Weight Loss- The Best Times To Eat

When I was finishing college, eating was not a planned event for me. I ate because I got hungry; and sometimes the eating part could not happen until hours after the whole hungry thing. It was a cycle that seemed too difficult to regulate - however, anyone can create an eating schedule for him or her self. There are things to keep in mind (or in your purse, backpack or briefcase, for that matter) which will help to begin with.

Getting hungry does not have to hold you back, especially if you are prepared for it. Doing something as simple as carrying a snack with you when you are away from home is a great place to start. This is a particularly great idea when you have trouble regulating your eating because of a busy or sporadic schedule. In order to survive, there are restrictions put on everyone's life. For example: you must be here at a certain time, you must have a certain task completed in a certain time-frame and so on.

Perhaps you don't have time to sit and wait in a fast food drive through line, or perhaps that is exactly your problem. If you only have time to go grab something from the local burger joint and eat it quick before the next big thing, you may not be starving, but you do not have much control over how healthy you are eating. Especially if you want to loose weight, both starving your self until you have the time to eat, as well as eating mostly unhealthy foods (such as fast food and snack foods) are unwise eating habits.

The most traditional way to eat is three times per day. We even have names for these specific times throughout the day that everyone's stomach should keep. However, we ignore our stomach sometimes, and this tends to make us unhealthy. The first meal of your day should be right before you begin your day. Many people will exercise, or perhaps drink his or her coffee, and do other things to prepare for his or her day, and completely forget to have an actual meal.

The second meal of your day is also frequently skipped. There are supposed to be times set aside for midday meals for every worker at any full-time job, nonetheless, a lot of people feel high amounts of stress and a need to "catch up" that overwhelms his or her basic need to go get a sandwich. As a matter of fact, as much as many people believe they just can not spare a single second, your brain works much less effectively when it is deprived of the nutrients we are meant to consume. Taking vitamins is an alternative that many people try, but no matter how many vitamin pills you take they work better in your body when they are naturally consumed. In addition, swallowing pills would never satisfy a healthy hunger.

The last meal is after your day (if you have a short or "normal" nine-to-five work day). This meal gets pushed aside, pushed away or pushed out all together when some people have later and even more demanding schedules. Many of these people will eat a huge meal at the end of the day, if he or she goes to bed right away, it is even less healthy. But "fasting" all day and then consuming huge portions of food will confuse the body. To put it simple, gorging once daily will not help anyone loose weight.

Then, of course, there all the people who have the opposite problem, they have (as Mother once told me) one meal a day . . . all day long. You do not have to be unemployed, a stay-at-home mom, or depressed to be eating this kind of all day meal. Often, a person who eats all day will eat unhealthy foods. Eat all day. This is a mixed kind of eating habit it can be defined as neither good nor bad without the details. The conditions are simple: What do you eat? How much do you eat? How frequently are you eating? How consistently?

If someone keeps a bag of chips or a box of cookies in their desk drawer, or beside their computer, and runs back and forth from the vending machine drinking regular sodas all day he or she is definitely worse-off. Don't let that little welcoming bowl of caramels invite your fingers in all day. Your blood sugar levels will rise, but then blood sugar levels will drop again quickly when you are snacking on sweets. Carbohydrates allow a little more time, but proteins will keep the body from needing more food much more efficiently. In other words, you won't need (or feel the need) to eat again for longer.

Any meats will do, but healthier choices for a protein source are things like beans, chicken, and tuna. Of course, it is a great idea to keep protein bars with you at the office, (or wherever you work and / or study) but crackers are better than chips, fruit instead of cookies etc. Small steps are very important for your health.

If you just need something to munch on, there are healthy foods with virtually no fats and / or sugars that you can eat. Or just begin with something other than candy, cake or fries for goodness sake, now that we know so much about health and diet. Any habits are hard to break, but when it comes to your health . . . it is very important to try.

The biggest catch is that you should be eating the right foods, and another (though not as important) variable is when you eat your meals. Many people have a "cut-off" time, after which he or she will not eat anything, because one's metabolism slows when one is sleeping, which means that the body will retain more fats and calories.

