What makes a meal feel truly satisfying? Why do restaurant meals hit the spot and "regular food" often doesn't? Well, one reason is that restaurants serve full, large meals! You probably thought that was bad but it's actually good. I'm sure the good company and a margarita help a lot but you get what I'm saying. Anytime I eat a full meal at a restaurant, I am full and content for HOURS.
And guess what happens when I try to make some dinky small "healthy" meal at home? I get the munchies an hour later.
Is this a problem for you? Overeating? Eating when you aren't really hungry, or getting hungry over and over again throughout the day? Or thinking you ate the right amount but gaining weight still? Here are 2 concrete ways that really address these problems, our last 2 core strategies.
Having meals with enough VOLUME to make you feel full and satisfied is an important mental aspect to eating the right amount of food- both in P3 and long term maintenance - at least for most ladies.
What's that girl? Did I hear you just give a little sigh of relief, like maybe there really is hope after all? Have you always thought the only way to stay thinner is to eat small food? If that were true, I would NOT have been able to maintain my own weight loss this long (7 years). I swear, I think I have my 6'2" German Grandpa's stomach inside me. My stomach has no idea I'm only 5'1".
NOTE: If you're the type who can eat 1 keto fat bomb and move on your with your day till dinner, you probably don't need this section. I'd love for that to be me, but it's not. This strategy is important for ladies like me who want to eat a good-sized amount of food to feel mentally satisfied.
Volume is especially important during P3 when our calories are a bit lower than normal while we're reverse dieting our way back up.
Generously sized meals = not hungry = not feeling deprived = not gorging on chips or sugar-free chocolate bars = maintain your weight loss.
How is this achieved? Without eating too many calories and gaining weight?
Meals that are high both in protein and vegetables, with moderate fat (rather than high fat) allow for a large meal within calorie limits that are reasonable for most women for maintenance.
If a meal is high fat, as is pretty popular right now, the meal becomes calorie dense very fast for the same size meal - this is because fat has 9 calories per gram, whereas protein and carbs have only 4 calories per gram.
If this is sounding a little confusing, all this means is that to eat a higher fat meal within a reasonable calorie limit for a meal or snack you must reduce the physical size of your meal, and many of us ladies end up not feeling satisfied with such a small meal, which leads to overeating of calories.
I'd like to show you an example. That 1 bite on the left? Why is it 140 calories for that tiny 1 bite? Because it's all very calorie dense ingredients - a lot of coconut oil and coconut butter. These are great ingredients, and hey, it's dairy free right? So what's the problem?
There's no problem - unless eating 1 bite isn't really enough for you. It's just not enough for me - physically and psychologically.
===> The 2 choices on the right, you will notice - have a LOT more volume of food, for the exact same calories.
There's actually something equally important to volume that we'll talk about in another post, stay with me for that. Notice how other P3toLifers have commented on the size of meals they are able to eat in the P3 program:
HOW WE DO VOLUME IN P3TOLIFE:
By using lots of lean protein and vegetables, our meals are LARGE and FILLING for the calories! Additionally we've been able to creatively create even treats that are large for not many calories. We can allow for the calories in the protein and veggies by being more modest with our use of fat sources.
