Quick and Dirty Tips Podcasts

Episode Transcript

How Often Should You Eat?
Episode 32: February 25, 2009

Hello! This is Monica Reinagel and you're listening to The Nutrition Diva: Quick and Dirty Tips for Eating Well and Feeling Fabulous. In last week’s show, I debunked the myth that eating more frequently keeps your metabolism revved up. Not only does skipping meals not shut down your metabolism, but there may be some benefits to going a bit longer between meals.

As I explained in last week’s show, going for four or five hours—or even longer—between meals will not affect your metabolism one whit. In fact, there are some good reasons to go longer than just a few hours between meals.

It takes about three hours for your body to finish digesting a meal. If you eat every two or three hours, as many experts now advise, your body will constantly be in what nutritionists call the “fed state.” This simply means that you are always in the process of digesting food.

If, on the other hand, you don’t eat again, you’ll go into something we call the “post-absorptive” state after about three hours. Several interesting things happen in the post-absorptive state, which continues for another 12 to 18 hours if you don’t eat again.

First, you begin tapping into your body’s stored energy reserves to run your engine. Your hormone levels adjust to shift your body out of fat-storage mode and into fat-burning mode. Hanging out in the post-absorptive state also reduces free-radical damage and inflammation, increases the production of anti-aging hormones, and promotes tissue repair. And, just to reinforce what we talked about last week, your metabolic rate remains unchanged.

But what about your blood sugar?

You’ll often hear people say that eating small, frequent meals helps to keep your blood sugar levels steady. And it does: It keeps your blood sugar steadily high.

Whoever said that your blood sugar levels were supposed to remain constant throughout the day, anyway? They’re not. They are supposed to rise after meals, as food is digested and converted into glucose, and then fall back to baseline as the glucose is taken up by the cells and used for energy or stored for future use.

Having your blood sugar level fall to baseline is not bad for you! In fact, having your blood sugar closer to baseline for more of the day helps to protect you from developing diabetes. Now, of course, it is possible for blood sugar to get too low. This is known as hypoglycemia. A lot of people self-diagnose themselves with this condition, but very few of them actually have it. Diabetics using insulin or folks with a medical condition called reactive hypoglycemia need to be careful about letting their blood sugar get too low.

But for the vast majority of us, managing blood sugar levels is about avoiding the peaks, not the valleys. If you experience headaches, fatigue, and other discomfort whenever you go more than two or three hours without eating, the problem is probably not that your blood sugar has gotten too low, but that it’s been too high.

Eating a lot of sweets, sweetened beverages, white bread, and other refined carbohydrates will cause your blood sugar to go up very high, very quickly. What goes up, must come down and the higher the spike, the more uncomfortable the plunge. The easiest way to make that feeling go away is to eat again. But if you eat more of the same kinds of foods, you’re simply getting back on the same roller coaster. And that roller coaster is on a fast track to type 2 diabetes.

To get off this roller coaster, eat foods that contain less sugar and more fiber, protein, and fat. I’m talking about whole grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Your blood sugar levels will rise more slowly and gradually, making the decline far less dramatic. And you may find that you don’t need to eat every three hours in order to feel well.

A word about hunger

The biggest problem you are likely to experience is feeling hungry, and this is not as big a problem as many of us have led ourselves to believe. When you are used to always being in the fed state, you tend to panic the minute you notice that your stomach is empty.

In fact, feeling hungry is not a medical emergency. Often, if you simply wait 10 minutes, the feeling will go away. Sometimes simply having a cup of tea or a glass of water is all you'll need. Allowing your stomach to be empty for an hour or two is really not that uncomfortable if you allow yourself to get used to the sensation. It’s also the perfect time to exercise. Exercising two or three hours after you eat will allow you to get the most out of your workout and, as a bonus, usually makes hunger pangs go away.

Please understand, I’m not advising you to stop eating or to starve yourself. I’m just saying going several hours without eating is not unhealthy. In fact, it can have some health benefits.

Administrative

This is Monica Reinagel, the Nutrition Diva, with your quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous. These tips are provided for your information and entertainment and are not intended as medical advice. Because everyone is different, please work with your health professional to determine what’s right for you.

If you have a nutrition question for me or you’d like to find out about having me speak at your conference or event, send an e-mail to nutrition@quickanddirtytips.com or leave me a voice mail at 206-203-1438.