But what foods should you eat? This varies a little bit, of course, from individual to individual. There are considerations, however, that will alter your personal diet such as allergies to certain foods and your needs for more or less of a specific kind of food. For example: if you are anemic, you will need more proteins. If you are very active you will need more carbohydrates and / or electrolytes.

If you are a candidate for a diabetic condition, please be careful. Diabetes is an unfortunate disease (of course, virtually all are) to avoid it is very important - and often risk can be determined by genetics, or, family history. No individual nutrient, dietary supplement or kind of healthy food you like includes all of the nutrition the body needs. Therefore, you should eat a variety of foods (diabetic potential, or condition, or neither) containing the balance of nutrients we need. Here are four basic examples are carbohydrates, fats, fiber, and proteins - not to mention additional vitamins and minerals from natural produce, dietary supplements, vitamins, etcetera.

Carbohydrates provide energy and most importantly, they will replenish the energy you burn if you have an active life. Fat is a nutrient that your body can not do without. Nonetheless, fats are virtually universally known to be bad if taken in excess. You must be sure to consume enough fats, but you must also be sure to not consume too many fats. Fiber is very important, it will help to lower blood glucose (or blood sugar) levels and help keep the digestive tract cleaner and, it will work more efficiently. Protein is essential for growing in general, including the continued strengthening and function of the vital organs.

The good news for you if you are an all day eater is that nutritionists often recommend that someone (especially someone who wants to loose weight) eat five or six small meals during the day as opposed to the regular, traditional three meals a day. Doing so will help you maintain portion control. In other words, you will naturally eat smaller portions because your stomach will be smaller (literally) you will become full more quickly, and you will not get as hungry between meals.

Anne Clarke writes numerous articles for websites on gardening, parenting, fashion, and home decor. Her background includes teaching, gardening, and fashion. For more of her useful articles for new mothers, please visit breastisbest.com, supplier of high quality Breast Feeding Pumps and Breast Feeding Clothes.

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Eating Six Times a Day For Optimal Fat Loss

One of the most basic nutrition techniques used to expedite fat loss is eating small, frequent meals throughout the day. The effect of eating six portioned meals every 2-3 hours is so beneficial, yet so many people trying to drop body fat are completely oblivious to the concept of meal frequency.

Eating six times a day will make you much less hungry, will give you more energy, and will greatly increase fat loss all while eating a calorie restricted diet. It takes tons of discipline and a commitment to planning, but if you can successfully incorporate this technique it into your nutrition plan, you will surely see some amazing results.

To further understand the benefits (and challenges) of eating six times a day, let's first take a look the common meal frequency of most people and why it can severely cripple the results of any fat loss nutrition plan.

How most people eat...

Most people eat no more than 3 times during a day. Sometimes people only eat twice (usually because they skip breakfast). A not too unusual eating day for many is a modest sized lunched followed many hours later by an extravagantly large dinner with maybe a couple servings of dessert and/or junk food right before bed.

To understand why this is such as bad thing, first you must wrap your head around an interesting facet of your body's adaptive metabolic process. When you eat really large meals, your body has little ability to process the large intake of calories all at once and the majority of each meal gets stored as fat (as energy reserves). After a large meal your blood sugar is also spiked greatly, but then comes down to a normal level quickly. After a few more hours of not eating you blood sugar drops to a low level, so you begin to feel lethargic and often you start feeling very hungry again.

Now when you combine this sort of an eating routine with a "calorie restricted diet" the results can be disastrous. Since you are eating a less amount of calories very infrequently, your body's blood sugar levels are low almost the entire day. You feel extremely lethargic and extremely hungry almost all the time. To counteract this, your body gradually falls into a "starvation mode" where the entire metabolic process slows down substantially. Instead of burning fat, your body protects it as a vital energy reserve and burns other sources of fuel (like your muscle tissue) in much larger proportion.

What your left with is a diet that puts you through periods of extreme lethargy and great bouts of hunger and a body that has decreased metabolism and a glaring inefficiency at burning fat. Yikes.

Why you should eat six times a day...

Now compare that to what happens when you eat six portioned meals throughout the day. When you eat this way, your body is constantly being fed the nutrients it needs, and your blood sugar level will remain relatively constant throughout the day . When this happens, your energy levels stay high all the time, and your hunger is thoroughly minimized.

