Exactly How I Eat More & Lose Weight

Have you seen those women on Instagram claiming to eat more food than ever while still losing weight? In this episode, I'm breaking down exactly what's behind that claim and whether it's actually possible. Spoiler… It is, and it isn't. 

It actually comes down to one key concept: food volume. We cover the science of calorie deficits, why a calorie isn't always felt the same way in your body, and how shifting what you eat (not just how much) can completely change how full and satisfied you feel while still dropping body fat.

I'm sharing my personal go-to foods when I'm in a fat loss phase, and also get real about the foods I pull back on when I'm trying to lose weight.

If you've been white-knuckling your way through a restrictive diet and wondering why the scale won't budge, this episode is for you. 

And if you're ready to stop guessing and get a clear plan tailored to your life...

Grab one of the limited 1:1 strategy call spots here!

Check out this reel to see an example of the power of food volume

Use my Legion Athletics Code: LMelton to get BOGO 50% off for new customers + 10% cash back for return customers

HOW TO CONNECT WITH ME: Send me a DM on Instagram @thislifeuncluttered or on LinkedIn @laurenlynnmelton

I’d love to hear from you! 

Transcript

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Welcome to This Life Gets Good, the podcast where we talk about what it actually means to feel good in your body. Because around here, we don't just settle for healthy. We believe you're allowed to feel good everywhere you go, at work, at home, and yes, even whilst you're burning your kids to practice. I'm Lauren Melton, founder of This Life Uncluttered, mom of two, and living proof that life can get really good after 40. I help high-achieving women to lose weight, feel hot and healthy, and bring that confidence into every part of their life without doing more or burning out. And if you're a mom over 40 who's been trying to lose weight and feel like you have to starve yourself in order to do that, you probably want to punch this nice woman in the face. Right? Like when you hear her making these claims, you're like, what? How? How is she doing that? Why is my metabolism broken over here and she's thriving? She's seeing the scale drop while eating more foods like WTF. So today I'm gonna break down exactly what's behind this claim. Is it even real? Is it possible to lose weight and eat more? Like, how can you do this? And if it's possible, how can you do it too? So let's start out with a little bit of the science behind all this. In order to lose weight, and by the way, when we're talking about losing weight, what we really want is we're trying to drop body fat. But most women use the term weight loss. So we're gonna talk about that because when we step on the scale, we're using the scale as one of the easiest metrics to track our progress. But truly, it's body fat. We're trying to drop our body fat. We don't want to be losing muscle. Highly unlikely any of us here are trying to lose muscle or bone density or any of that. It's body fat. But point of this is you're trying to lose weight. How are you gonna do that with eating more? In order to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit, which means consuming fewer calories than your body needs to maintain its current weight today. And the two factors that go into that equation to calculate that calorie deficit are your energy inputs. So that's the foods you consume, right? All the beverages, the foods, everything that goes into your body, and your energy outputs, your overall activity. And there's way more to it, and we're not gonna go into all the detail here on the energy output, but you probably know that trying to outwork your calories consumed is a never-ending battle. And it is not one that works for the long-term strategy. So learning to control the energy inputs, the food you consume, is really the largest lever for weight loss. And that's what we're gonna focus on today. So we all agree you need to be in a calorie deficit. But how you go about that calorie deficit makes a huge difference with being able to be consistent to stick to that calorie deficit long enough to see progress. And what do I define progress as? I typically recommend for my clients to aim for about half a pound to a pound a week, unless it's someone carrying around a large amount of excess body fat. And then it may go faster than that. So, in order to drop that half a pound to a pound a week, consistency sticking to your calorie deficit is really the key. That's the key to making this happen. But things get a little bit more complicated. A calorie is a calorie. Yes, this is true, right? But not all calories are going to make you feel the same way or provide the same value in terms of how it fuels your body, especially when in a calorie deficit. I'm gonna give you an example. My favorite candy, my