Why Your Body Stores Fat When You Skip Meals
Skipping meals is not a good idea, especially if you’re on a diet plan. Getting the proper nutrients and exercise are the key to all successful weight loss programs. Some people believe that skipping meals can help them lose weight. Others believe that if they skip dinner or snack instead of the dinner they will lose weight. Some people skip breakfast, or even enjoy a large breakfast then skip lunch. There are certain times where it is acceptable to fast, but it’s not generally throughout the day. Your body stores fat when you skip meals because once you have not eaten over a prolonged amount of time your body goes into starvation mode.
The fact is if your body is not getting enough nourishment throughout the day it begins storing fat. Your metabolism will actually slow down to reserve energy. You will in fact lose weight this way, however once you start eating again, the weight will come back and be stored as fat because the body has gone into starvation mode. The proper amount of times to eat daily is roughly about three meals and two snacks per day. Smaller portions are the best way to digest and metabolize things faster. Your meal should be made up of mostly fruits and vegetables and lean meats if you want to increase your metabolism.
Surely you’ve heard eating before bed is bad and will make you gain weight. (Although, not eating at all will make you gain weight and store fat.) Eating late is not a problem if you choose something small, light, and low in calories. Not eating anything for dinner leads to unhealthy late night snacking and snacking on high calorie junk foods. Some people eat a big breakfast then decide to skip lunch. Same thing with breakfast, they skip breakfast and then make up for it by having a big lunch. If you do either of these you will send your body into starvation mode, which in turn will make you store fat. If you are not hungry try having something small like a banana with a large cup of water. At least that way you are not going to skip meals, and you won’t be eating too much when you are not hungry either.
If you work at night or overnight the times and how often to eat are a little bit tricky. The worst thing you can do is to skip dinner. It’s easy to go to sleep not having dinner but then you wake up twice as hungry and eat a huge breakfast. Although it is equally bad to grab a bite to eat at the first fast food place you can find on the way home from work. Fast food no matter what meal it is, is loaded with unhealthy calories and fat. Avoid this by grabbing a healthy bowl of cereal, breakfast bar, or granola bar. If you are an overnight worker try to have something on the way home small and light in calories, that way you are not starving yourself and you will not wake up hungry. A good example of something that you could have on the way home would be an apple, banana, or some grapes.
Sometimes finding the right eating schedule can be tricky. But once you have something that works for you it is important to stick to it. When people skip meals and aren’t getting proper nutrients their body begins to store their food as fat. Fasting is acceptable only if you were to stop eating during your inactive periods at say, 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM. That means your last meal would be ending around 7 PM and you would not be eating anything before bed but instead saving your appetite for first thing in the morning when you wake up. If you did this this would not store fat in fact it has been shown in many studies to increase the production of your HGH levels. The reason skipping meals increases the storage of fat is because you need many more nutrients throughout the day, when deprived the body starts to slow down to conserve energy. So when you eat again the body is going to store that as fat for the time it needs to have energy on reserves.
