Eat Often! Part 1

My previous post leads into this one regarding the acronym for 8 Simple Changes. Today we are talking about the E in DIET. As you can tell by my husband’s schedule, eating often – as in 3 meals and 2 snacks spaced evenly throughout the day – isn’t possible for him. However, the eating at regular intervals is important to forcing the metabolism to work the way it should.

Any ‘popular’ diet program out there – the TV infomercial types – are all based around 2 things: Eating 3 meals/ 2 snacks AND Portion control. The overall concept WORKS. However, the reason most people can’t stay at their achieved healthy weight after getting off the program is because it’s all done for them. The food (with the exception of WW) comes to them prepackaged. They don’t have to think about the amount. Just open the box, pop it in the microwave and eat. Doesn’t that sound YUMMY? WW teaches you about ‘points’. And while you’re dedicated to the program when you’re paying for it every week, some of that dedication goes by the wayside when it’s no longer costing anything. It’s just easier to eat what you want.

What if you could eat almost all the foods you enjoy and still be healthy? Doesn’t that sound like a plan you could LIVE with? It is as easy as eating EVERY THREE HOURS and in CORRECT PORTIONS.

I’ll give you Part 2 tomorrow. In the mean time, I want you to focus on eating every three hours. Note what time you wake up on a regular basis. If you tend to wake up whenever, rethink the whole alarm thing. Getting up at 6 or 7 is a good place to start your day. Then plan to eat within a HALF AN HOUR of getting up. Get that metabolism going! Then map out your day to eat every three hours. Breakfast, mid morning snack, Lunch, mid afternoon snack, Dinner. If you’ve been really good, treat yourself to a 50-cal. snack at the end of the day. Set a timer if you have to. But remember to eat SOMETHING HEALTHY throughout the day.

And the Journey continues…