The Pros and Cons of Volumetric Diet 

Aside from certain limitations, a volumetric diet is beneficial for weight loss and helps you to follow a healthy lifestyle by encouraging you to eat healthy foods, limit processed foods, and exercise regularly. But keep in mind, this is not a short-term diet plan like others. You need to make a strong commitment to follow this program. Otherwise, you can choose other diet programs.  

What can you eat and what can’t you eat?  

This diet plan does not make you avoid any food however you need to modify your portion sizes and adjust your other meals. This can only happen if you start consuming high-calorie foods. But if you’re consuming low-calorie foods, then you can eat in high volume.  

This diet plan is divided into four categories, including: 

1. Category 1: free or anytime fruits (such as bananas, apples, and grapefruit), Nonstarchy vegetables (such as broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, beets, and mushrooms), and broth-based soups. 
2. Category 2: reasonable portions of whole grain (such as brown rice, quinoa, farro, and whole wheat pasta), lean proteins, legumes (such as lentils, chickpeas, and dried beans), low-fat dairy, and starchy vegetables (such as corn, potato, and squash).
3. Category 3: Small portions of foods such as white bread and rice, fatty meat, fish, ice cream, cheese, whole milk, and pasta.
4. Category 4: Sparing portions of foods such as fried foods, cookies, candy, nuts, oils, butter, chips, and fats.  

You can eat 3 meals, 2 snacks, and a dessert per day. This diet plan mostly relies on foods that contain a lot of water in them such as fruits and vegetables because they can fill you up without adding too many calories. Drinking water cannot be enough because it can satisfy your thirst, not your hunger.
Alcohol is allowed in this diet plan, but only if you drink it in moderation because it contains many calories and doesn’t satisfy hunger. 

Pros and Cons 

When it comes to weight loss and nutrition, not every diet plan is made for you. Here are the pros and cons you should keep in mind before starting this diet plan.  

Pros 

• Promotes long-term healthy eating: This diet plan is designed to be used as a sustainable and healthy diet plan for the long term. It is a kind of plan that goes like this “come for weight loss and stay for health benefits.” 
• Weight loss is long-term: If you use short-term diet plans it often causes your weight to go back to the previous state. But that is not the case with the volumetrics diet because it is intended to change your lifestyle permanently and make sure to keep it off.  
• No foods are “off-limits”: The best thing about this diet plan is no foods are prohibited. You can eat anything and nothing is prohibited. But keep in mind, you have to limit the quantity of food to meet your daily calorie limit.  
• Accessible to everybody: Unlike other diet plans, it is accessible to everybody whether you’re vegan, kosher, or diagnosed with celiac disease. Because there aren’t any major restrictions in the volumetrics diet, you can eat according to your needs.  
• It’s safe: Volumetrics diet isn’t similar to any fad diet because it does not ask you to maintain a dangerously high-calorie deficit, eliminate an entire category of food from your diet or maintain a negative relationship with food. You don’t need to cook separate meals for yourself and your children because you don’t need to consume different food according to your diet plan. You just need to maintain a healthy lifestyle by reducing the quantity of your food.  
• There are lots of resources at your disposal: Besides a lot of scientific research supporting this diet plan, there are many books created about this diet plan and plenty of websites to provide you the recipes for this diet plan 

Cons 

While this diet program is greatly beneficial, there are some downsides too:  

• It limits the consumption of healthy fats: While there is no restriction on foods this diet plan doesn’t state the proper difference between healthy and unhealthy fats like some other plans do. As a result, healthy and unhealthy foods often occupy the same category.  
• It may be too calorie-focused: The volumetrics diet is based on energy-density calculation which means calorie counting is the foundation of this plan. But only relying on calorie counting is not foolproof because it can often treat different foods on the number of calories they have, not on the nutritional values. And not all calories are created equally. So, even if your goal is weight loss, calorie restriction is not the only way to achieve it. But the good news is, there are ways for you to deal with this problem.  
• Need to make a big-time commitment: Starting a volumetric diet plan is not an easy commitment because you need to give more emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables over processed foods to achieve a healthy lifestyle. And even when you get bored with the eating choices you need to eat other foods in limited quantities to maintain your calorie count. 
• It can get boring: Eventually, all your soups and regular servings of fruits and vegetables start feeling dull. You can change that a little bit by adding new recipes to your rotation.  
• Eating out is difficult: If you eat at a hotel and restaurant they might give you nutrition information on your request, but not the recipe. And the chef can add what he/she wants to make it delicious without your consent. So, eating outside and maintaining your calories can be challenging. 

If you want to learn more about diet and nutrition, call us at 1-347-384-5690 to schedule a consultation. And if you’re in need of dietary advice, walk in for an appointment at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11212.