70 EWN www.euroweeklynews.com
13 - 19 September 2012
HEALTH AND BEAUTY Visit www.ewnlifestyle.com for more reading
Costa del Sol
Skipping meals wrong way to lose weight By Lesley Taylor IN warmer weather I find that members of my class often complain that it is too hot to eat. Unfortunately, missing meals is not the correct way to go about losing weight. In order to lose weight you must provide your body with enough fuel to keep the metabolism ticking away nicely. Metabolism as some of you might know is the rate at which your body burns calories to sustain life. Your body burns calories 24 hours a day, every day. Your body requires energy all the time, even when you are asleep and that is why skipping meals or going without is the absolute worst thing to do if your
Slimming Club www.w8-matters.com // 654 865 157
BREAK THE FAST: Eating breakfast prompts the body to burn energy. goal is to lose weight. Skipping meals, especially breakfast, puts your body into ‘starvation mode’. When there are a lot of calories in the diet, the body uses what it needs and stores the rest in fat cells. When calories are cut back (i.e. skipping meals) the body conserves energy by slowing down its energy-burning process or metabolism. Just think, you’ve been asleep for seven or eight hours. Your body needs to recover from this short time of starvation. Being inactive during this time causes the metabolism to plummet and for us trying to lose weight, this is the last thing we want. We need to restore it again and quickly if we want to speed up our fat-burning ability. Let me explain this again in simpler terms. Think of an old steam train sitting in the station. It’s going nowhere. Then along comes the driver and stoker who climb on board. The train is still going nowhere because it has no fuel.
The stoker then begins to work hard at shovelling coal into the furnace to fuel the huge machine. Slowly the large wheels begin to turn and the train starts to move out of the station. Slowly at first, chug chug chug chug (get the idea) and then as the stoker continues to shovel, it gets faster and faster and as long as he keeps putting fuel into the furnace the train will continue to roll along. The minute he stops putting the fuel in, the train begins to slow down. So we should all start our day with breakfast. It prompts our bodies to burn fuel (breakfast – to break the fast). If you don’t eat something first thing, you are literally forcing yourself to ‘run on empty’. If you are one of the many who does not eat anything until lunch-time you may end up feeling light-headed when you stand up too quickly or even feel slightly nauseous. And if you end up getting too hungry by this time, there is a great risk of overeating, grabbing at anything and eating the
Classes: • Mondays, Café Manila, Paseo Maritimo, Los Boliches – 6pm-7pm • Tuesdays, Elim Family Fellowship Plaza Ibensa, Avda de Bonanza (under Sinatra’s), Arroyo de La Miel – 11am-12 noon • Wednesday, Café Manila, Paseo Maritimo, Los Boliches - 11am-12 noon • Wednesdays, Restaurante Carolina, Carretera de Malaga ‘El Zangano’ Alhaurin el Grande - 2.15pm-3.15pm • Fridays, El Gusto restaurant (upstairs), La Cala - 11am-12 noon
wrong foods. So how often should we eat? Well, I believe (again, this is my personal opinion and I notice the difference in weight losses) that after breakfast we should be eating every three to four hours. This does not mean sitting down to huge meals every four hours but includes healthy meals, mini meals and healthy snacks. If, on the other hand, you have been taking the meal-skipping approach to losing weight, probably by now you will be feeling pretty frustrated. If you think that going without breakfast and skipping meals is going to cut enough calories to lead to a permanent weight loss, think again. Chances are you will only be setting yourself up for a weight gain. The starvation plan will backfire on you because skipping meals at any time of the day usually leads to overeating or bingeing, and as mentioned earlier, doesn’t do your metabolism any favours. So the bottom line is to eat and not skip meals or snacks if you want to lose weight and keep it off. Until next time, Take care and have a nice week, Lesley x Any questions, please contact me on 654 865 157 or visit w8-matters.com/