How to Eat Healthy Portions Without Enlarging Your Waistline

How can we be satiated before we're stuffed? Researchers have discovered that the weight, volume, fiber content, and nutrient makeup of food all help set in motion physiological processes that contribute to the agreeable sensation that follows a sumptuous meal. Foods high in fat are slow to trigger satiation signals because they are low in weight for the number of calories they deliver. You are likely to take in far more calories from protein and carbohydrate foods before you feel full. The foods researchers have found to be most efficient at quenching the appetite are fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and fish.

High-fiber foods- beans, corn broccoli, brown rice, apples, dried fruit, and the like-are particularly good at filling you up without filling you out. The pack a lot of volume for their calories, and they hang around in your stomach longer, delaying the time when you feel hungry again. While a three-ounce, 495 calorie cheeseburger fits in the palm of your hand, you would have to polish off a plate crowded with two ears of corn, a baked potato, a cup of carrots, and a cup of cooked spinach to approach the same number of calories.

Fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts whole grains, and fish. Okay, you might say, but what you do with these appetite-quenching foods, separate them into bland piles on your plate? Not at all. One of the secrets to getting friendly with food is learning how to use ingredients in mouth watering combination's. And the combination's from natures bounty are endless. The gifts of Neptune? Try your shrimp grilled with garlic and fresh peppers, your scallops broiled with lemon juice and a splash of olive oil. Or try going to a sushi bar. Wondering what to do with those highly touted beans? Puree some chick peas with garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice and you will have a creamy hummus spread for rye crackers or celery sticks.

Toss some cannelloni beans into a tomato sauce spiced with garlic and minced anchovy, or small bits of proscuitto, then serve it over a smaller portion of past than you might otherwise eat. A baked potato without the butter and the sour cream? You obviously haven't sampled the perfection of a spud topped with salsa. A plateful of vegetables? Roast them in a little olive oil and garlic, sprinkled with fresh rosemary or thyme- pure ambrosia by the winder fireplace or on the summer deck. This isn't to undersell the delights of poultry, meat and other foods. Served as lean cuts and in reasonable portions, lovingly prepared, they can enhance the eating experience without enlarging the waistline. Variety , as they say, is the spice of life.