Weight Loss Blog

Have you ever had a quick meal only to get an upset stomach a short time later? You think that maybe you had some bad food, but maybe it was the way you ate your food.

Digestion starts when you put the food into your mouth. The salvia glands of the mouth secrete digestive enzymes that start the digestive process. The teeth of the mouth were designed to tear apart and grind large pieces of food into smaller pieces, so the gastric enzymes of the salvia and stomach can quickly break up the food into different components that the body can use. This first step of chewing aids the stomach the most when hard to digest protein, such as meats, are eaten.

Another problem with eating your meal quickly is the tendency to overeat. As you know overeating leads to being overweight, which leads to many health problems.

It takes about 10 - 20 minutes for your brain to recieve the "full stomach" signal from the body. During that time if you are shoveling in the food and gluping it down at a fast rate, you easily pass the limit of food that your stomach can comfortably hold. The end result: a big load of undigestive food sitting in your stomach that takes forever to digest. Add in the bloated stomach feeling with the extra strain placed on the stomach to digest all the food , then try to concentrate on doing work. A great plan for a disastrous time.

Taking time to chew your food will not only help with digestion and weight control, but aids in having a calmer mind for work after eating.

Supper is an important meal. It is the last meal of the day before your sleep time. Your body will need food to help repair itself and carry out normal body processes. That’s doesn’t mean you need to load up on the food. You wouldn’t be needing food for activity such as done during working hours. But you don’t want to skip on the quality of the food. You still need to eat a balance meal.

It is best to eat at least two hours before going to sleep. That will give the body time to digest most of the food. This will help you to sleep better. When sleeping your body’s systems slows down, making it a longer time for the food to be in your stomach. For some people, this prolong stomach time can cause problems.

Try to include mostly starches in the meal. Meat is a protein, which takes longer time to digest. You don’t need to exclude meat,  just don’t eat a lot.  Sugar will give you an energy boost, which defeats the idea of calming down before sleeping. Don’t make this the biggest meal of the day. Most of your food needs to be eaten during the day so you will have energy for daily work.

Health care includes healthy eating. With a little planning, you can eat three healthy meals a day. Once you get in the three meal routine , you will  function better at work and manage your overweight problem easier.

Lunch skipping is not an option. Your body needs to be refueled just like any other machine. When you run out of gas, does your car work? So why do you think your body doesn’t need fuel(food) to function properly? It is healthier to feed your body every 3 to 4 hours during your time of work. If the body has regular feeding times, the body wouldn’t slow down to conserve energy.

Have you ever noticed that when you are tired, you can get a quick pick up feeling by eating? Your body works in a way to help protect you. When food is scarce for the body, it will slow down to save on using up the food it has. That way the food will last longer and you don’t starve.

People go all day without eating,  thinking they can eat a small amount at night, but once they start to eat, they just seem unable to stop.  Which results in a weight gain instead of the expected weight lose. This type of behavior is known as binge eating. The guilt from all this eating causes the person to skip breakfast and maybe even lunch and supper which causes the binge eating at night again. This causes stress to the system.

The feast or famine eating causes the body to react in a confused way. There will be a surge of energy after the eating, but the energy fades as the body reacts to not having the food supply replenished. The person becomes tired and moody, not able to cope very well with a work situation. The unseen danger is what affect is this having on the person’s body?  It could lead to getting sick at a later time for no apparent reason.

The correct way to handle an overeating problem when you need to cut back on your food, is to plan to eat a set amount of food; divided into three separate groups, one to be eated at each of the three meal times. So you will have a part  for breakfast, part for lunch and the last part for supper. This will give the body a timed supply  of food throughout the day and not cause the body to use the starvation mode while decreasing your food intake. This is a less stressful way to reduce your food intake.

Starving your body only leads to binge eating which is unhealthy and uncontrollable. Eating three meals a day is the best way to maintain a healthy and an efficent working body, while losing weight and not causing body stress.