Regularly rationed, small and frequent meals are out of date? Studies have shown that in addition to balanced nutrition, the timing of eating will affect the weight loss effect.
Eating is a major event, and it is also the most accessible healing in a busy life, but I have always struggled with the curse of obesity.
Some people say that regular and quantitative, small and frequent meals will help you lose weight; some people choose to fast on the day to reduce calorie intake; some people use the “5:2 fasting method”, choose 2 days a week to consume only 500-650 calories, and eat normally on weekdays; or Canadian physicians advocate longer meal-to-meal intervals.
All kinds of hungry practices are undoubtedly trying to keep the right to eat and the body at the same time, but, the more hungry you are, the healthier you are? So many diets to lose weight, which one is right for us?
16:8 Fasting or 12 hours between breakfast and dinner to help lose weight
In fact, you can eat happily and not be afraid of getting fat, as long as you master the timing of eating, and pull out the interval between meals.
Canadian surgeon Memmert. An article on Mehmet C. Oz’s website states that a 12-hour interval between dinner and breakfast the next day can significantly reduce calorie intake and achieve weight loss.
Assuming that after dinner at 8 o’clock every night, let the stomach organs rest for 12 hours, and eating breakfast at 8 o’clock in the morning can indeed help reduce unnecessary calorie intake and promote blood sugar metabolism. The longer an empty stomach is, the more free the body will be to repair the mucous membranes of the digestive tract and make the stomach function properly.
This is a mild form of intermittent fasting that fits well with most people’s daily routines, and is suitable for most health conditions, so it’s not difficult to implement.
If you want to lose weight significantly, it is recommended to use the 16:8 fasting method – fasting for 16 hours a day and eating only for 8 hours.
According to different schedules, there are different practices. Those who go to bed late and get up late can eat the first meal at 12 noon, the second meal at 3-4 p.m., and the last meal at 8 p.m.; if they are morning people, they can be divided into Dine at 9am, 12pm and 5pm.
Doing so can prolong the time the body consumes body fat, promote the secretion of growth hormone, help fat metabolism, increase bone density, and protect muscle mass. However, this method is not suitable for everyone. Those who like to eat sugar or eat refined carbohydrates such as white rice and white noodles will be more difficult to implement. They must first establish a healthy diet pattern, otherwise they will easily fail.
However, from the perspective of clinical nutrition, “eating dinner early” is the most useful for weight loss.
The annual meeting of the American Academy of Nutrition announced a new study last year. A 12-week survey was conducted on obese women with metabolic syndrome. It was found that under the same calorie intake, people who ate early lost much faster and lost an average of 8.7 kg; On the other hand, the group who ate later only lost 3.6 kilograms. So, it is recommended not to eat 5 hours before going to bed, for example, you should finish your dinner by 7pm and go to bed by 12pm. There is no need to stress which meal to eat particularly well or more. Keeping regular and balanced nutrition is the best policy. It can maintain blood sugar stability in the long run and prevent diabetes.
What if I’m really hungry in the afternoon? Actually, let your body get used to it. If you really can’t help it, eat 1 serving of fruit, or eat more vegetables for Chinese food, and drink more water or sugar-free tea in the afternoon to let the “taste” satisfy your appetite.
There are so many kinds of fasting methods that are popular now, but not every fasting method is suitable for us to adopt.
Pick 2 days a week and only eat 600 calories? Beware of losing muscle, not fat
Take the popular “5:2 fasting method” as an example, choose 2 days out of 5 days to consume only 500-650 calories in total, eat high-fiber, high-protein, low-carb, low-fat foods, and eat normally on other days. An average meal on fasting days is only 160 calories, which is about a quarter of a bowl of rice (70 calories) + 1.5 servings of meat + completely drained and blanched vegetables.
In fact, it is difficult to achieve such a way of eating. On the one hand, the nutrition is not balanced, and on the other hand, it is difficult for us to calculate the calories we eat so finely.
As evidenced by a 2012 article in the journal Menopause, one group of obese postmenopausal women maintained a 5:2 fast, while the other group adopted reduced calorie intake. After a year, the two groups lost about the same amount of fat, but the 5:2 fasting group lost more “fat-free mass”, which is the body’s necessary muscle and bone mass, than the other group. .
The ultimate goal of losing weight is to maintain muscle mass.
If it is an alternate-day fasting method of unrestricted eating for one day and fasting for one day, the experimental results show that fat-free weight loss is faster, and 0.6 kg is lost within 3 weeks, which cannot be regarded as a safe weight loss method. A review of intermittent fasting in the journal Nutrition Reviews found similar findings.
If you do not have the correct calorie and diet concept and rashly try to fast, it is easy to overeat or eat less, malnutrition, resulting in large fluctuations in blood sugar and metabolic diseases. And if the diet is not regular, it may also be short-tempered, memory loss, weakness, headache, etc. Once you eat normally, you will gain weight sooner.
A feasible approach is a “light fasting” of less than 1,000 calories on fasting days, supplemented with vitamins and minerals to ensure adequate water intake, and implemented under the supervision of a nutritionist. Or adopt a low-calorie diet. The latest recommendation of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Nutrition is that in the state of weight loss, women consume 1200-1500 calories per day, and men 1500-1800 calories, the risk is low.
As for the small, frequent meals that everyone is familiar with, is it out of date? It has no effect on normal people who are sedentary for a long time. It must be established under the condition of strict total calorie control to allocate how many calories should be taken in each meal. It is difficult for ordinary people and it is easy to overeat.
It is not recommended for chronic patients, children, and pregnant women to fast, and do not forget to exercise
However, no matter what kind of eating or fasting method is used, it needs to be “customized”. It is best to consult a professional nutritionist first, especially diabetic patients. Their ability to regulate blood sugar is not good, and it is necessary to guard against blood sugar fluctuations caused by diet. ; It is not recommended for developing children, pregnant women or women in confinement, who have a lot of energy needs.
Master the principles of diet, don’t think that you can lose weight by lying down when you are full, be sure to match it with exercise, and pay attention to protein intake, because muscle is the key to allowing you to see the effect of weight loss faster and not gain weight.
Yang Chenghua, who has a background in sports nutrition, exhorted that the real thing that can help you lose weight effectively is muscle, and simply controlling calories will not be very effective. “The size of fat is determined by muscles, and with high muscle mass, even if you eat more at one meal, it is not easy to gain weight.” The body’s metabolic mechanism also needs the stress stimulation of exercise, so that the growth mechanism can be supported.
Even if calorie intake is reduced, Yang Chenghua appeals to maintain protein intake. Lack of protein can easily lead to muscle disintegration. On the contrary, diseases such as osteoporosis and sarcopenia will come to the door more quickly, and even lose basic daily activities and lethargy. Lose big.
Set your own diet clock, give your health and psychology time and patience to get used to it, and keeping in shape is actually not that torturous.
According to the latest international recommendations, the average adult should consume 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. Taking a 60-kg adult as an example, the recommended daily protein intake is 60 grams; healthy elderly people should consume 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight; Elderly people with chronic diseases should increase their intake to 1.2 to 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight.
Recommended reading:
Lose weight in the lower body with just one minute of core exercise a day
10 minutes a day to slim arms! You can say “goodbye” to arm flab
