
• Celery – 95%
• Cranberries – 87%
• Cucumber – 96%
• Grapes – 81%
• Eggplant – 92%
• Grapefruit – 91%
• Lettuce(iceberg) – 96%
• Orange – 87%
• Peas – 79%
• Peach – 88%
• Peppers (Sweet) – 92%
• Pear – 84%
• Potato (white) – 79%
• Pineapple – 87%
• Radish – 95%
• Plum – 85%
• Spinach – 92%
• Raspberries – 87%
• Zucchini – 95%
• Strawberries – 92%
• Tomato (red) – 94%
• Watermelon – 92%
• Tomato (green) – 93%

Adapted from the text Bowes & Church’s Food Values, 1994

When the tide goes out the water goes with it!

Be aware that when you remove the water from food, it is gone. Sounds simple enough but many people don’t realize that the way you cook food can either add or subtract water. Obviously, if you dehydrate food you take all or most of the water out of it. Grapes have are 81% water while raisins contain almost no water. As a result, raisins, while still healthy, don’t have any useful water found in grapes. Because of the lack of calorie free water, the caloric cost of dehydrated food can be quite high. A cup of raisins, for instance, has 493 calories while a cup of grapes only has 62. When you can, stick with the grapes. They will fill you up fast and deliver a lot less calories. When you eat 10 grapes, you start to feel full while, on the other hand, when you eat 10 raisins you are just getting started!

The main advantage to dehydrating food is that it lasts for a long time and does not need to be refrigerated. I actually own a dehydrator because when I go hiking or camping I can bring healthy fruits and vegetables without worrying about spoilage. When you bake, you also remove water. Baked foods will have a more calories per pound than their boiled counter parts. Cooking in water will increase the water content in food. When I get to my campsite, I often boil or steam my dehydrated food and, viola! It is as good as new! Steaming fresh broccoli will also increase its water content. Soups made from broth have a terrific amount of water and are relatively low in Calories. Soups made with cream tend to have less water and more fat when compared to broth based soup. As a result they will also have more calories per serving. For instance the low-fat chicken noodle soup at Panera bread has about 100 Calories per bowel while the cream of chicken & wild rice soup weighs in at 200 Calories for the same sized bowel.
Although the importance of drinking water can not be over emphasized for weight loss, the water from food is actually more important. As part of food, the calorie free volume of the water sticks around throughout the digestion process. You feel full longer and that will help keep your head out of the refrigerator.

Which is heavier a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?

Which is heaver: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks? Answer: They weigh the same. Were you tempted to say a pound of bricks? It was a trick question. If you did say bricks, you had the right answer to the wrong question. You might have been thinking about the density of the bricks. Density is a measure of weight as it relates to volume. Bricks always seem “heavier” than feathers because bricks pack so much weight into a small package. They are actually just denser.

How about this question: Which takes up more space: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks? Answer: The feathers! Imagine your stomach is an empty bucket. With this bucket in your mind, imagine it filled with feathers. This is your pound of feathers. Now, draw a line on the bucket at the place you think a pound of bricks would fill the bucket to. Where is that line? If it is fairly close to the bottom, you are probably right. What about a pound of wooden blocks? How much would they fill the bucket up? Chances are, that line would be somewhere between the feathers and the bricks. Now imagine that the weight of the bricks, blocks and feathers represent their CALORIES. Imagine that the pound of bricks is really 100 CALORIES. Now think of the bricks as fats. Fats have more caloric “density” than the other macronutrients at 9 Calories per gram. They are the bricks in your bucket. They don’t physically fill your bucket (stomach) very much but they do make it “heavy” with calories.

Alcohol (not a nutrient) can qualify as “bricks” too at an impressive 7 Calories per gram. Carbohydrates and protein are less dense at 4 Calories per gram and they are the blocks. Finally, because it takes up space in the bucket while having no calorie weight, the dietary feather is water. You may recall that fiber is that special kind of carbohydrate that helps to regulate how fast sugar flows into your system. As it so happens, it is also a calorie feather weighing in at just 2 Calories per gram.

