I had a little eureka moment while grocery shopping and I thought I'd share it here in case maybe it helps someone have a similar epiphany.
This week I was shopping for grated cheese to put on pizza and I took the opportunity to study the nutrition labels for a few types of cheese. I discovered that the regular cheddar version had around 340kcal/100g but the regular mozzarella version had around 260kcal. Hmm, I thought - maybe that's because cheddar is higher in fat?
After looking at the macros I saw that cheddar was indeed higher in fat - but it was also higher in protein and lower in carbs. And then it hit me - the answer is water content! Mozzarella has more internal water than cheddar. I.e. cheddar is a drier cheese, so a higher percentage of it is calories (fats & proteins).
And that made me think of all the foods we eat, and I realised that to have super-filling, high-volume foods, the key is to choose things with a high water content! For example, most non-starchy vegetables are incredibly high in water and hence have extremely low calories. Cucumber is over 90% water so 100g of cucumber is only 15 calories. Tomatoes are the same (21kcal per 100g).
When you look at proteins, actual meat seems to be 60-70% water. For example, 100g of chicken breast has 3.5g fat and 31g protein for a result of 165kcal/100g. But then when you look at concentrated processed proteins like whey protein powder or vital wheat gluten, the package has had essentially all the water removed (typically only 4% water remains), so 100g of PP or VWG has 80g protein and comes in at 400kcal/100g.
So another way of implementing the usual advice of choosing "high volume, satiating, low-calorie foods" is to think of foods that are high in water, and try and eat as many of those as you can to keep yourself feeling full.
Look at all the things that are typically hard to incorporate into a healthy weight loss diet and need to be measured accurately and eaten in strict moderation, and you'll find that they're very low in water and usually high in fat - foods like crisps, chocolate, nuts*, mayonnaise, peanut butter, nutella etc.
*Nuts are full of healthy fats, but 200 calories of nuts is only a small handful (~33g) so it's easy to over-eat. They are almost 50% fat by weigh so come in at 560kcal/100g.
Tl;dr: for weight loss on a full stomach, choose the wettest, most un-processed foods you can find.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/190ld37/the_importance_of_water_content_in_foods/
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