When I first started working with clients the advice was to eat snacks between meals ‘to keep your metabolism raised’. That long held theory was debunked a few years back and now we recommend NOT eating between meals. How science changes!
This year I am encouraging clients to think before they reach for their mid-morning snack. Ask yourself:
Am I hungry?
Am I eating because it is 10am?
Am I eating simply because everyone else is?”
Unless you are eating breakfast very early, you can probably get through until lunchtime with just a drink mid-morning. I do think that an afternoon snack is probably more needed than a morning one. Give it a go.
The benefits of not grazing for fat loss are many and the explanation below is worth a read.
Fed vs. fasted
Your body is designed to smoothly transition between two different and opposing states: ‘Fed’ and ‘Fasted’.
In the fed state, insulin is elevated, and this signals your body to store excess calories in your fat cells. In the presence of insulin, the burning of fat is halted, while the body burns glucose (from your last meal) instead.
In the fasted state, insulin is low (while glucagon and growth hormone, opposing hormones to insulin, are elevated). The body starts mobilising stored body fat from your fat cells and burning this fat for energy (instead of glucose).
The practical importance of all this?
You can only burn stored body fat while in the fasted state, and you can only store more body fat while in the fed state.
Make sense? You can read the full article here.
How IS fat lost from our body?
So, we know from the above that if we are not eating and our insulin level drops, we can burn stored fat, but how does it actually leave our body? You may be surprised! This article gives you the low down, be prepared to learn something new.
We will do what we consider to be a priority in our life.
If you struggle to stay consistent with healthy eating and regular exercise you may need to look at what your priorities are. We make time for things that consciously, or subconsciously, we deem as priorities. Basically, we make time for things we want to do in life.
We have never lived in a time with more information about the links between an unhealthy lifestyle and diabetes, cancer, dementia and other nasties, but are we listening, or just carrying on and hoping for the best? What you got away with in your earlier life may come back to bite you in the future. Take some very basic steps to help preserve your health.
Reduce your body fat level if appropriate. Just because over half of our population is overweight or obese, it doesn’t mean that is normal.
Reduce your alcohol intake. Alcohol is a carcinogen and is associated with various cancers, dementia, high blood pressure and more. Put it back in the treat category rather than the everyday category.
Reduce your stress levels. Chronic ongoing stress is extremely detrimental to physical and mental health.
Make regular exercise part of your life.
Make good health a priority!
