Sunday, November 22, 2015

Tip #2 on Surviving the Holiday Season: "Eat a Snack"

Tip #2 on SURVIVING the holiday season:

Eat a HEALTHY Snack

For so long, I tried to avoid snacking. I’d determined that my snacking problem was the “evil” that was keeping me from losing weight. Though snacking has sometimes gotten a bad rap, it’s making a huge comeback in the weightless world. Many nutritionists now encourage people to eat 5-6 times per day to get the best fitness and weight loss results.


According to a study from the University of Ottawa, eating 6 times per day, as opposed to 3 times per day, had NO effect on weight loss (Web MD). So why would I include those statistics in a post encouraging you to eat more frequently??? The secret is in how our bodies respond to hunger.



Whether you eat 6 times per day, or 3 times, or even 1 time, the number of calories you eat makes the difference. You could eat 6 healthy meals for a total of 2,000 calories, or one big meal from McDonalds at 2,000 calories. You are still getting the same number of calories (I’m NOT arguing that all calories are created equal by the way. That’s a different topic though). According to Amy Petonic, registered dietitian out of Cleveland, “After about 3 hours without food, blood sugar begins to fall. And after 4 hours, your body has already digested whatever you sent down earlier. Once you’ve crossed the 5-hour mark, your blood sugar begins to plummet, and you grab whatever you can to refuel.” Therefore, when we eat every 2-3 hours, we keep our blood sugar levels regulated, and we are more likely to avoid that hunger feeling that leads to frantic ravaging of the pantry (Hence why breakfast is so important after you have been sleeping for 7-8 hours with no food).


Now, the caveat. Eating more frequently is a tool to help avoid getting overly hungry or lowered blood sugar. But let’s think about this. If I’m going to eat 6 times per day, that doesn’t mean I can eat the same size meals I would eat if I were eating 3 times per day. The key is to eat much smaller (AND HEALTHIER) "meals," spaced closer together.


Personally, I find that I’m most successful when I plan and calculate my meals and my snacks. Here is why. I know that I need to eat six times throughout the day; breakfast, snack, lunch snack, dinner, snack. So when I get home after work, it’s time for a “snack.” But if I’m not careful, my “snack” (especially at that 3:00-5:00 time) turns into much more than a small snack. I tell myself I need to eat, (which I do), but if I don’t have planned what I will eat, that snack turns into way more calories than it was supposed to be.
Let’s apply this to the holidays since this post is about holiday survival. If you know you are going to eat a larger meal for dinner on Thanksgiving, you will need to adjust the number of times you eat and your portions. On that day, a typical meal plan might look like this:


Breakfast-veggie omelet
Snack-veggies and hummus
Lunch-chicken salad (no fries, no croutons, little or no dressing, the simpler the better)
Snack-Shakeology
Dinner-Turkey dinner (we’ll talk about planning your plate later)
Snack-SKIP


What I use to do, and what was VERY bad, was “save up,” as in, not eat all day saving up my calories for dinner. Then, I would probably just eat those 2000 calories in one huge, carb-loaded meal, later in the evening. A smarter way is to eat very small, low calories meals throughout the day leading up to the meal, and keep under control (yet still satisfied) at the meal.


To summarize, eating smaller, healthier meals/snacks more frequently doesn’t make you lose weight. Rather, it’s a management tool to help keep our bodies satisfied, blood sugar regulated, and to combat the real feeling of hunger that occurs when we go 4-5 hours without eating.

(Source:http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/6_meals_a_day)

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