absolute favorite candy, Reese's peanut butter cups. Delicious. One of the old school packages, the two regular cups, is 210 total calories. How do you calculate that 210 calories? It's made up of protein, carbs, and fat. If you remember back on episode 19, I shared how we get to that 210 calories. So basically you take as four grams of protein, that's right, Reese's peanut butter cups have a little bit of protein in them. It's not a protein source, but as protein. You take that four grams of protein, and you're gonna multiply that by four calories per gram, because there's four calories per gram in every gram of protein. And then you're gonna take the carbs. There's 24 carbs, so 24 times four calories per gram. So we're gonna take that, and then we're gonna take the fat. There's 12 grams of fat, 12 times nine calories per gram, because there's nine calories per gram of fat, and you get 220. Close enough, remember, labels are allowed to be off by like up to 20%. So that's how you calculate the 210 total calories. And I don't know about you, but I could eat those delicious 210 calories in about 0.2 seconds. And I'd still be very hungry, right? Because they didn't actually fill me up. They didn't provide much nutritional value. They're freaking delicious, they're enjoyable. This is not to demonize peanut butter cups in any way. But if you're in a fat loss phase and you're trying to be in a calorie deficit, and 210 of your calories are coming from foods that don't even fill you up, you're gonna be white knuckling your way through the rest of the day. Now, I know most of you are probably not trying to use a bunch of Reese's peanut butter cups to support your calorie deficit. So let me give you another example that will probably be much more relatable. Almonds. Ah, delicious almonds. I love almonds. A handful of almonds is about 200 calories. Yes, that is correct. A handful of almonds that you can throw back in about a minute is 200 calories. Once again, I'm probably gonna be pretty hungry soon after eating that 200 calories of almonds. At the same time, a huge bowl of blueberries, and I made a reel on this, and I'll link it in the show notes so you can see this visually. But that huge bowl of blueberries is the same value of the 200 calories of almonds. The 200 calories of blueberries is freaking huge. It's a lot more food, but it's the same total calories. So go check out this reel in the show notes if you want to see it visually, because it really sometimes seeing this makes the difference. This is when you can say, like, ah, okay. So when women are saying, I'm eating so much more food and losing weight, it's typically that they're eating more food volume than ever before. And this happens usually when they reduce their processed foods and start eating more whole foods, right? They start eating more lean protein, more fiber sources, more fruits, more veggies. Like, think about watermelon. A huge bowl of watermelon has barely any calories, right? Or even think about popcorn. Think about a bowl of popcorn and the volume in it compared to the calories. Now, this isn't to say don't ever eat foods that are more calorie dense because there's such good nutrient value in them. Things like nuts and seeds and oils are so good for you and they help support a balanced diet. But being aware of what you're consuming when you're in a calorie deficit, it's gonna put you in control of that. It's what's going to allow you to make sure that you're getting enough of the things that you should, and so you can eat more and lose weight. So today I'm going to share my favorite calorie deficit-friendly foods that give you more volume, provide great nutrients, that make it easier to stick to a calorie deficit, and a few foods that I would avoid when I'm in a fat loss face myself. This doesn't mean you have to, but I'm just gonna tell you the way that I kind of go about it that makes it easier for me to feel good and see results. All right, so let's get to it. Here are some of the foods I love to incorporate. Of course, we're gonna start with protein. We've got to. Listen, I know you're probably sick of hearing about protein, but it's going to add so much value to you for so many reasons, whether you're trying to lose weight or not. But when you're in a fat loss phase and you're trying to lose weight, we want to preserve our muscle at any cost. And getting protein is going to help support that and it's going to help support your satiety and make you feel more full. So, my favorite protein is any ground meat. That's right. I do eat meat here. If you're vegetarian, don't worry. I'm going to give you some ideas too. But things like 93% ground beef, 97% ground turkey, even ground lamb. I'm sorry, I know, I'm sorry if that grosses you out, but it's so delicious. Ground chicken, all of the ground meats, I love them because they reheat so nicely. And that makes it so easy to cook. Like, let's say you make a batch