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Slim down faster

Why is it that you don't lose more weight if you skip meals? Wouldn't this keep the calories down?

From: Christie, New Wales

If you take in less calories than you burn off, you will lose weight and skipping a meal or two would reduce the number of calories for the day, so one should lose weight. This works in theory, but not very well in practice.

Healthy meal pattern to slim down faster

It may look confusing, but there are a number of reasons why skipping does not help with weight loss.

  1. When food supplies are scarce, our bodies change their metabolism and try to protect the fat stored. Skipping meals makes your body go into starvation mode and makes more difficult to drop pounds.
  2. Most people that skip a meal end up taking more calories than the ones missed because they overdo between meal snacks or eat far too much the next meal.

Skipping meals makes very difficult to keep energy levels so we need a lift and it is very difficult not to snack. The second obstacle is that when we are very hungry, we tend to eat too fast, therefore we overstep the limit long before the body signals it is full.

A lot of people snack on pretzels or chips while surfing the Web. A wiser choice would be air-popped popcorn, less than a fifth of the calories and no fat.

Research has proved that the people more successful at loosing weight and keeping it off eat breakfast lunch and dinner.

Create a regular eating routine and keep at it. This is the best way to control appetite, avoid cravings and slim down fast as your body will not resist your weight loss efforts. Try to find a pattern that suits your lifestyle.

If there is a change you could make is eating a hearty lunch and a small dinner. People that make lunch their main meal tend to be slimmer than those that eat big dinners. Not only metabolism is more efficient during the day, but there is little opportunity to be active late in the evening, so there is no chance to burn off those hearty dinners.

Choose your snacks wisely. Choose whole grains for your snacks as they are high fiber. Once again, research has revealed that people who snack on high fiber cereals feel lighter but report increased energy levels and clear thinking.