Obesity
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(i) Never Skip Breakfast – Breakfast breaks the fast after about 10 hours or more since your last meal and sleep. Your stomach and spleen are at their strongest first thing in the morning. Eating substantial healthy breakfast improves your metabolism as much as 25%. On the other hand, if you skip breakfast or just have tea / coffee and a light bite, your body thinks it is “famine” and its natural reaction, as protective mechanism is to completely shut down your metabolism or slow it down to a crawl in an attempt to preserve whatever fuel reserves it contains for the future “famine”. Since basal or resting metabolic rate accounts for 60-70% of energy expenditure, it is clearly the largest form of energy expenditure to maintain healthy weight. Those who skip breakfast are also the ones likely to develop high cholesterol, high blood pressure, blood sugar problems linked to diabetes and heart diseases. Eating breakfast has been proven to improve concentration, problem solving abilities, mental performance, memory and mood, besides good health. So make it a point to eat “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper”. A healthy and fulfilling breakfast should provide your 25-30% of daily nutrient needs to keep you healthy and bubbling with energy. This will also provide you the nutrient boost and will banish your cravings to binge on high calorie weight promoting foods in the latter part of the day, which happens if you skip breakfast. So, if you have been skipping breakfast, start eating from now on, even when you don’t feel hungry. It will take you about 3 weeks to reset your hunger clock, once you begin.
(ii) Avoid Fasting and Feasting – Eat Frequently – Long gap between meals is the next biggest destroyer of metabolism. There is some evidence to suggest that eating small, more frequent meals keeps the metabolism on the right path i.e. burning calories faster than large, less frequent meals. The more frequently you eat, the more frequently your metabolism will get a boost. There are two reasons why meal frequency may improve metabolism. Firstly, the levels of thyroid hormones begin to drop within hours of eating a meal which slows metabolism. Secondly, it may be that thermogenic effect of eating several small meals is higher than eating the same amount of calories at once. So it is better to eat 5-6 small meals in a day, instead of 2-3 big meals. Also severely restricting your food intake for several hours to reduce weight is crazy as it slows metabolism. Recent studies show that eating smaller meals every 2½ – 3 hours aids metabolism and weight loss.
