Filling Up On Salad: The Fallacy of Volume Fullness
We’ve become a nation of volume eaters, trying to get the most bang for our buck, searching for foods that will make us feel full while not “costing” much in calories.
We pick lower calorie foods with the most bulk so we can eat more and feel full while at the same time, reducing calories. On the surface, this seems to make sense. “The giant salad of greens (light on the dressing) is bigger than the burger, so you will get more full with the salad,” is the thinking. This larger volume of food is supposed to help you quit eating sooner and keep you full longer. And, since the salad has less calories than the burger, you were able to get away with consuming fewer calories.
But it doesn’t work that way. The stomach pressure that comes from volume fullness is just one of many different ways your body signals you that you’ve consumed enough fuel.
When you use volume to determine what to eat, and volume fullness to determine when to stop eating, you can lose touch with all the other “stop eating” signals — the very ones that make you naturally lose interest in food as you become satisfied. The ones that make it easy to stop eating.
And that can cause significant problems with eating regulation.
Yet Weight Management Programs Recommend Volume Eating
Volume eating is one of the most used weight management tips. Experts have been telling us for decades that we can eat more food while eating less calories, not feel hungry and lose weight.
In other words, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Or rather, you can have your rice cake and eat it too.
All you have to do is eat four rice cakes rather than ½ cup of rice. Both “cost” 90 calories, but the greater volume of the rice cakes purportedly equals more satisfaction and fullness.
Similarly, choosing salads with minimal dressing rather than chicken nuggets supposedly gets you more bang for your calorie buck. The weight loss experts would have you believe this also will create more satisfaction and fullness.
And it works for a while. Until it doesn’t.
The Problems With Volume Eating
"Volume eating" certainly gives you one signal you are full -- pressure in your belly — but it has 3 inherent problems:
Using volume as your primary signal of fullness will eventually cause you to lose touch with, or ignore, all the many other ways your body tries to get you to stop eating — all the other “satiety cues.”
When you fill up on low calorie foods, you may have lots of volume, but your body will know if it has not had enough fuel, and you may still feel like eating. The result can be very confusing, and cause you to lose faith in your ability to manage your eating.
You actually train yourself to need large volumes of food to create pressure to signal you to stop eating. Then, when you eat higher calorie foods, you feel you need a large volume to create the pressure for your only 'stop eating' signal. You end up consuming more calories than if you had NOT been doing volume eating.
When You Pick Foods Based on Volume
When you habitually pick foods based on volume, rather than need or satisfaction value, and depend on belly pressure to determine if you are full, you eventually get to a place I find many of my clients in -- you are not able to feel the significant impact of eating higher calorie foods, such as candy, cookies or cake. In fact, I frequently hear comments such as
"Cookies do not fill me up.”
“I eat cake but still feel hungry.”
“After eating a candy bar, I can’t even tell I’ve eaten it.”
And, if eating sweets means you don't get the "I'm full, please stop eating" signal -- that's scary!
Let’s stop and consider that hunger means you need calories (fuel)? Fullness means you have consumed adequate calories (fuel). Right?
If fullness is the result of the fuel you have consumed, then eating 3 cups of something with a lot of fuel should register as you have consumed a lot of fuel, right?
If you have eaten a 3 cups worth of cake (which has a lot of calories), your body should register that you have consumed a lot of fuel!
On the other hand, eating 3 cups of something with not much fuel, your body should register that you have consumed not much fuel, right?
If you have consumed 3 cups of salad (with very few calories), your body should register that you have consumed very little fuel.
When you eat for volume, you no longer pay attention to what happens when you eat something smaller in volume that is higher in calories. You will not notice as you begin to fill up because the pressure is not there. You will not notice that you may stay fuller for a longer time.
However, your body knows. Your body knows you are filling up with little volume, and that with this more concentrated source of calories, you will feel full longer.
And it keeps trying to tell you, but you are so busy looking for volume pressure that you miss the signals.
Let’s take a closer look at what happens.
Real Life Example: When a Volume Eater Eats a Higher Calorie Food
Let’s say you are at a party and partake in the cake and ice cream. Because the amount is much smaller than your usual giant salad, or pile of veggies with broiled fish, the ever so slight pressure in your belly seems inconsequential, certainly not enough to signal you are fueled up. You decide you are not full, so you have more.
The fact that your body recognizes that you consumed, say, 500 calories of cake and ice cream, and is trying to let you know, is irrelevant. You are too focused on getting to your habituated level of pressure.
So you have another serving, which is when you begin feeling the pressure in your belly, but by now you have consumed more like 1000 calories.
If you were used to noticing all the other bodily signals of satisfaction and fullness, you would have stopped at one serving. You would have felt quite full, even with minimal volume, and likely would not want to eat again for 3 to 5 hours, at which time your body would have burned off that cake and ice cream and be ready for more fuel.
But, because you were focused on volume, you over ate.
Real Life Example: That Giant Yummy Salad
In another example, let's say you are used to eating 8 cups of salad fixings for lunch, for a total of 350 calories. You love that feeling of pressure in your belly and that signals fullness to you. Let’s also say that on this particular day your body actually needs more like 475 calories, so, in fact, you are not full - your body is not fueled up.
Your body knows it needs a bit more fuel, so … it is NOT sending you any 'stop eating' signals. The opposite is happening — your body is actually asking for a bit more fuel. You sense this 'wanting,' but it makes you feel out-of-control. You believe you are full due to pressure. Now you are quite sure you can't trust your body, or yourself.
Let’s take this scenario of eating 8 cups of salad fixings for lunch and tack on a hypothetical situation to make a point.
Let's say that one day, instead of eating that salad, you ate 1 cup of Haagen Dazs ice cream for lunch, consuming 533 calories.
Technically, you should feel significantly fuller consuming 533 calories then when you consume 350 calories, right?
But you won't, because you are not paying attention to all the other subtle, and accurate, fullness signals, and the signal you rely on, pressure in the belly from a larger quantity of food, is absent.
Using Your Body’s Eating Wisdom
All this may surprise you because you’ve always heard that sweets won’t fill you up, or that they have empty calories and therefore leave you feeling empty. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Your body knows that a food has more calories.
Are you ready to listen to your inner eating wisdom?
Your eating wisdom will know that If you consume a food that has a more concentrated source of calories, it will tide you over longer — you will feel fuller longer.
This is amazingly good news. You do NOT have to worry when someone else cooks, or when you are not sure of the calorie count of a food.
Your body KNOWS when you've consumed something that is higher in calories, and will let you know by sending you subtle ‘stop eating’ signals and by not asking for food again for quite a while. This means that you don't have to worry when you go out to eat that the food might have more oil than you realized. Your body knows, and makes adjustments for it.
Don't focus on volume when you eat. It is one of the many signals, and a minor one at that, that together help you know you've had enough. In this way, it is just one of the many tools in your toolbox to help you easily and naturally stop eating when satisfied.
This article was excerpted from the online course, The Hunger Fullness Scale and Making it Work For You.
About Eating Wisdom and Drs Karin and Hannah
We are two PhD level Registered and Licensed Nutritionists whose passion is to help others escape diet culture and to learn to use their natural, innate Eating Wisdom to, finally, find peace with food, eating and weight.
Check out our course, Intuitive Eating: How to Escape Diet Culture and Become an Empowered Eater,. plus we have lots of info and handouts (including the original Hunger Fullness Scale) at our website, www.EatingWisdom.com. We also offer 1:1 nutrition therapy. Take advantage of our combined 40+ years of experience and reach out today!
© 2021 Karin Kratina, PhD, RD, LDN