THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EMPTY CALORIES AND WHAT TIME YOU EAT

 

 

Some calories  -- namely carbs -- affect what you eat later on.  And what and when you eat can dramatically influence appetite and how full you feel.

Try this experiment on yourself. One morning, eat sweet cereal, a muffin, or bagel for breakfast and journal how you’re feeling at 10 a.m. and right before lunch. Furthermore, note what and how much you subsequently eat for lunch (and dinner). The next day, eat a similar amount of calories for breakfast but do so while eating two eggs, an egg white omelette with low fat cheese, or low fat Greek style yogurt with fruit. For the gold star, supplement at mid-morning with a lean protein based snack (low fat mozzarella cheese stick, 7 almonds, low fat cottage cheese with smoked salmon, cucumber, and a little dill or a few berries, etc.). See how different you feel walking into lunch and see whether you’re less ravenous appetite leads to more moderate caloric consumption.

 A last note about breakfast: another way to run the above experiment would be to skip breakfast entirely with the belief that if total caloric intake is all that matters, aren’t I better off skipping that meal to keep my total calories down? Absolutely not. Our mothers wouldn’t send us to school without breakfast. Why do we forget these important lessons and stop taking care of ourselves in the same way?

If one skips breakfast, the body reacts as if it’s starving, hunkers down and tries to hold on to the fuel its got instead of burning what it was given to start the day. In the process, the body will lower its rate of metabolism, resets its hormonal response to habitual meal patterns, and leave you craving foods and playing caloric catch up all day. A better choice for people interested in losing weight would be to fuel your metabolism early by consistently place small quanta of kindling on your burning metabolic fire. Keep that flame burning with low carbohydrate, portion controlled lean protein fuel every 3 – 4 hours. You’ll feel more satiated, more energetic, and frankly better, and ironically you’ll lose weight more effectively.