of a big protein and you're gonna like reheat it during the week, it still tastes great. Reheated chicken breasts, on the other hand, oh, that is like the absolute worst. They're horrible. They're rubbery. I cannot do it. So, ground meats is the first thing I would suggest. Next, Greek yogurt. This is my go-to breakfast protein. I have it almost every day. I will be in my car eating it on my lap, which I often do. I don't know how safe that is, but it's on the go, you get it, right? I typically get non-fat plain and add my protein powder in it to add a little bit of flavor. I'll throw some berries in there, some walnuts. Yum. So delicious. Another protein source that I absolutely love, shrimp. Shrimp is like pure protein. There's basically like just protein in it. And it cooks so quickly. I get the frozen shrimp at Trader Joe's. You can get it anywhere. I try to get the ones that are already peeled and deveined because who has time for that? Seriously. And I just run it underwater in my colander before I cook it, if I don't remember to like set it, put it in the fridge the night before. It's delicious. It is so good. I usually have it with rice and edamame. And I mean, I'm throwing the rice in the microwave, those packets. I'm using edamame that's already shelled. Like make this as simple as possible. That dinner, it takes me like five minutes to cook. Seriously. My next protein source that I like a lot when I'm in a fat loss phase, it's a controversial one. I know it is, but I like it cottage cheese. And I know some of you are like, well, nope. That's fine. You don't have to have it. But I love it. I love it in dips. Like you can blend it up and do it with like a ranch packet. It's so delicious. Or sometimes I just have it plain and I put everything but the bagel seasoning on it, put that on a rice cake or top it with avocado. Oh my gosh, trust me, that is delicious. My next favorite protein source, salmon. Oh, I love fish. I know some of you are not fish fans. I'm from New England. I'm sorry, I don't trust people from New England who don't like fish. Just kidding. But seriously, fish is so good. Salmon is one of my favorites. I have it at least once a week. I'm usually having the like frozen wild Alaskan caught that Trader Joe's has, but occasionally I am very spoiled with freshly caught salmon when my boys go to Alaska and they fish and they bring it home. I kid you not. It is so delicious. So usually after the summer, when they have had their trip, they come home with a big like cooler. I kid you not, if you go to the Anchorage Airport, you will see so many people shipping the fish that they caught. It is pretty cool. So they come home with a bunch of the salmon and we cook it up and it's so delicious. It also cooks really fast too, which is another great thing for busy moms. Okay, another one of my go-to's deli turkey meat. Now, deli meat is one that I know we've tended to avoid a lot. Um, certain types of deli meats have potentially shown in some studies that could have some carcinogic, like potentially long-term uh lead to cancer. Um, deli turkey is one though that hasn't shown that as much as some of the other types of cured meats. Um, and also I'm not having it every day, but it is my go-to option when I have a sandwich. And my sandwich shop order that I love and it's so easy because whether it's Subway or a local deli, which I would prefer, is deli turkey with some balsamic vinegar, banana peppers, salt, and a slice of cheese. Delicious. Next, this one is not going to surprise you, but good old protein powder. Like seriously, a scoop a day makes hitting my protein goal completely doable. And trust me, it's come a long way from the days of in the 80s when it's exclusively a Jimbro thing. Like, protein's all over the place. So protein powders, you can find all different versions. I like whey protein. I actually have a discount code for Legion Athletics, which I really like because they third-party test and supplements can really be like anything, anything. So you want to use a reputable provider. Um, so check out in the show notes if you want my discount code. You can grab it there. Um, but whey protein is great if you are dairy intolerant. Um, you could do a vegan protein powder as well. I honestly haven't found a great vegan protein powder I love myself. Um, but there are so many options to try. And the last one, egg whites. Egg whites are so great to add in to get more protein and really easy because you can do an egg with some egg whites. You can add egg whites into ground meat, you can add egg whites into like almost anything, right? I will be honest though, lately I have been pulling back on them a little bit because my gut has not been loving it. Everyone processes foods differently, and sometimes you'll figure out what works for you, what doesn't. Egg whites are a great one. I just haven't been doing a ton of them lately. All right, so those are my like go-to