Skipping meals seems like a natural way to lose weight,especially since we’ve all heard that to lose weight, you need to take in less calories than you burn. It’s actually not that simple. When you skip just one meal, your body panics and turns on a stress response through the sympathetic branch of your nervous system called the “fight or flight” system. This response tells your body that it is in a life-threatening situation. Your body then responds to this alarm by telling your liver to release stored sugar from your liver (in the form of glycogen) to raise your blood sugar.  In response, your pancreas releases insulin to help balance out your blood sugar. When skipping meals or eating too many carbohydrates ( or in the absence of protein and fat) this stress response is turned on over and over again causing you to become insulin resistant which causes more and more calories to be stored in fat cells. Any time you miss a meal your body increases the release of fat storing enzymes. When this happens, the amount of fat burning enzymes are decreased. Remember, if your body is in a stress response, the last thing it will want to do is lose weight. It’s going to hold on to whatever energy it gets, because it doesn’t know when the next meal is coming to replenish it’s fuel.    

The key to losing weight is to keep your blood sugar balanced, to eat the right proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrates for your biochemical needs, to maintain a level of physical activity that is right for you, and to have a system in place to manage the stressors in your life that are affecting your body. To learn more about how your nutrition and lifestyle are affecting your health and may be preventing you from reaching your wellness goals, our Wellness 101 Workshop is a great place to start.  Always feel free to call us for a complimentary phone consult. Our goal is to always help you help yourself.