Weight Loss Timing Is Everything – Part 1

When you’re on the road to life-long fitness, the two most
critical variables to control are exercise and nutrition. Some
fitness experts argue that true fitness is 50% regular exercise
and 50% nutrition. Others in the field believe that it’s more of
an 80/20 split: 80% nutrition and 20% exercise. Either way,
there’s virtually nobody out there contradicting the basic truth
that regular exercise and sound nutrition will pay huge
dividends. What we don’t hear so much about, however, is the
timing behind exercise and nutrition.

To really rocket our fat-loss results into the stratosphere, we
absolutely must consider not only what we do, but when we do it.

Today’s topic is “When should we eat?” The obvious answer is
“When we’re hungry!” But is that the right answer? How about
“When food is in the room with us!” Is that the right answer?
One more try: We should eat “When we get a chance.” Surely
that’s the right answer!

Nope, nope, and nope. It’s a sad but true fact that eating at
the wrong time of the day can undermine our fat loss efforts. To
get the most ‘bang for our food buck’ we need to be scheduling
our meals.

RULE #1: To maximize our ‘eating timing’ we should all be
consuming 5-6 small meals each day. The old ’3 squares a day’
just doesn’t work anymore. Eating frequent small meals each day
allows us to control our blood sugar and insulin levels, and
thus our energy levels. Many small meals (instead of 3 big
meals) allows us to get our daily protein in manageable amounts
throughout the day, which in turn minimizes the storage of body
fat.

Consider this: the recommended amount of protein per day is 50
grams (for the average American). Sally eats some protein (about
8.33 grams) with every meal throughout the day. Sally is eating
a small meal about every three hours. Her blood sugar remains
fairly constant, which keeps her energy level fairly constant.
Bubba, on the other hand, eats his 50 grams of protein all at
one time by chowing down on a porterhouse steak with dinner.
Both people had the RDA of protein. Who do you think is storing
more fat?

RULE #2: Eat breakfast. The biggest mistake most of us make
(nutritionally speaking) is going far too long between meals.
How many of us skip breakfast? Think about it: when we wake up
in the morning we’ve already been on at least a 6 hour fast
(‘break’ the ‘fast’…..get it?). If we skip breakfast we’ve
extended that fast from 6 to 12 hours. What’s the danger? When
we eat infrequently, our body may think it is starving.

Make no mistake about it: the body is a wonderful system that
scientists still do not fully understand. When the body senses
danger (in this case, starvation) it takes whatever steps it can
to protect itself and preserve life. We know this to be true by
considering the body’s response to freezing: blood is pulled in
from the extremities (fingers, toes) so that the vital organs
are kept warm. The body protects itself. How about the body’s
response to physical danger: adrenaline is released and every
sense goes on high alert. Again, the body will attempt to
protect itself.

How does this relate to eating breakfast every day and eating
many small meals throughout the day? Well, when our body
perceives a starvation situation, it will do whatever it can to
protect itself. When we eat infrequently our entire endocrine
system is thrown out of whack. The body may release hormones to
help it store fat and use alternative sources of fuel (muscle).
That’s the last thing we want, but it’s often what we get. If,
by eating randomly, we tell our body that it may not get fuel
for a long time, then the body will adapt by storing whatever it
can for as long as it can. So eat breakfast and ‘break’ the
‘fast’.

RULE #3: Rule #3 is to NOT take Rules #1 and Rule #2 to
extremes. When presented with this information, some of us will
invariably use it as an excuse to double our calorie
consumption. Admit it, some of us were thinking “Wow! I can eat
twice as often = I can eat twice as much!”. Wrong.

The proper way to move from 3 meals per day to the recommended 6
meals per day is to eat 1/2 as much at each meal. The key is
that total calorie consumption must remain the same.

If we eat what we’ve always eaten, but spread it throughout the
day, we will see (and feel) the difference almost immediately.

RULE #4: We must eat for what we’re about to do, not for what we
just did. Before we eat anything, we should be asking ourselves
“What are we about to do in the next three hours?”

If the answer is ‘take a nap’ or ‘watch television’, then our
meal should be lower in carbohydrates and calories. Carbs are
primary source of energy for the body, so if we’re not going to
need a lot on energy in the next three hours we shouldn’t
consume a bunch of energy-producing foods (carbs).

Let’s say we’re all going to mow our lawns at 3:00 pm tomorrow.
Our reward is an ice cream cone from Cold Stone Creamery. Are we
better off eating the ice cream before we mow the lawn, or after
we mow the lawn? That’s where most of us go wrong. If we know
we’re going to eat the ice cream anyway, we’d do ourselves a
favor to have it before the lawn-mowing job. That way the
calories and carbs would have a chance to be burned as fuel
instead of stored as fat.

Again, the body is very efficient at what it does. After we eat
something, anything, there’s a window of about 3 hours where
those calories are “put away”. Some is stored as glycogen for
near-future use. Some is stored as fat. If we’re just sitting on
the sofa, those calories are more likely to be stored as fat.

On the other side of the coin, which of our 6 meals should be
lowest in calories? That’s right: the meal closest to bedtime.
Why consume a big huge batch of calories when all we’re going to
do is lay in bed and sleep? Most of us don’t need all that
energy to sleep.

CONCLUSION: What have we learned? That it’s not enough to simply
watch what we eat…..but we also need to watch when we eat. As
the old saying goes, timing is everything, so let’s use it to
our advantage!

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