Eating More Food for Less Bodyfat by Chris Shugart

Volumetrics is one type of diet plan that's popular in mainstream media, and it basically suggests eating "low-calorie-dense" or "high-volume foods." Zucchini, for example, has only 26 calories per cup. Compare that to one tiny tablespoon of vegetable oil at 120 calories! Food sources like that are calorically dense — very little food, not filling at all, but jam-packed with calories.

Now, I actually don't endorse most "volumetrics" diets because they often ignore the benefits of good fats like omega-3s. And some fat sources, like olive oil and almonds, are healthy and calorie-dense. Chances are if you see a "Volumetrics" book on the shelf, it's mainly just a low-fat diet that encourages you to eat a lot of soup. I'll pass.

However, we can take a page from the volumetrics approach and apply it to our bodybuilding and fat loss goals. We can learn to manipulate recipes and choose foods that get us feeling full without making us fat. In short, we can get ripped, and stay ripped, with practically no dietary suffering or excessive hunger.

When you volumize your diet, you don't really need to count calories. Since you're getting full at each meal, you're naturally controlling caloric intake. As a side benefit, volumizing your diet will make you healthier and increase longevity, since the most filling foods are often the most health-promoting.

Here are a few ways to volumize some regular recipes:

• Instead of adding butter, bananas, syrup, peanut butter or other calorie-dense ingredients to recipes, use calorie-free extracts or imitation flavorings.

• Unsweetened applesauce can be used to replace vegetable oil in pancakes, muffins, and most baked goods.

• Add pure canned pumpkin into whole-grain pancake mix.

• For burgers, mix lean ground turkey and/or veggies with your ground beef.

• For spaghetti, cut out half the pasta and replace with sprouts.

• Replace half (or all) of the pasta in lasagna with sliced zucchini, squash, or eggplant.

• Use steamed and blended cauliflower in mashed potatoes to cut carbs and overall calories.

Dr. Lonnie Lowery calls this "calorie dilution" and it's basically the same idea as volumetrics: eating high volume, low-density foods. Keep this idea in mind the next time you're at the supermarket, and you'll end up a little bit closer to the ripped physique you're after.

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