Swallow this! – The satiating diet might be better for weight loss than the Keto diet
Have you ever heard of the Satiating Diet? Do you know what it’s all about or do you believe that it’s probably just another one of those fad diets – here today and gone tomorrow? Because we all know by now that a really healthy diet is one that keeps you energized and fueled, not one that keeps you feeling hungry, tired, and anxious, wishing your next meal or snack would hurry up and come along.
Let’s fill you in on what the Satiating Diet is
It’s a new approach to weight loss, advocating the opposite of limiting your calories to the bare minimum, or fasting every now and then or doing without carbs. What this diet prescribes is eating nutrient-dense foods that make you feel satisfied, but at the same time, you are losing weight.
Who thought this one up?
A group of researchers from the Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada, designed the Satiating Diet, an eating plan. It focuses on fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean protein. All these foods are foods that help to fill you up so that you feel lasting satisfaction- holding off hunger pangs. Traditional diet culture overlooks the eating to satisfaction concept. But when you get in touch with your own body, listening out for what it is telling you, you are able to establish healthier eating habits, not only for a few months, but for life.
The whole structure of the diet focuses on eating such wholesome nutrient-dense foods that you feel full and satisfied and maintaining that feeling of satisfaction much longer than you would on other diets. It empowers people to make choices based on eating real, wholesome foods to the point of satisfaction so that you don’t have to think too much about the stuff you can’t have. With this diet, you can expect sustainable weight loss because of the wholesome foods that you eat and not because of dietary restrictions. It gives you the freedom to choose wholesome healthy foods that make you feel filled and satisfied.
This diet does take a lot of its inspiration from the famed Mediterranean diet. So that means it will encourage you to eat healthy fats in moderation, as well as consuming vegetables, fruit, lean proteins, whole grains, and dairy products like yogurt. With the Satiating Diet, there are no better times to eat or not to eat, there is no emphasis on calories and macronutrients – all it is, it’s getting in touch with the cues your body sends out when you are hungry, and then you making wholesome choices to satisfy the needs.
And one expert, who doesn’t really push this diet is Willow Jarosh, who is a registered dietitian-nutritionist as well as being the co-author of the ‘Healthy, Happy Pregnancy Cookbook’ and also founder of Willow Jarosh Nutrition, says this of the Satiating Diet: “The Satiating Diet is based on foods that help to promote feelings of satisfaction and includes foods from all food groups. While choosing foods you find satisfying is an important part of healthy eating, much of the promotion of this diet is focused on appearance and weight, rather than health, which can limit the sustainability and be harmful to body image.” See what you think.
Yes, the principles of the Satiating Diet are far from being new, but the data and research that the diet is based on is current. There have been recent studies done on participants following the Satiating Diet, who were shown to have lost a significant amount of body fat and weight. They also reported that they felt full after their meals. That does make a whole lot of sense, though, because the diet follows a balanced approach to eating which actually discourages you from eliminating any food groups entirely. The diet encourages a person to make daily choices from all the food groups – check out all five food groups here. It really is a balanced meal plan for those looking for a good, reasonable approach to losing weight; one that they can sustain for a lifetime.
See what a registered dietician, Emmie Satrazemis, Nutritional Director at Trifecta, says of the Satiating Diet: “It really is just another way of explaining why eating a balanced, nutrient-rich diet is beneficial for your health and weight loss, with a focus on hunger-fullness cues”.
We know that, so why was this ‘new diet’ created, to begin with?
Well, the researchers wanted to discover what diet would be filling, healthy, and not restrictive. Basically, they wanted the diet to be one that people felt they could and would stay on for the long haul; for a lifetime in fact. The diet was then constructed from healthy foods that are especially satisfying; foods that make you feel full and satisfied says Shirin Panahi, PhD, author and postdoctoral researcher at the Université Laval in Quebec City, part of the research team who founded this diet.
How does this diet work?
Mainly, you need to focus more on what you can eat over what you can’t eat. That’s the main focus. Still, in saying that, there are still some guidelines which will help anyone to plan their meals. The diet consists of whole foods which research says plays a role in improving satiety and reducing your appetite. That means you will be eating healthy fats and eating lean proteins and fiber-rich foods. This is what your breakdown of foods would more or less look like:
- 20-25% Protein
- 30-35% Fat
- 45-50% Carbohydrates
The diet actually recommends that at least 25 grams of fiber are eaten daily. They suggest, too, that you should eat foods that contain capsaicin in them. Hot peppers or red peppers are good examples. You would need to cut down on trans-fats, saturated fats, and hydrogenated fats. Healthy fats would be olive oil, and nuts like cashews, almonds, pecans, olives, avocados, and nut butter.