protein sources in a fat loss phase. Now, fiber. And listen, fiber is just as important as protein. Fiber doesn't get talked about as much, it's not as sexy as protein is right now. But trust me when I say it is equally as important. It's going to help support your digestion, it's gonna help feel make you feel full. So don't skip out on fiber. My first favorite source, oatmeal. I'm a huge fan of oatmeal. But lately I have been trying oat bran. My coach recommended this recently. I had never even heard of it. Bob's Mills is the brand I got. And it's not like in the cereal aisle, it's in usually like the baking aisle. And it's kind of like a more thick cream of wheat texture. Um, it has like a little bit of a nutty flavor to it. I do it with some pink salt in it, microwave it. Oh my gosh, it's delicious. And why I like it in a fat loss phase is it gives you more volume than the oatmeal. So check out oat brand, try it out. Let me know what you think. My next favorite fiber source, berries. Oh, berries are like the goat of fiber. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, all the berries. You can eat so many for not a lot of calories. And talk about sweetness. If you're someone that's like, I'm a sugar addict, I'm a sweet tooth, try some berries with honey. Oh my gosh, so delicious. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on too. Oh, love it. And then, of course, all the green veggies. In a fat loss phase, you better be getting your green veggies. I mean, you should be getting them all the time, but they're gonna give you a ton of volume. Half your bowl being a green veggie, zucchini, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, peas, snap peas. Oh my gosh, I love snap peas. You get so much volume for very little calories. And I am sorry, ladies, but if you're not eating veggies because you don't like the taste, it just means you haven't learned how to prepare them. Okay. So here I'm gonna help you with it. First, I want you to get ones that require no chopping. Because if you're like me and you're gonna have to chop and you don't even like veggies to begin with, that is gonna be your first excuse, right? And then you're gonna end up with the welted, like whatever gross green glob in your fridge and it's gonna get tossed out on Sunday. So buy the convenience packages. I know they might be a little bit more expensive, but it's gonna save you in the end when you're actually eating them. I want you to add a little bit of salt, pepper, garlic powder, or whatever season blends you like. I like to get like some different fun varieties. We have a Penzi spices in our town, so I love going there. But like honestly, even your grocery store or whatever, like get some seasoning that you enjoy. Add a little bit of olive oil, toss them in the air fryer. Trust me, trust me on this. They're gonna get crispy and salty. You're going to love it. You're gonna love it. My next fiber source in a fat loss phase sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes, but I especially love the Japanese sweet potatoes, the Murasaki Japanese sweet potatoes in particular that I get from Trader Joe's. They're purple on the outside and they're white on the inside. And I think they taste like cake. Yes, I'm telling you, they have a sweetness to them. They are so delicious. So I slice mine in half. I spray with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic powder. Sometimes I use avocado oil if I'm using an air fryer just because of the heat point of the air fryer. So delicious and such volume you get out of the sweet potatoes. But baby potatoes are great too. Yukon potatoes, potatoes are also fantastic. I just really love the taste of the Japanese sweet potatoes. And then, of course, other orange veggies, carrots, squash. My favorite lately are rainbow carrots and delicato squash is my go-to squash. It's unfortunately out of season right now. The fall is when they're at their prime. And I do the same type of preparation with the squash. I like the delicata because it's it's easy to slice. It's not like a butternut or like one that's really difficult. I'm not preparing a butternut squash or like spaghetti squash. I'm telling you, I'm not doing that. But with the delicata, you just slice it in half and then slice it across. And then I use a little bit of oil, season it again, air fry it. Delicious. So delicious. Now, listen, there are plenty of other fiber sources like seeds and nuts. And I'm not saying don't eat them. I do. I'm still eating some of them in my fat loss phase, but I can't classify them as high volume, low calorie in this category, right? They just don't fit into this category of what we're talking about today. That doesn't mean they don't add value. So keep that in mind. I don't cut them out altogether. I've been having walnuts, I've been having Brazil nuts, I've been having some pumpkin seeds. So I'm still having some of these in my fat loss phase, but