Your body needs food for energy. If you are starving yourself to lose weight, your body will be lacking in the energy it needs. At that point your body will find other ways of getting that energy. In a perfect world your body would start burning fat for energy, although, this not the case for most individuals consuming the average American diet.
When you skip meals your body will start to store fat and burn muscle for energy. The body does this because it’s not sure when the next meal will come. This goes back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors who had to store fat because of their inconsistent eating habits.
It may seem counter intuitive that not eating will actually cause you to gain weight over time. This is because skipping meals not only tells your body to store fat but it also slows your metabolism. If you want to put your body in a fat burning state, you actually need to eat often and consistently. Studies have shown that eating 5 small meals throughout the day causes your body to burn fat faster as well as increasing your metabolism. This is due to the body knowing that another meal is coming soon, so it is more willing to let go of any excess rather than storing it for a “rainy day.”
At Chiropractic Plus, Dr. Ray advises his patients to eat five meals a day(Advanced Eating Plan). Two of those meals should be meal replacement protein shakes (Grass fed whey protein works best). Start by having a protein shake in between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You will immediately notice that you are not as hungry as you usually are when the next meal comes around. You can also replace a meal with a protein shake to lose weight even faster, although, he does recommend only replacing ONE of your daily meals if you decide to do so. This will help you decrease your calorie count while not sacrificing any of the nutrients.
Want to Lose Weight?
If you follow the Advanced Eating Plan it will begin to transform your metabolism. If the weight isn’t coming off fast enough- ELIMINATE SUGAR! Not only will this help with losing weight but also, sugar is a main cause of almost every disease. Sugar inside the body also helps increase inflammation which is a hot bed for cancer. That should be motivation enough to drop sugar from your diet.
If you have any questions regarding diet, you can send us an email at info@thebackdocs.com. You can also check out this event seminar on Nutrition for more info.