Are we feeding ourselves into being overweight?

I believed that I had to eat a certain way because all the experts told me so.  
I believed that it must be right if so many people taught this way.  

I also knew that it was not working for me.  I knew that I felt hungry all the time.  My stomach did not agree with all of the eating that I was trying to do and I felt worse when I ate more often.  I also could not maintain the weight that I wanted.
  
Eating 5 to 6 small meals each day was NOT working for me. Over a year ago to stop following this advice and do what worked for me.  

Why are we taught to eat so often and usually fed so much?

This all started in the 80’s with the low-fat food craze, processed food explosion, fast food growth and portion size changes.  This is also about the time that all of the experts started telling us to cut calories, eat low-fat and exercise more.  Then we started learning to eat small meals, more frequently to keep our metabolism high.  Interestingly, this is also the time when the American population started becoming more overweight – because we were being taught, in my opinion and according to the science, the wrong information. 

I’ve been researching, listening to experts in the fields of metabolism and weight loss resistance to learning more about metabolism, how our body functions on a cellular level, the healthiest way to eat and what the science is showing us to be fact.

I’ll be sharing with you more about what I’m learning, but for today, I just want to chat a little about how, in my opinion, eating 5 to 6 times per day is not the solution.  

The reasons that I’m sharing with you all are why I’ve been eating, for over a year now, only 3 meals per day with hardly any snacking in between.

What does eating 5 to 6 times per day do to us?

1. Contributes to dysregulation of the hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin

2. Causes us to eat more calories over the course of a day

3. Causes us to never really feel satisfied and always feel hungry

4. Decreases our metabolism over time

5. Constantly eating keeps our blood sugar elevated and insulin levels elevated – this contributes to more hormone dysregulation

6. It’s not natural for our bodies to always eat – we have to give our digestive systems time to rest during fasting time.  This is how our body naturally wants to function.  

*I’ve shared some of what I’m learning and what I’ve personally experienced in this blog post.  The content here is my personal opinion.  This content is not intended to be medical advice nor replace the care of your health care professional.  As always, consult your health care provider before making any changes to your regimen.