Light as a Feather Pancakes with Berry Sauce

Some days you just need pancakes for breakfast. Usually when I have such a craving, The Grillmaster whips up some Brownie Pancakes with Berry Cream Sauce. When we decided to try the Volumetrics diet for a few days after I received a review copy of The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet: Smart, Simple Science-Based Strategies for Losing Weight and Keeping It Off by Barbara Rolls, PhD, I was very excited to see these Light as a Feather Pancakes with Berry Sauce on the menu.

In general, the Volumetrics diet isn’t very different from the way we normally eat, so it wasn’t difficult to follow. The book provides information about what your daily calorie intake should be based on your age, sex and activity level. For example, a woman between the ages of 31 and 50 who is moderately active needs 2,000 calories per day to maintain her weight. To lose a pound or two a week, she’d need to limit her daily calorie intake to about 1,500. A man over 51 who is moderately active would require about 300 calories more per day. The meal plans assume your target is 1,400 calories a day. If you can have more than this and still meet your goals, you simply add snacks or eat a bit more at each meal.

Here are some notes about the daily meal plans:

• The meal plans feature 400 calories for breakfast and 500 calories for both lunch and dinner. I preferred to eat about 400 calories at each meal plus a couple of hearty snacks.
• The plan is flexible. Let’s say you’re supposed to eat bran flakes for breakfast. If you don’t happen to like bran flakes, there is a list of “modular” foods towards the back of the book that shows what you can swap in instead.
• If you are a person on the go, you’ll like that this plan features a lot of convenience foods. Lunch might include a 300 calorie frozen entrée or dinner might be whole-wheat pasta with sauce from a jar.
• Some of the recipes are a bit high in carbs. I had to watch my portion sizes carefully in some cases.
• It would have been REALLY helpful if the weekly meal plans had included the page numbers for the recipes listed. I tried looking up “Korean-style Steak Fajitas” in the index. It wasn’t under “K,” wasn’t under “S,” but I finally found it under “F.” If you follow the plans, I recommend that you write in the page numbers next to the recipe titles in the chart.
• The daily menu does list things like “light” yogurt which tends to have artificial sweeteners. I’d rather spoon some berries into plain nonfat yogurt myself.

A typical day on the Volumetrics eating plan might look like the following for someone trying to lose weight at the 1,400 calorie level:

Overall, this eating plan is straightforward and easy to personalize. The book lays out time- and money-saving strategies, tips for eating out, and tricks for hiding vegetables in your favorite dishes.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet: Smart, Simple Science-Based Strategies for Losing Weight and Keeping It Off by Barbara Rolls, PhD from HarperCollins Publishers plus a second copy to give away. All opinions are my own.