When you follow the Satiating Diet, you’ll be focusing on eating a lot of fresh fruits, a lot of vegetables, lean sources of protein, whole grains, and healthy fats like avocado oil or olive oil. There will be certain dairy products you can eat such as yogurt. Apart from the ‘bad’ fats mentioned above, it is also advised that you avoid alcohol, beverages with caffeine in and excess salt. So basically you would eat like this:
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Recommended to each per day:
o Four servings of whole fruits
o Four servings of whole vegetables
o Five servings of high-fiber whole grains
o Lean protein (4 ounces of fish, meat, or poultry, for example) per meal
The breakdown would be 20-25% protein, 30-35% fat, and 45-50% carbs.
Other general guidelines would include:
o Eat at least one snack per day.
o Eat one legume meal (lentils, beans, or dried peas) a week.
o Eat a moderate amount of mono- and polyunsaturated fats.
o Eat more hot peppers.
The Satiating Diet is more of a lifestyle than a diet
There aren’t really any calorie restrictions or even a specific number of meals you need to eat each day. But studies show you should have your three regular meals a day, i.e. breakfast, lunch, and supper. You would also include one snack each day. Unfortunately, at this stage, there isn’t a website you can go to yet for the Satiating Diet, nor are there books or apps yet, or even special diet plans you can follow for this diet yet. The research, as we mentioned above, is based a lot on the recommendations from the Mediterranean diet; also suggesting that you should choose your foods from foods that provide high nutrient content so that you don’t feel deprived – you feel satisfied, hence the name – The Satiating Diet.
But the diet does lend itself to modifications people can make when they follow the diet. So if you are a vegetarian, then you would include your protein from the plant world rather than from meat and fish. And for those who have issues with gluten, they will need to seek out products that offer them gluten-free options. Or if you are allergic to dairy, then you would omit the foods for you that contain dairy.
Because this diet has no maximum calorie requirements, pregnant women can also follow the plan, still being able to meet their nutritional needs so that they and their growing babies stay healthy.
Let’s look and the pros and cons of the Satiating Diet
Pros
You eat healthy and nutritious whole foods
It is safe for most people
No foods are off-limits
You eat foods that are filling
It’s easy and flexible to suit anyone’s lifestyle
It can be sustained for the long-term
It is affordable
Cons
• There are limited resources about the satiating diet plan
• There is not a structured plan to follow
• There is no fixed guidance about calorie control
• There is no guidance about eating the less healthy choices
The Satiating Diet recommends nutritious, whole foods that are aligned with the USDA food guide. The plan is intended to become a lifestyle, which means it is sustainable and practical. This is because you are not required to purchase any special foods or supplements, meaning you won’t find any additional costs to your grocery bill. It makes it a safe diet for any of the population groups.
If you already are on a reduced, supervised, calorie-restricted diet, you will know that you would need to consult with a doctor or a dietician before following the plan. Maybe you are a diabetic and eating a special diet, or you are on a special diet for being hyper-tensive or due to some other health conditions – check with your doctor before starting the diet.
This diet can help you towards a well-balanced and sustainable way of eating, allowing you to enjoy healthy foods from all the major food groups. You can also lose weight on this diet and improve your overall health. If you adhere to a regular exercise plan and also ensure that you get plenty of sleep, you will be contributing further to your weight loss goals. Here too, the satiating does not have any specific protocols for exercise, but you will need to include exercise in your overall plan. You can lose weight without exercising, but exercising boosts weight loss even further.
Does one lose weight on the Satiating Diet?
The answer is yes, that’s according to a 2017 study of 35 obese men who started on the Satiating Diet. They ate 20-25% of protein for 16 weeks. Another group of 35 obese men followed a standard diet of 10-15% of protein. The men on the Satiating Diet lost quite a significant amount of weight and body fat – they said they experienced more fullness after their meals compared to the other obese men on the standard diet. The bottom line is that if you follow the Satiating Diet, it can help you lose weight. That’s because it involves eating foods which are very satisfying. It has the ability to help you eliminate cravings, having all the important ingredients of losing weight successfully and keeping the weight off long-term. The study, though, did not take into account the psychological and mental factors around weight loss. Everyone needs to know their own body and how much they should be eating in order to feel satiated. Knowing when you are hungry and trying to stop eating when you are full are individual needs. There is no diet that will be able to tell you that.
