This article is disappointing to me. Please go back to promoting healthy food and moderation instead of posting articles prescribing diets.

what exactly is volumetrics?

Does anyone honestly find a lack of choice to be comforting? Isn't that why most people fail at diets? If someone really "enjoys" cutting food out of their life that much and are already super structured when it comes to food intake, they probably aren't going to be overweight in the first place!

I'm probably a "structured eater" - there are some foods I just cannot eat because they cause me to binge. I do take comfort in setting up boundaries for myself and telling myself that I can't eat my trigger foods, because then I am freed from a cycle of bingeing and then beating myself up for days afterwards. "Everything in moderation" doesn't always work for me, because I would often rather cut something out than just have a teeny bit of it - that always intensifies my craving, instead of conquering it.

@ cg130 - I never thought of it from that perspective. I personally cannot comprehend binge eating. I've always had the opposite problem - if I really like a food, I try to save it and make it last longer, then it usually ends up going bad. It's a weird quirk I've had since I was a kid. I can understand now how some people might enjoy a structured diet, but it still seems totally foreign to me.

I'm a flexible eater and that's probably why WW worked pretty well for me. I was able to eat whatever I wanted to, but I knew that certain foods were going to satisfy me more than other foods were, so I chose things like fruits/veggies/proteins instead of chips or cookies or things like that.

I didn't know about the Volumetrics plan until after I'd lost weight, but when I read the book, I realized that's sort of how I chose to approach WW. Volumetrics works by identifying foods that are not very calorie-dense, like vegetables and foods that are very calorie-dense like chips. You are supposed to choose most of your foods from the low-density list (ie, mostly fruits and veggies) and you get to choose what foods from the high-density list you want to eat. You aren't supposed to completely avoid the high-density foods because some of them are very nutritious; you're just supposed to choose wisely (like eating nuts and not chips or choosing olive oil vs. butter). If you read the book, it makes a lot of sense.

And about the whole Nutrisystem/Jenny Craig/meal-replacement programs...why are we promoting those again? They don't teach you how to eat; they basically give you a set number of things to eat and as long as you eat their food, you lose weight. Once you try eating on your own, you most likely gain weight back because you're not eating the program food. I really don't think those kinds of plans are sustainable for a lifetime.

I am in the same boat as cg130...I simply avoid eating foods that set me over the edge—like chocolate, or pizza.

However these changes are part of a lifestyle change I've made and embraced, not a diet. I do not believe following diets works for the majority of people and I'm sad to see them promoted here on fitsugar...

I eat healthily and exercise... what does that make me? OH freaking sensible.