There is a popular misconception that metabolism requires constant meals every 2 ½ to 3 hours or it will slow down. Popular theories claim that waiting too long between meals puts your body into “starvation mode” and will resist burning fat for fear that the next meal may never come. In reality, metabolism actually has nothing to do with the frequency of meals. Waiting longer than 3 hours between meals can actually be very beneficial to the body.
It actually takes about 3 hours to digest your food. So if you eat a meal every 2 to 3 hours your body will always be in the process of digesting food. Nutritionists call this the “fed state”. If you wait 3 to 5 hours (or even longer) between meals, you enter what is called the “post-absorptive state”. This state will actually continue up to 12 or 18 hours after a meal. By entering this state you tap into your body’s stored energy reserves and switch from fat storing mode to fat burning mode. By staying in the post-absorptive state deliberately, you actually decrease free radical damage, reduce inflammation, promote anti-aging hormones, and encourage tissue repair. Your metabolic rate remains unchanged.
Many claim that small, frequent meals help to keep your blood sugar steady. This is true. It actually keeps your blood sugar steadily high. This is actually an unnatural state because your blood sugar is meant to fluctuate throughout the day. It rises after you eat food to assist with digestion and conversion of food energy into glucose, and drops back down to baseline as glucose is taken up by the cells to be used as energy or stored for future use. Having blood sugar fall to baseline and stay there for a longer period actually protects you from developing diabetes. Of course, it is possible for blood sugar to be too low (hypoglycemia). For the vast majority of people, managing blood sugar isn’t about blood sugar levels that are too low, it is much more about making sure it isn’t too high. It is very easy to achieve high levels of blood sugar if you eat a lot of sugary beverages, sweets, white bread, and other refined carbohydrates. This causes your blood sugar to go very high very fast.
The higher the spike in blood sugar level, the more uncomfortable the plunge afterwards. If you have headaches, fatigue and other discomfort every time you go more than 2 or 3 hours without eating, the problem is probably not that your blood sugar is too low, it is that it is consistently too high. This typically can cause you to turn to eating again to relieve the discomfort. By doing this, you undoubtedly keep your blood sugar high and you’re definitely in danger of eventually developing type 2 diabetes.
In order to avoid problems related to blood sugar levels, to protect against diabetes, and to achieve effective fat burning, eat foods that contain less sugar and more fiber, protein and fat. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains etc. These foods make your blood sugar rise slower. It is ok to be hungry sometimes. You have to let your body get out of the “fed” state so that you can get more used to the sensation.
If you want to burn fat, try a safe substance like a thermogenic or lipotropic fat burner. Thermogenic fat burners will increase your metabolism and help you burn fat faster, even while you sleep. Lipotropic Fat Burners increase your body’s metabolism to burn fat too, and also aid you in removing or transporting fat out of your body.
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