Eat Often To Lose Weight
Sunday, May 25, 2008
You'd be surprised at the looks I get when I say this.
No seriously, it's true.
I have written about this very important fact a few times, and one of them is, conveniently, here. Yeah I did the hard work for you so you can go ahead and click on that link.
Recently I was talking to a female friend. She's stick skinny at 45kg standing at 160cm tall, and she keeps saying she's FAT, and needs to lose weight. So I told her - eat more often to lose weight (although she doesn't need to. She looks fine. Beginnings of anorexia nervosa, maybe?). Can you imagine the immediate response? Naturally, the usual, misguided "noo I have to stop eating! I cannot eat lunch anymore! Must skip! Drink milo at most!".
She thinks she's fat because her size S dresses were starting to get "tight". Man, she buys clothes at the teenager section, of course they'll be "tight"!
Yeah, she's the weird sort that would rather starve and "look beautiful" than to really get into a good and healthy diet and be free from ever worrying about being fat again.
Look, I don't want to nag, but "eating less" actually makes you get fat FASTER. I wrote about it in the previous entry which I linked above. In short, your body goes into survival mode since "food is hardly coming in anymore", thus every scrap that comes in has a priority to be stored as FATS instead of being burnt as fuel if you don't require it.
Eating more often doesn't mean eating more in quantity. You just eat more times a day, but if you ration out your portions, you can end up eating the same AMOUNT per day as you usually do. Eating more often also has the small effect of triggering your digestion to start working, thus burning up some calories.
The main point of eating more often is this - you are telling your body that food is in PLENTIFUL SUPPLY, and it does not have to keep everything coming in as "fats" anymore. If food is bountiful, it'll burn whatever is required and only store the excess as fats. If you're on a "eat less" diet, then everything coming in is prioritized as storage as fats, and only using up whatever is required to burn for the day's activities.
The key is to eat more frequently, not more quantity.
Now, this part only tells the body that it can stop keeping food as fats. Now, how do you lose the fats already in your body?
To lose weight, there's no escaping the fact you need to burn calories. Eating more often but reducing your total daily amount from normal, plus exercising, creates a calorie deficit. When the body runs out of food to burn as fuel, it'll go into the fat storage to burn those. If you are trying to lose weight, you have to exercise.
Many people advocate cardio workouts, ie treadmill, running etc. Personally I hate cardio so I do circuit training, ie doing some exercises like push ups, sit ups, weights, and rotate among the various exercises for about 30 to 45 mins. The heart rate is up just like doing cardio, and it's not boring, because I'm changing exercises every 3 to 5 minutes. Doing 6 exercises (for different parts of the body), each for 5 minutes, already takes up 30 minutes. Trust me, time flies when you're not bored on the treadmill. You don't even need to keep looking at your watch or clock to see "how much longer I need to be on this treadmill".
Final word to women - you are NOT fat if you are not over 55kg at standing at 160cm. If you're 45kg, you're probably even underweight. "Fat" is all in YOUR MIND. Don't fear to weigh yourself. If you don't weigh yourself and think you're 50kg when you're actually 40kg, you'll starve yourself to death. And all for the sake of "looking beautiful".
Here's a secret - men don't like SKINNY women ok? Men like women with curves. Skinny women have no curves. Therefore men don't really like you if you're stick thin and still want to lose weight.
No seriously, it's true.
I have written about this very important fact a few times, and one of them is, conveniently, here. Yeah I did the hard work for you so you can go ahead and click on that link.
Recently I was talking to a female friend. She's stick skinny at 45kg standing at 160cm tall, and she keeps saying she's FAT, and needs to lose weight. So I told her - eat more often to lose weight (although she doesn't need to. She looks fine. Beginnings of anorexia nervosa, maybe?). Can you imagine the immediate response? Naturally, the usual, misguided "noo I have to stop eating! I cannot eat lunch anymore! Must skip! Drink milo at most!".
She thinks she's fat because her size S dresses were starting to get "tight". Man, she buys clothes at the teenager section, of course they'll be "tight"!
Yeah, she's the weird sort that would rather starve and "look beautiful" than to really get into a good and healthy diet and be free from ever worrying about being fat again.
Look, I don't want to nag, but "eating less" actually makes you get fat FASTER. I wrote about it in the previous entry which I linked above. In short, your body goes into survival mode since "food is hardly coming in anymore", thus every scrap that comes in has a priority to be stored as FATS instead of being burnt as fuel if you don't require it.
Eating more often doesn't mean eating more in quantity. You just eat more times a day, but if you ration out your portions, you can end up eating the same AMOUNT per day as you usually do. Eating more often also has the small effect of triggering your digestion to start working, thus burning up some calories.
The main point of eating more often is this - you are telling your body that food is in PLENTIFUL SUPPLY, and it does not have to keep everything coming in as "fats" anymore. If food is bountiful, it'll burn whatever is required and only store the excess as fats. If you're on a "eat less" diet, then everything coming in is prioritized as storage as fats, and only using up whatever is required to burn for the day's activities.
The key is to eat more frequently, not more quantity.
Now, this part only tells the body that it can stop keeping food as fats. Now, how do you lose the fats already in your body?
To lose weight, there's no escaping the fact you need to burn calories. Eating more often but reducing your total daily amount from normal, plus exercising, creates a calorie deficit. When the body runs out of food to burn as fuel, it'll go into the fat storage to burn those. If you are trying to lose weight, you have to exercise.
Many people advocate cardio workouts, ie treadmill, running etc. Personally I hate cardio so I do circuit training, ie doing some exercises like push ups, sit ups, weights, and rotate among the various exercises for about 30 to 45 mins. The heart rate is up just like doing cardio, and it's not boring, because I'm changing exercises every 3 to 5 minutes. Doing 6 exercises (for different parts of the body), each for 5 minutes, already takes up 30 minutes. Trust me, time flies when you're not bored on the treadmill. You don't even need to keep looking at your watch or clock to see "how much longer I need to be on this treadmill".
Final word to women - you are NOT fat if you are not over 55kg at standing at 160cm. If you're 45kg, you're probably even underweight. "Fat" is all in YOUR MIND. Don't fear to weigh yourself. If you don't weigh yourself and think you're 50kg when you're actually 40kg, you'll starve yourself to death. And all for the sake of "looking beautiful".
Here's a secret - men don't like SKINNY women ok? Men like women with curves. Skinny women have no curves. Therefore men don't really like you if you're stick thin and still want to lose weight.
Labels: diet, Weightloss
