Weight loss Myth: I want to lose weight…. I will skip my meals.

Generally, when we want to lose weight, we do exercise and eat less calories. But sometimes, people in doing so, take only 2-3 meals or even one meal throughout the day.

Initially, by following the above also, you will lose weight. But, how long will you eat only one time ? 1 month, 2 months… 6 months ? After some time, you will start eating again and start gaining weight also again.

So, to reduce weight and not to gain back again, you have to eat at intervals. At least, every 3 hours gap, you need to eat to lose weight. How does this happen.. keep reading and find the answer….

We all know that when we want to lose weight, we should burn more calories. One way is by doing physical activities. Same way, we also burn more calories by eating at intervals. This is because our digestive system is like a machine. The moment you eat anything, our mouth, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver; etc. will start working till the time the food is digested. In doing this, it is using lot of calories.

For e.g. if morning you had breakfast at around 9 o’clock, it will take around 2 hours to get digested. Now, at 11 am, if you are sitting in office or you are doing some basic home activities, you are not using much calories. Whatever you have eaten during breakfast, will get converted into fats. But instead, if you eat an apple at 11 am, then digestive system will start working again till the entire apple is digested. In doing so, it uses calories. Hence, by eating a 50 calorie apple, you actually burnt more calories rather than skipping the meal !

Also, when you take a gap of 3 hours or more, ‘starvation mode‘ gets activated. Means, after more than 3 hours of fasting, body will think that something has gone wrong and there is no food. So whenever you will eat after a long gap, you will eat more and body will convert more portions into fats. This is because, body doesn’t know when the next meal intake will be available for building energy. But it will need energy to work, and at that time, it will use stored fats. If you think, that this is positive, then the answer is ‘NO’.

Because, in our body, fats are stubborn and it takes long time to burn. So, first body will breakdown muscles instead of fats for energy. This will lead to muscle loss, and loss of muscle lowers your metabolism, which in turn increases fat & weight. So it’s a vicious cycle. Hence, the simple solution to avoid this is “EAT SMALL MEALS AT INTERVALS” !!

Wishing you Good & Healthy Living by Eating right !!