Eating at regular intervals and not in between
After conscious eating, the next two most important habits of successful losers are eating at regular intervals and not eating between meals. By eating at regular intervals I mean no more than four or five hours apart. Waiting longer causes excessive hunger and overeating.
The third habit, not eating between meals, is the most controversial. The reason it is the most controversial is because all through the 1990s grazing, i. e., eating continuously throughout the day, was the rage. It was so pervasively recommended in the weight loss literature that I thought it was a law of nature. When I first heard it challenged by a doctor who was giving a lecture on weight loss, I was shocked. It was as if he were challenging the law of gravity. It was his contention that grazing led to addictive eating because it was eating when not hungry. He believed grazing was a fad that would one day be invalidated and discredited.
40 million Frenchmen can’t be wrong
Forty million Frenchmen, or however many Frenchmen there are nowadays, agree with him. The French are noted for eating three square meals a day and for their trim figures. Not eating between meals is a cultural habit in France. They believe that eating between meals spoils the appetite and therefore the enjoyment of meals. And they also believe that our snacking lifestyle is a big contributor to the massive American weight gain.
Now there are studies to back up their belief. In the April 2001 issue of Prevention magazine, the cover story said, “Take 3 of these and lose as much as you want!” The 3 of the title were three meals a day. The article went on to say:
“When you snack all day, you never let yourself get hungry. And eating out of hunger is critical to successful weight lossEating when you’re not truly hungry can make you fat, according to one French study
Eat like a Frenchman. It’s no coincidence that a study that dared to question snacking was done in France. While more than half of Americans are overweight, obesity is rare in France. And so is snacking. In a study examining the eating and health habits of 16,000 university students in 21 European countries, French students snacked the least -an average of less than one snack daily- and were more likely to eat three meals a
day. And they weren’t overweight.
‘Snacking is uncommon and frowned upon,’ according to senior researcher Claude Fischler, PhD., of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.
It’s almost impossible, except in Paris or other large cities, to find a place to eat between meal hours. Instead, the French take their meals seriously, lingering over the food, talking about it, and really enjoying it.”
The reason why snacking is so bad
The reason whey snacking is so bad is that it prevents hunger. And eating when not hungry is addictive eating. It is very important to be hungry when you eat. Not too hungry, which causes overeating, but just hungry enough so that the food tastes its best and you know when you are no longer hungry and it’s time to stop eating. Hunger and satiety are the means by which the body regulates weight. Interfering with that mechanism causes dysfunction. There is a proverb about eating when hungry, appropriately enough a French proverb: “Hunger is the best sauce.” A good appetite is a good friend and not the enemy to be feared and avoided.
Mary Lou Williams, M. Ed., is a lecturer and writer in the field of nutrition. She welcomes inquiries. She can be reached at 267-6480.