Skipping Meals and Weight Loss To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn. You might be tempted to skip meals in an effort to reduce the number of calories you consume, but this strategy rarely works. The simplest, safest and most effective way to lose weight is to make small lifestyle changes and to keep them for the long term. Effects of Skipping Meals When you skip a meal, you may immediately reduce the number of calories that you consume in a given period, but this often backfires. You are likely to become so hungry that you compensate for the missing calories by snacking more than normal or by binging the next time you eat, causing you to eat more calories than you reduced by skipping the meal. Skipped meals can also cause irritability and shakiness due to excessive hunger. Starvation Mode If you can sustain your efforts at skipping meals for more than a few days, your body may go into "starvation mode." This means it responds to the sudden lack of calories by conserving energy. Your metabolism may temporarily slow down, making it even harder to lose weight. The best way to keep your metabolism running smoothly and to avoid starvation mode while dieting is to eat meals and snacks regularly. How to Lose Weight Instead of skipping meals, begin writing down exactly what you eat and drink. Use a calorie counter book to determine how many calories each food contains, and write those down, too. After several days, look over your list and see where you can cut some calories. You might substitute fresh fruit for a mid-afternoon candy bar, for example, or cut out the soft drink at dinner and replace it with water. If you cut 500 calories per day, or 3,500 calories per week, you should lose about 1 lb. weekly, which is a safe rate of weight loss. Burn More Calories In addition to cutting the calories you consume, increase your physical activity to burn even more calories. Going for a walk before breakfast, taking the stairs instead of the elevator in your office building, or kicking a soccer ball around with the kids after dinner are all ways to build exercise into your daily routine. If, in addition to cutting 500 calories per day from your diet, you also burn 500 calories through exercise, you should lose close to 2 lbs. per week.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:35:55 +0000
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