just a smaller portion. All right, some other high volume options to consider in a calorie deficit. I mentioned it earlier, both of these, but watermelon and popcorn. A bowl of watermelon, a bowl of popcorn are great in your snacks. Highly recommend when you're in a fat loss phase. Rice cakes. Now, I know some people hate them. I actually like them. I like the salty rice cakes. Or if you're looking for something sweet, the caramel rice cakes or the chocolate rice cakes, great way to like take a chocolate rice cake, put a little bit of nut butter on it. Again, you know, being aware of the portion size there, but um adding some fruit on the side, great, great snack right there. Um, also pickles. I mean, I love pickles in general, but if you're looking for a little bit of like saltiness, adding some pickles with your meal is a great way to like essentially add like zero calories with surprisingly satisfying like crunch and sweet and saltiness, you're gonna love it. Miso soup, that's another one where you get like a lot of volume and it's really filling, but there's not a lot of calories in it. All other broth-based soups, too, also very high volume and low calorie. I know the weather's getting warmer, so you might not want to be doing a ton of soups. Um, but that is one way to definitely go. I'm constantly adding things like salsa and pico de gallo to my ground meats and my bowls when I'm putting together at dinner. And don't forget about things like hot sauce and mustard and soy sauce. Those are also things that are gonna add a ton of flavor to your food without adding barely any calories. Okay, now I'm gonna share the things that I tend to pull back on, like reduce the portion size or remove completely when I'm in a fat loss phase because they don't make me feel as full and I end up getting pretty hungry quickly after consuming them. All right, so number one, liquid calories and caloric beverages. Your Starbucks coffee, that might be 400 plus calories and you don't even know it. Juices, sports drinks, even smoothies can have a ton of calories without you realizing it. The healthy acai bowl, trust me, has a lot of calories in it. And of course, the one no one wants to talk about alcohol. Liquid calories don't register the same way solid foods do, right? In terms of satiety. You consume them super quickly. They don't fill up your stomach the same way. And most people dramatically underestimate how many calories they're drinking throughout the day. So in a fat loss phase, I keep my beverages mostly to water. I do coffee with stevia and a splash of almond milk. And sometimes I'll do like some sparkling water and things like that. And I always have my daily sig fridge, right? My daily Coke Zero Diet Coke or Diet Dr. Pepper. All right, the second thing that I tend to um remove, honestly, all the time. This one's probably gonna shock you. Protein bars. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not a big fan of them in general. I tell my clients to treat them more like a candy bar. Because here's why. I'm not saying don't ever have the protein bars because they can be good when you're in a pinch, right? You're on the run and you, you know, don't have time to have a full meal. They're probably gonna keep you right going. If you're having them as a default on a daily basis, I've seen them, I've seen them often lead to some pretty massive GI issues for a lot of my clients. And once again, you probably eat that protein bar in like what, three, four, maybe five bites. That's not very satisfying. So in a fat loss phase, I am not incorporating them on the regular. And honestly, throughout the year, I just tend not to. I have them at times. I used to have them a lot more. And now I realized I can just eat a lot more food when I don't have them in my day. Next, nuts and trail mix. Incredibly delicious and incredibly calorically dense. They're very easy to overeat. And the portion that constitutes a serving is usually like really shocking when you see it measured out. Trail mix, especially, right? When we think about the dried fruit and the chocolate chips and all that stuff, it can end up being like 400 plus calories and can just be a lot more than you realize. Once again, I am having nuts in my fat loss phase right now. I'm just having a smaller portion of them and I'm measuring them out. The next one, this one's a toughie because I really love it. It's really delicious, but it's just really calorically dense. Granola. A quarter cup of granola is usually around like 200 calories. And who the hell is eating only a quarter cup of granola? I know I'm not when I'm having it. So I'm typically not having granola in a fat loss phase. I tend to skip it altogether because trying to sprinkle just a little bit on, it's just really hard for me to do. So in general, I tend to just not purchase it. I did purchase a bag recently and I quickly realized like this was not a good idea to have around the