Also, since you are not feeling the effects of a dreaded metabolic decrease from "starvation mode" your metabolism stays at a very high and efficient level. With your meals small and portioned, virtually all of the calories you intake are being used to support your body's processes with very little, if any at all, being stored as extra fat.

The result is a nutrition plan that has transformed your body into a efficient, well-oiled fat burning machine.

The challenges of eating six times a day...

Now, even though eating six times a day sounds great, there are plenty of challenges you'll have to deal with. Here's an outline of some major hurdles you'll face when developing a daily six-meal plan:

1) Eating Correctly:

The first challenge is to eat properly. Even though spreading out your meals is great for your metabolism, you still have to make healthy choices and eat less calories than you burn in a day. Don't think eating frequently is a pass that lets you go through the McDonald's drive thru six times daily.

Also, don't eat too little six times a day and think you can get away with it either. If you eat too little, no matter how frequently you eat, you can still get hit with the ill effects of "starvation mode". The goal is to put your body in a state of *slight* caloric deficiency for optimal fat loss.

2) Eating Every 2-3 Hours:

The second challenge is to actually physically eat every 2-3 hours, This can be a pretty difficult task for some. For people who travel a lot, or those that have hectic work schedules, it may even seem impossible. The key is in planning. What you should do is prepare your meals ahead of time, either daily or weekly (so go buy a bunch of plastic food containers).

Now, don't think you have to prepare six fulls meals a day either. Protein shakes, meal replacement powders/drinks, and protein/travel bars can be substituted in for regular meals as needed. In fact, usually I only eat 3 regular meals a day, with 3 "substituted" meals in between. These substituted meals are also great because they are quite travel friendly, so use them to your advantage and make your life easier.

3) Normalize Sleeping:

The next challenge is to create regular sleep patterns. You need to setup your sleeping routine so you have enough time to eat six times a day. Your body's metabolism is the lowest when you are sleeping, so make sure you're not snoozing more than 8 hours a night. This keeps your metabolism up and gives you plenty of time to eat all of your meals. If you find it difficult to get your sleeping habits normalized, try taking short naps throughout the day (in between meals) as needed.

And while we're on the topic of sleeping. I'd like to point out that an advanced fat loss technique when eating six times a day is to make sure your last meal of the day is no later than 3 hours before you go to bed (and that the ratio of carbs in this meal are cut drastically). This helps make sure your final meal doesn't get stored as fat during your slowed down nighttime metabolism.

4) Social Pressure:

Finally, the last challenge you'll face when fueling your body constantly throughout the day is social pressure. It's quite absurd, but it's something you're going to have to deal with over and over again.

The issue is that most people, as mentioned before, stuff themselves only 2 or 3 times a day. So if you are out eating with friends or relatives, usually they're going to look at you crazy when you fill your plate with only a 300-400 calorie portion. They'll make remarks, they may ask you why you are on some "crazy diet", they may even make fun of you (especially true if you're a guy). If you're in the most unlucky situation, with Mom or Grandma cooking, they may even insist aggressively that you "need to eat more".

Dealing with these situations constantly can be exhausting. Of course, you need to have a tough skin and not budge an inch.

Sometimes when I'm put in these situations, to combat the pressure I'll just just give an explanation ("I just ate 2 hours ago, I'm not that hungry") or sometimes i'll challenge people directly ("I'm actually not on some diet, I'm just eating every 2 to 3 hours to stay fit. You should try it, eating like you are right now is very unhealthy").

Or sometimes, if I'm not in the mood to deal with it, I just let the comments go in one ear and out the other. Whatever strategy you choose, just remember you'll be faced with this situation a lot, so you should anticipate it (and not get too emotional when it happens).

Now go do it...

So as you can see, eating six meals a day has some amazing benefits and it will allow you to burn fat much more efficiently and more comfortably.

Remember though, it's hard and you'll still have to eat correctly and then overcome the challenges of preparing six meals a day by planning ahead. You'll also need to get your sleeping habits in check. Finally, you'll need to be supremely confident in yourself, so that nothing, even undue social pressure could knock you off track.

So with that said, what are you waiting for? It's time to eat!.

CK Clark is renowned fitness author and founder of [http://www.bestmuscleprograms.com] which provides updated fitness advice and reviews of the top muscle building programs.

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