In todays society we are taught to eat three meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. But actually this is exactly what our bodies don’t need. It is much healthier to graze all day or eat smaller meals every two to three hours. Why? Its quite simple and without getting too scientific I am going to try to keep it simple.
When we wake up in the morning our metabolism, aka calorie and fat burner, is elevated. It is primed and ready to go. It’s a fat and calorie burning machine. But in order to keep your metabolism elevated throughout the day you need to feed your body. Quite frequently too! If you don’t your metabolism essentially slows down and therefore isn’t burning off those calories. To get a little more specific if you eat breakfast for example at 8am your metabolism will stay elevated and burn off your fat and calories. By approximately 10:30am your body is ready to be fueled again. If you eat at this time your metabolism will continue to stay elevated but if you don’t it slows down. So now what happens is lunch time comes around and people tend to be very hungry so they over eat. Now that your metabolism has slowed down and you most likely over ate you are on a crash course for weight gain. What happens is your body can’t burn off the food you ingested nearly as quick because your metabolism has slowed down. Furthermore, your body has been tricked into thinking that you may not eat again for awhile so it stores the excess calories you can’t burn off as insulin which ultimately turns into fat. For the guys this usually is around the waistline and for the gals this is usually around the waist, hip and thighs. Don’t we hate this!! But we see this everyday. Just look around!
People don’t realize that in order to lose weight and gain lean muscle we need to eat more. Not less! Starving yourself thinking you will lose weight is the worst thing you can do. Your metabolism is moving at snail speed and when you do eat food it just sits in your body and goes no where.
In summary, the key to losing weight and staying fit and healthy is to eat smaller meals every 2-3 hours. But remember you are what you eat so eating snickers bars every 2 hours won’t work!! To learn more about what to eat and keeping your diet simple CLICK HERE.
Be smart and eat frequently.
