Don't Give Your Body Mixed Messages
Here’s a good piece of advice for nearly everyone, not just people who are trying to lose weight:
Eat Less … More Often
What does that mean? And why is it a good idea? Does it really matter as long as I eat healthy food?
Eating less, more frequently, actually gives a lot of healthy signals to your body. Eating big heavy meals, once or twice a day, and then fasting the rest of the time gives your body mixed messages.
Now, I’m not a nutritionist. I’m actually a chemist, by education. But I’m writing this from a practical perspective – it makes sense to me and I’ve seen (felt) the results myself.
Here’s what I mean …
Eat Less
Eat Less means eat a smaller amount of food each time you eat. At first glance that sounds like the old fashioned ‘starvation diet’ advice. Not so!
Taking in a smaller amount, a smaller volume, of food is easier on your system – easier on your digestive system and other systems too.
Do you ever feel ‘too full’ or bloated after a meal? Do you feel like you need a nap?
What about the ‘sandwich hangover’ effect from a heavy lunch?
Eating less is an ideal way to avoid getting lethargic right after a meal. If you give your body too much to work on (too much food at one time), your body will automatically start to slow down other systems so it can concentrate on the biggest task it has … just digesting the big meal.
So you feel tired, like you have no energy, like you need a nap. Even though you might have just ingested enough calories to run a 10k !
Eat Less – feel better, more energetic, and more mentally alert
Eat More Often
Balance ‘eating less’ with eating ‘more often’. If you eat something (small) when you feel hungry, you’ll eat about 5 or 6 times a day. That’s roughly every 2 or 3 hours during a regular day.
You’ll have higher and more steady energy levels throughout the whole day. And you’ll tend to burn more calories because of it.
Let’s say you are on a 2000 calorie diet and assume you don’t change the total amount of food or calories. Your day might look like this:
Breakfast: 450 calories
Snack: 150 calories
Lunch: 450 Calories
Snack: 150 Calories
Dinner: 800 Calories
Maybe adjust that a little bit to fit your day, but you get the idea. With this type of schedule, there is never a huge meal that your body must deal with. It’s always a challenge to control portion sizes when eating out, but you can manage it.
Great for Losing Weight
Eating less, but more frequently, sends several important signals to your body. One of the most important is “I’m going to feed you frequently”.
That’s incredibly important – your body stores more fat in ‘starvation’ mode and eating frequently gives it the opposite signal. So your body doesn’t strive for aggressive fat storage and is able to use more of the nutrients you take in more efficiently.
Don’t let your food Weigh You Down!
Eat Less, More Often. Eat Healthy.
I used the Vi-Shape as an ideal meal when I was taking the Body by Vi Challenge. It helped me get used to smaller meals and still feel full. Since I didn’t feel hungry, I didn’t run to the fridge. The Vi-Shape contains balance nutrition – my body got healthy signals from what I ate, how much I ate, and how frequently I ate. I lost weight.
