A Nutrition Expert Reveals Why Eating More Often Makes Us Look Better

For many of us, diet is a four-letter word that sounds like punishment. It is associated with giving up sweets and many foods you enjoy, feeling hungry and deprived, and eating only healthy products. But that’s not really true. According to Michelle Adams-Arent, a sports nutrition consultant, diet is not just about limiting your intake of foods; it is mainly about distribution of these foods between meals throughout the day.

Today, we here at Psychology Today Articles with the help of Bright Side uncover the secret of healthy eating that will help you lose weight without giving up your indulgences of ice cream or chocolate.

How often should we eat?

Different diets have different ideas on what we should eat and what we should avoid. Some of them recommend that we give up fried foods and sweets; others require a person to eat only proteins or only fruits and vegetables. All these food deprivations, however, can cause us harm, if not physically then certainly mentally. Actually, it is not so important how much we eat, but when we do this.

Our body is designed so that each time we eat a meal we get a certain amount of energy. If this energy is not spent in the time it should be, it converts to fats and gets accumulated in the body. But if we eat small portions that don’t keep us full for long, then our body won’t store any fat from those meals. As a result, we can eat whatever we want (within reason, of course) and still not gain weight.

"As strange as it may seem, eating 6 meals a day is better for weight management than eating 3 meals," says Michelle.

When we eat every few hours in small portions, we absorb many more useful substances from food, and our body is more willing to lose the weight. However, the quality of our diet is still very important: you won’t become healthier by eating, say, six hamburgers a day. So make sure to consume more healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables.

If you like to calculate everything that goes into your mouth, here is a small table that will help you determine how many carbs, fats, and proteins you should consume every day to stay fit and healthy.

In order to get a general idea of how many calories you should eat per day, multiply your current weight by 25 (if you’re a woman) or by 28 (if you’re a man). Keep in mind that this is the minimum number of calories your body uses to do absolutely nothing, aside from run itself — it’s the amount of calories you would burn each day if you didn’t move all day long.

"There is nothing new in this theory," says Michelle. Most people just don’t understand how they can eat whatever they want and still have the body they dream of. That is why they restrict their food intake or even starve themselves completely. Of course, sometimes you will have to fight the temptation to eat another cookie, but you won’t be hungry for sure.

Source: Brightside.me