One of the most common mistakes that people make when trying to lose weight and get in shape is the assumption that they need to eat like a bird to lose weight. The opposite is actually more effective and closer to the truth. If you want to lose weight you need to eat. The secret is to eat food that is nutritious, has a purpose and will keep you feeling full. Not to just eat, eat, eat all day because you heard that you had to eat to lose weight.
I always had heard and knew that most people really do not eat enough and that the food that they eat is basically crap which leads to low energy and weight gain. What I did not realize is that I was one of those people. Although I thought I was eating more than enough and in my uniformed state thought that I was eating pretty healthy neither of these was true.
When I first began my lifestyle change, armed with my nutrient goals and bagged lunch (before the days when I learned how to pre-plan and pre-pack) one of the most frustrating and shocking things to me during the first week or so of my new life was that I was not eating enough. I would pack a bag of random item, greek yogurt, string cheese, protein pancakes and lunch meat and take off for my 12 hour workday thinking I would have more than enough. As the day went on and I entered in my meals as I went, not knowing what the future held I would get home each night only to see that I still needed to eat sometimes as much as 1,000 more calories to hit my numbers for the day! Not only was I not hungry at this point I was horrified that at 9pm on a Saturday night I had to eat quite a bit more food and the majority of it needed to be protein.
A few days of getting home from work each night and scrambling to eat a lot more and figuring out how to make it work with my plan was all it took to push me into meal planning. At first I was not only frustrated but scared of eating all of that food. I felt like it was too much and there was no way that I would be able to lose weight this way. After a week or so of this I noticed something, not only was I losing weight but I was starting to feel hungry and really be able to eat all of that food no problem. My metabolism was getting fired up.
Everyone has heard that you need to eat 5 small meals a day, every few hours to keep your metabolism going. While there are a million different theories out there for how much and how often you should eat this is the rule of thumb that I use and it works well for me. By eating "small meals" this does not mean eat a string cheese for breakfast, a yogurt 3 hours later, an apple etc. Each small meal should consist of proteins, fats and carbs and should essentially be a small meal. (refer to my earlier blog for examples) When you go for extended periods of time without eating your bodys natural reaction is to think that there may not be food coming anytime soon, that it needs to prepare for starvation.
When your body begins to prepare for starvation it stops burning energy (carbs, fats, proteins) and starts hanging on to whatever it can so that you will have energy available. If you aren't eating regularly or eating enough your body is going to cling to everything it can, slowing everything else down and slowing down your weight loss in the process. If you are also participating in some kind of exercise program this is especially important. Too many people wake up, skip breakfast, go to they gym and then run errands before going home hours later and eating their first meal of the day. You may think this is going to help you lose weight, working out on an empty stomach but the opposite is true.
When you wake up in the morning you should eat to get your body going again. You have probably gone at least 5-6 hours without food by the time you wake up in the morning. If you do not eat, your body is not going to be going at 100%. Combine that with working out and then making your body wait yet again for more energy and you really didn't accomplish much by going to the gym because your body is hanging on for dear life at this point. You may say you cannot eat when you first wake up or you do not like to but I promise you that if you try it every day for two weeks you will not only love it you will wake up hungry and craving it.
There is also a fine line between eating to lose weight and using exercise as an excuse to over eat. Just because I said you need to eat to lose and you are in fact exercising does not give you a license to indulge after each workout. The common thought of, "I earned this, I ran on the treadmill, give me that pizza" isn't doing you any favors either. Use a website like myfitnesspal.com to get an approximate idea of how much you should be eating each day and PLAN PLAN PLAN. Failure to plan is not an excuse to make poor decisions and lose sight of your goals. Remember your body needs fuel to burn and if you aren't feeding it and feeding it properly you won't burn anything.
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