house in my fat loss phase. And I will enjoy it again when I am done with this fat loss phase, but I'll still be aware of the portion of it and still, you know, enjoy it, but it's just too calorie dense right now. The next one, crackers and chips. Because even the healthiest version, right? Even the simple Mills almond flour crackers, which holy hell, are those things amazing. I mean, seriously, have you had them? They're so delicious, but they are very easy to eat well past a serving size. They're not really that filling, right? And they're impossible to like portion out an amount that you're gonna want to stick to. So when I'm in a fat loss phase, I tend to not have them accessible to me. I tend to not have them in general. Or if I'm gonna have them, I'm gonna portion it out on a plate first before I take it right out of the box and into my mouth. And the last one, the low-fat, fat-free package snacks, a remnant of the 90s diet culture that is still around. What they're doing here is the manufacturer is removing the fat. And in order to compensate for that flavor loss, they're typically adding in sugar. And that results in a product that is lower in calories, but I find is less satisfying because the fat does contribute to satiety, right? And when we have that sugar that's added to it, it can tend to like cause more of like a blood sugar spike and consequently crash after that, and then leaves you feeling really hungry quickly. So I just tend to avoid those snacks altogether. They just, I'd rather put a different snack together that makes me feel more full and satisfied. The common thread across everything on this list is one or two things. Either the food is calorie dense relative to how filling it is, or it digests really quickly and that hunger is going to return before the next meal. And in a fat loss phase where every calorie counts a little bit more than usual, right? Than how we're usually living, the goal is to get the maximum satiety for every calorie consumed, right? As much as possible. The foods on the high volume, low calorie list that will do that, and the foods that I listed most recently, they're just ones that I find like the portion that I get out of it, it's just not actually enough to make me feel satisfied. All right, so now you know those women eating more and losing weight, they haven't broken the law of physics, they haven't hacked their metabolism. They're just eating more volume for fewer calories. And their body is responding exactly the way it's supposed to. And here's the good news you can do the exact same thing. And I help women figure this out every single day. Busy moms with demanding jobs and zero time, they do not have time to overhaul their lives. And that's why we don't do complicated around here or we don't try to do perfect. We just figure out, right, what are some swaps that can be made? What are some additions? A lot of times it's more about what we can add in versus what can we remove. And that makes a big difference for your body and your life that we're building this all around. So if you want to be one of these women who's posting about eating more and losing weight, I would love to help you get there. On a one-on-one strategy call with me for 45 minutes with a $97 investment, we dig into exactly where you are today, what you've been eating, and what specific changes will move the needle faster for you. You're not gonna get generic advice because I don't do cookie cutter plans. You're gonna get exactly what you need to know to start seeing results. Like on a recent one-on-one call, I was able to help a woman identify how to fit in lunch. She had been skipping it. She had been busy like a lot of us, right? Back-to-back meetings all day, and she used to skip lunch chronically. And then by the time she got around to eating lunch, she was adding snacks, right? And she was throwing stuff together. And that snacking was putting her outside her calorie deficit and she wasn't losing weight. Once we got her regular lunch in a rhythm, figured out how she could fit it in without scrambling every day, she saw the scale start to move immediately. And this might sound so obvious, but when you're in it, it's not. That's where the coaching comes in. So head to the show notes and grab one of my limited spots in my calendar this week. I would love to help you figure this out too. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of This Life Gets Good. I am truly grateful you chose to invest your time to listen. Your feedback matters here. And if you found this podcast to make a difference for you, please take a minute to share a review. Once a month, I'll select one lucky listener who shares a review to win a live 101 strategy call with me, where I'll personally coach you on your exact next steps to see weight loss results and finally feel hot again. And if this episode made you feel seen, share it with a friend who deserves to feel that way too.