Food volume, appetite, and weight loss

Drinking water before or with your meals doesn’t really help one eat less or induce satiety, although of course eating water-rich foods (e.g., pasta dishes with additional vegetables, smoothies, soup, fruits and vegetables) can lower calorie intake. This is because the body processes hunger and thirst through different mechanisms.

Previous research by the Penn State’s Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior has also shown that consuming water-rich foods allow dieters to eat their typical size serving of food (i.e., not limit their portion size), reduce calorie intake and still be satisfied.

What this means is that feeling full depends on the volume of what we eat. Eating small portions tend to make us feel more deprived, which in the long run cannot be sustained. Hence the phenomenon of yo-yo dieting. I think that low caloric density (high volume, high water foods) and high nutritional density (phytochemicals such as minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants) go hand in hand quite easily when we choose an eating style that is based on leafy greens, other vegetables and legumes, and fresh fruit. Foods with a high energy density (such as meat, cake, dried fruit, candy) have lots of calories in a small serving and are lower in water content and volume. From an appetite control perspective, we have a positive interaction effect: high volume, high water-volume food that is highly nutritious and low calorie at the same time will curb our tendency to overeat over the long haul.