To eat, or Not to eat…..

Good question huh? Depends on who’s asking. If it’s somebody who’s trying to put on some weight and pack on a little extra muscle mass, the answer is YES. It it’s somebody who’s trying to lose some weight, or better put, reduce body fat, than the answer is still YES! Yup, you have to eat to gain and lose weight! I’ll give you a couple of reasons why, Thermic Effect of Food and increased metabolism.

Did you know that about 10% of your daily caloric expenditure comes from the Thermic Effect of Food? In other words, every time you eat, you are burning calories. Yes, your body burns calories when it is breaking down the food you eat, one of the reasons why you should chew your food thoroughly before swallowing it. So wouldn’t you want to take advantage of this more often? By eating 4-6 meals a day, you are actually burning more calories than if you only ate once or twice. It’s not an oxy-moron, it’s actually true. Now a days the majority of people (mainly Americans) tend to think they have to starve themselves in order to see that six pack that’s hidden behind that wall of fat. I blame society for all the confusion that’s out there.

When you eat more frequently (meaning more often), you increase your metabolism. On the other hand, if you only eat once or twice a day, you decrease, or slow down your metabolism. Let me use this analogy to help you visualize this better. Close your eyes…actually don’t close your eyes because then you won’t be able to finish reading this. ; ) Pretend you’re sitting at a camp fire that was just lit and it’s a pretty good size fire. In about 2 hours that fire will dwindle down, in about 3 hours it will be almost gone and in 4 hours it will be completely gone. But…if you throw some fire wood on it what will happen? Eeeeeexactly….it will spark up again!

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the fire is your metabolism and the fire wood is the food you eat (your calories). Your body works the same way. If you wait more than 3-4 hours between meals, your metabolism (the flame) slows down or decreases, but if you eat every 2-3 or 3-4 hours you are actually sparking your metabolism and increasing it.

I have another analogy for you. If you were to take a long drive somewhere and your tank was on empty, would you risk it and drive anyway? You probably wouldn’t right? Well that’s exactly what you are doing to yourself when you don’t eat frequently. If you did that to your car it would physically stop running if there wasn’t any gas to fuel it. If you don’t believe me just ask my sister! ; ) On the other hand, God designed our bodies so that we wouldn’t just stop functioning just because “we didn’t have time to eat”.

So then what happens? Well, your body will not let it starve and die so it will feed itself. How? It will go to your muscle for its nutrients. Yes, say goodbye to your hard earned muscle . See, your body stores its nutrients in the muscle, so if you don’t feed it, that’s where it’s going to go first. Another thing, if your body senses a pattern of you not eating frequently enough, when you do eat, it won’t use all of it as fuel. Instead, it will use a portion of it for fuel and store the rest as..…drumroll please…….FAT. Just think about it, would you rather have a lean piece of steak or a nice glob of fat??? Hmmmm… So If you don’t eat frequently enough your body stores what you do eat as fat and breaks down muscle tissue for fuel. So you eat less, thinking you are smarter than your body, and store MORE fat and break down MORE muscle. It’s a viscous, viscous cycle!

Now do you understand why it is so important to eat about 4-6 meals a day? WHAT and HOW MUCH you’re eating is important also but that’s a monster to tackle at another time. If you would just focus on this concept first you will definitely see improvements in how you look and feel. I recommend keeping a food log to help keep you on track.

So that’s a very brief explanation on why it is so important to be eating frequently throughout the day. I think I should mention that a “meal” doesn’t necessarily mean a 3 course meal. It can be something as small as a handfull of nuts and some fruit that you eat as a snack. So generally speaking, 3 meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and a snack in between will help your cause. This applies for you guys that are looking to put on slabs of muscle as well, you simply just have to take in a lot more calories.

I hope this was of some help. Feel free to leave a comment.

Strength be with you,

Nelson