By Coach Shawn
Looking to lose weight? Lose body fat?
I hear you.
It can be challenging. Life’s demands, advertisements, schedules, mis-leading information.
I’d presume you’re doing the best you can with what you know.
Most people understand that to lose weight there needs to be a component of eating less total calories over time than we currently are eating.
(Fun fact it takes approximately -3500 less calories consumed to lose 1 lbs.)
However, in my experience, a classic mistake or maybe better said, misunderstanding that I’ve seen time and time again people make is skipping meals all together.
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“I don’t have time, so I’ll skip lunch.”
I get it.
In the line of thinking of “eating less” I could understand how this would make sense too.
However, in most cases it actually works against you.
How?
Enter your metabolism.
Your metabolism is how your body converts food and drinks to energy.
And you want this bad boy to be revving, not slow and sluggish.
Skipping meals slows this way down.
Prolonged meal skipping slows down your metabolism and actually makes weight loss harder.
You begin to burn less energy (fewer calories.)
Can actually (and in most cases) lead to weight gain.
Leaves us feeling sluggish, tired and weak.
What’s happening here?
When you skip meals, your body goes into starvation mode or a fasted state.
Your brain cues your body to slow down its function to conserve energy, which burns less calories.
And as a result, the weight loss that you were hoping for will slow down and you’ll actually regain weight as soon as you start eating normally again.
Another downfall is that our body can also start breaking down proteins in the form of muscle tissue.
So we become less lean (lose muscle) and store and carry more fat.
Likely not the goal.
Obvious, yet less subtle examples could be, when we don’t eat for an extended period of time that can lead us to over eating at our next meal. Or even craving unhealthy foods.
If you’re not where you want with your body, don’t feel how you want to and you’re skipping meals it may be time to reevaluate that strategy.
As it may actually be working against you, not for you.
What should I do?
Stay tuned
Tips to avoid skipping meals, Success stories and more all coming your way soon!