Feathers Feed Ferocious Famishment

True hunger comes from having an empty bucket. How you fill that bucket determines whether you will lose or gain weight. If you fill the bucket with too many “heavy” calories, you will gain weight. By simply lightening your bucket a little at each meal, you will save calories and ultimately lose weight. In short if you eat more feathers you will have less room for the heavier calories. The best news about this system is that you don’t have to deny yourself anything and you don’t have to “count” calories. By simply classifying your food as feathers, blocks and bricks, you will have a pretty good idea of which foods you can eat a lot of and which ones should be taken in moderation.

The typical American diet contains way too many bricks (fats) and not enough feathers (fiber & water). As a nation, we are overweight partly because we take in too many “dense” calories. As a result, in order to feel full (fill our bucket) we eat way too many calories. Although the volume of food consumed is an issue, the calorie weight of that full bucket is the real killer. If you fill your bucket with bricks, you will gain weight.

In the real world, real food is usually not made up of just fats, just carbs or just fiber. Most food is made up of a little of each macro nutrient. For instance; a cup of raw carrots contains 45 calories. Based on the weights of each macro nutrient; of those 45 Calories, 42 of Calories come from carbohydrates (87%), 4 from protein (8%) and 3 from fat (5%). The remainder of the volume of that cup is taken up by fiber and water. For a mere 45 calories, you have “filled your bucket” by a cupful of volume. On the other hand, that same cup, filled with cheddar cheese contains 455 Calories. 6 of those Calories come from carbohydrates (1%), 112 from protein (25%) and a whopping 337 from fat (74%). When compared to the carrots, the cheese has very little water. The cheese is made of mostly bricks. When compared to carrots, filling up on cheese will cost you TEN times (10X, 110, 1000%!!) more in calories. Does that mean you should avoid cheese? No. Just make sure you fill up with some feathers before diving into the fondue pot. Because of its high fat content and low water content, cheese is a brick and should be enjoyed in moderation.

The carrots have a low caloric density because they are made mostly of “feathers.” In general, foods with a high fiber and water content have a low caloric density. Foods high in fat are the densest. The idea is to “fill your bucket” with as many feathers as possible leaving less room for the bricks. A very sensible strategy is to set up your plate with more, low calorie dense foods and to eat them first. This way, by the time you get to the higher density foods you will be well on your way to feeling full. By starting your meal with a big salad (light on the dressing), moving to a generous helping of vegetables (watch that butter!), and finishing with the meat, you will find that you will finish your meal satisfied BEFORE all the meat is gone! When eating in the real world, my advice is to eat your feathers first!!. If you were to approach a meal in this way, you would be able to eat more food and take in fewer calories. In essence you could eat more and lose weight! WOOWHOOO! This could be that secret you have been looking for!! Wanna learn more about calorie density?

Doc Russ The BetternessCoach is not only a Doctor of Physical Therapy but has lost over 230 pounds and maintained it!

He has combined his weight loss experience with his life-long passion for food, nutrition, exercise and human motivation into a small step, life change program he calls Betterness®.

As the world’s first Betterness® Coach, Doc Russ helps people achieve their goals by giving them permission to stop straining for perfection and start striving toward being better. He uses the 4 tenets of Betterness (Awareness, Accountability, Action and Adaptation) to help people become – and STAY – a little better every day.

If you want more Betterness® in your life, catch Russ online at www.betternessinstitute.org, where you find a selection of his writings and sign up for his free weekly newsletter.

Doc Russ is also available for private coaching (either in his office or over the phone), lectures and events.

Dr. Russ LHommeDieu, DPT, Betterness® Coach

The Betterness®Institute

Hamptons / North Fork 631.772.9212

Manhattan 212.365.4438

Toll Free: 888.4DocRuss (888)436.2787

Fax: 631.614.4291

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