Like many moms with young children, I used to eat snacks
regularly, twice a day or whenever my children needed one. At the time I was eating every 2-3 hours,
even when I didn’t feel hungry. I was
eating to prevent myself from reaching to a state of dizziness and
shakiness. Since my grandfather used to
feel shaky if he became too hungry, I thought that was genetic even though in
the back of my mind I knew something was wrong. Besides, I heard recommendation that people should eat every 2-3
hours to keep their metabolism going, so I just keep on snacking away.
After I paid more attention to my diet and added in exercise
regime to my life, my fasting blood sugar was out of the danger zone, lowering
from 102 to the mid-80s. I experience less and less shakiness after 4
hours of not eating. Then I read some
information from Dr. Ritamarie about meal spacing, arguing against eating every
2-3 hours, http://drritamarie.com/blog/2013/08/06/the-myth-behind-small-frequent-meals-encore-presentation/ I learned that by snacking every 2-3 hours,
you are causing insulin in your blood stayed elevated all the time because they
are needed to transport the blood glucose from the food that you eat to your
cells. When your insulin is elevated,
your growth hormones are inhibited. Why
is that undesirable? Well, your growth
hormones are in charge of burning fat, repairing your body, and building lean
muscles after exercise. With insulin running
wild in your blood, you won’t go far with your exercise and weight loss
plan.
Just as with the multitude of conflicting information we
read online regarding health, I was confused and not sure whether to snack or
not. It would be easy for me to keep on
snacking because…. who doesn’t like to snack, right? Yet, I want to do what’s necessary to take good care of my
body. Then I recalled when my mom
visited us in the summer, I was surprised to find out that she didn’t snack at
all. She eats 3 meals a day and that is
that. There is no mid morning snack or
afternoon snack. Looking back to my
childhood, I remember that I only ate one snack a day and that was after
school, before dinner was ready, because our dinner usually didn’t start until
7pm. Even during high school year, the
so called “teenage growth spurt” period, I don’t remember ever having snacks at
school. I guess we had big meals so
there was no need to snack anytime of the day.
In the end, I decide to listen to my body and Dr. Ritamarie. I try not to eat if I don’t feel hungry and,
therefore, lengthen the time in between eating to 4-5 hours. I eat bigger lunch than I used to so I don’t
need to eat until 6 pm. If I want to
eat out of boredom, I do a quick round of exercise (yoga stretching or
bodyweight exercise). That usually
takes away my craving for snacks. What
do you think, snack or no snack?