Visit nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com for a transcript of this episode, along with links to more information about today’s topic. You can get Nutrition Diva and other great shows from Quick and Dirty Tips streamed to your iPhone using a free program called Stitcher. Check it out today at Stitcher.com.

Have a great day and eat something good for me!

RESOURCES:

To snack or not to snack

What happens to your body when you fast

What is Hypoglycemia?

Comments (10) for How Often Should You Eat? | Subscribe to Comment

Nutrition Diva Says:
8/20/2009 12:16:08 PM

@ThisGuy I'm sure you HAVE found multiple articles but a lot of articles simply repeat errors from other sources. (See also my show on "who to trust for nutrition info" http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/reliable-nutrition-sources.aspx) For more details on "stored energy reserves" see this show on when to exercise: http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/burning-body-fat-with-exercise.aspx Also, you might be interested in this show on what happens when you skip meals: http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/metabolism-myths.aspx

ThisGuy Says:
8/18/2009 10:50:13 AM

So... now I'm confused. I just finished reading MULTIPLE articles saying the body increases fat storage when skipping meals and deteriorates muscle and lean tissue FIRST before fat reserves are used. What makes me skeptical is you never describe what your body's "stored energy reserves" are. Fat is the last thing to burn...

sabine Says:
5/28/2009 2:20:41 PM

you mention" Several interesting things happen in the post-absorptive state, which continues for another 12 to 18 hours if you don’t eat again. First, you begin tapping into your body’s stored energy reserves to run your engine. "... I always understood that the only a body taps into stored fats is when the heart rate is elevated enough (i.e. via aerobic training) and that prior to this, the body will eat away at available energy in the system, then resort to muscle tissue.

Deborah Says:
3/10/2009 2:07:50 PM

Good post! I am in week 2 of intermittent fasting, for 24 hours. So far it's going well, I usually do the 1pm to 1pm shift, so I'm sleeping off some of it. In 2 weeks, I've dropped 5 lbs. so I must be doing something right. That and not overstuffing the other meals. Eat, Stop, Eat by Brad Pilon is a book I'd highly recommend on this topic.

Babygurl Says:
3/1/2009 5:13:26 PM

i eat up to three or four meals a day and when i get hungry i eat a little snack like a bananas or fruit.

Crystal Ganoe Says:
2/28/2009 3:18:25 PM

Previously, I would eat three meals a day until switching to 5 smaller meals a day over the past years. I am not going to convert back to three meals. I have actually put on weight more than when I was eating less frequently.

Marcia Says:
2/25/2009 4:43:35 PM

This is great - I used to get very grumpy and quite disagreeable when I felt hungry. But since I've started eating smaller portion sizes and barely eat any sugar I never have that intense irritability anymore. I see now that I've probably stopped my sugar from plummeting. Thanks!!

Naomi Says:
2/25/2009 2:39:14 PM

I don't know if you realized it, but this is a very timely podcast for those of us who observe Lent! While Lenten fasting* is not for a physcial benefit, it's nice to have an answer for people who say, "But fasting so unhealthy!" *In case you didn't know, for Roman Catholics, "fasting" means one average sized meal and two smaller ones, with no snacks.

Lori Says:
2/25/2009 1:36:09 PM

Thanks Monica, This confirms what I've known for a long time through trial and error; years ago I was medically diagnosed as being hypoglycemic and have just figured out on my own that eating less frequently, and sticking with high protein/fat is the best for my system. (Oddly, the material I get on managing blood sugar seems always to advocate small frequent meals and too much fruit, which just goofs me up.) I long ago gave up sugar foods and noticed a huge difference almost immediately- I also found that I don't crave sugar like I used to when always eating it. I feel leaner when operating on slightly hungry all the time, rather than always full- I simply don't understand how people eat to that point of being "stuffed"- it seems so wasteful. I have more energy and sleep better if I go to bed hungry: and you're absolutely right, the hunger passes. Perhaps because I don't eat so often is why my cholesterol level is low in spite of my cheese intake?

Laura Says:
2/25/2009 11:47:21 AM

Thanks for this post. I'm a recent convert to the longer between meals camp--still working on actually doing it--and today's post provides helpful confirmation of what I've been reading elsewhere. Good stuff.