Dr. Bonnie Taub-Dix, award-winning author of ‘Read It Before You Eat It’, as well as creator of the website and blog, BetterThanDieting.com says in actual fact, the best diet for weight loss isn’t actually a diet. No, it’s a lifestyle. You need to sit down and eat meals with your family, not feeling that you can’t eat what everyone else is eating.
There are a lot of people out there who might like the idea, even preferring the concept of following a diet which tells them what to eat and what not to eat. But these types of diets are not really sustainable. It’s because once you start dropping off the pounds, and go off the diet, you have to start making the right food choices on your own. Also, these diets that have long lists of what you can add and what you have to avoid aren’t really built for leading a healthy lifestyle. The people who follow diets that have much more liberal guidelines are the most successful because they already eliminate the stress of losing weight, Dr. Taub-Dix says.
If there aren’t many guidelines how do you follow the Satiating Diet?
How do you start? To start with, you can straight away begin with incorporating more lean protein into your diet, along with whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and also healthy fats. Remember to choose the leaner cuts of meat, pork and chicken. Go for especially fatty fish such as tuna, salmon, and mackerel – that would be a good idea. Don’t forget the whole grains like faro, or quinoa, oats, and brown rice. Try and have these with each and every meal so that you can help stabilize your blood sugar. Try and get the good fats in, like nut butter, avocado, extra-virgin olive oil.
What a lot of people really fancy about the Satiating Diet are that there isn’t all that measuring out of the right amount of foods, or counting how many of this and how much of that can go on your plate. There’s none of that with the Satiating Diet. That’s actually the whole beauty of it! Seeing as there are no books yet on this lifestyle diet, take a look at this book, ‘Fill Your Plate, Lose the Weight’ by Sarah Mirkin, a celebrity nutritionist. It’s similar to that of the Satiating Diet. Sarah says that her clients over 40 tell her that they can’t even eat as much as she recommends in her book, because the food that they eat is so satisfying, they just don’t feel in the least bit hungry. On top of it, their weight still falls and they have copious amounts of energy. It really is savvy to find the right approach that generates these results but which also has staying power which is a must when it comes to keeping the pounds you have lost at bay.
You might be thinking about the Satiating Diet, that it’s pretty much a replica of the Mediterranean diet, minus the hot peppers, right?
The Satiating Diet recommends adding whole hot peppers or even the dried pepper season to your meals because you take advantage of their calorie boosting, appetite suppressing benefits. Yes, it is similar to the Mediterranean diet, providing 30-35% of fat. So the Satiating Diet is nothing out the norm. It’s a tad different on the lean protein aspect. But its researchers reckon it’s more doable than the other diets because it doesn’t eliminate any entire food groups. They will say; focus on whole foods like oats and quinoa rather than eating processed carbs, like pita bread and crackers.
Most of all, listen to your gut instinct and your body. You need to hone in on an eating pattern that supports your emotional, physical, and social wellness so that you are able to shed pounds healthily and happily too, and keep them off for good – that’s the idea.
When all is said and done and eaten
According to Panahi’s report in Scientific American, the Satiating Diet is a plan about good healthy foods that creates a feeling of satisfaction and fullness. Think about foods that are high in protein with plenty of fiber from fruit, veggies, and whole grains. Unlike a lot of the fad diets, the Satiating Diet embraces healthy fats and even dairy products containing gut-boosting probiotics, not forgetting capsaicin, the substance that makes peppers spicy!
The best part about the Satiating Diet eating plan is that nothing is off-limits. There is no strict set of dietary guidelines; instead, you focus on nutrient-rich foods that leave you feeling full, like a lot of protein and fiber suggested on the diet. What is so special about the foods they recommend is that they all possess specific characteristics that are beneficial to our health in that they decrease hunger, reduce body fat, lower blood sugar, improve blood pressure, and increase metabolism. It sounds ideal.
No, as we said before, the Satiating Diet isn’t exactly a new diet because the researchers are advocating what has been advocated for years – a combination of fiber, fat, and protein. And as we all know by now, these satisfy anybody rather than meals that are high in refined carbohydrates. And recommending a balanced breakdown of macronutrients makes sense. There is just one thing a bit different here and that is the hot pepper recommendation – this stands out in studies of the diet. Is that the secret? However, bear in mind that there isn’t one food in any diet that is the silver bullet and you must also remember that not everyone likes hot peppers. People also should know that you don’t need them in this diet to effectively lose weight.
When you combine wholesome foods into one highly nutritious diet plan, you get the golden ticket to maintaining a healthy weight and good health. When it comes to a breath of fresh air diet like the Satiating Diet, basically when the chips are down, the best time to start this healthy eating plan would be NOW.
