Snacking
My blog this month is about snacking, a topic I get asked about a LOT by my coaching clients. Should you or shouldn’t you?
Well the TLDR line is that it is a myth that we need to eat ‘little and often’!
Supporting fat burning by eating less often
We have two body states – fed and fasted - with high and low insulin levels associated with each. Insulin is the key hormone managing food coming in and our energy stores, produced in response to rising blood sugar. It is also helpful to know that insulin is the fat storing hormone.
The more sugar, carbohydrate and starchy foods we eat, which all consist of glucose, the more our blood sugar (glucose) rises and the more insulin gets produced. High blood sugar is toxic to the body – think of the nasty complications of long term, uncontrolled diabetes - and so is a priority for the body to deal with.
When we have high insulin levels we will be burning glucose for fuel and storing excess as body fat. Over time, too much sugar/carbs coming in, too often, will produce a lot of insulin and usually explains why people are overweight. To lose excess weight, or fat, we need to reduce the amount of insulin we produce, by changing how often and what we eat, so our bodies can access the fat we have in storage for fuel.
Sugar and carbohydrate are the easiest source of energy for the body. But while we are burning glucose for fuel we will be storing fat potentially adding to our stores, if we have too much glucose coming in or it comes in regularly during the day. Spending some time in the fasted state will allow our bodies to burn fat for fuel. Personally I like to think of all that fat burning my body is doing when I feel a little stomach rumble between meals rather than reach for a snack…
If we are constantly grazing, with 3 meals a day and snacks in between, our bodies will continually be in the fed state, with high insulin levels dealing with the incoming food and creating body fat. If you are overweight or have chronic health issues* then avoiding snacking can be a good change to make. Try sticking to 2 or 3 meals a day and adopt the golden rule of only eating when hungry.
I aim for at least 6 hours between my meals, giving me mini fasts during the day. I also don’t eat anything after my earlyish evening meal until I break-my-fast with breakfast the next day. This gives me a 12-14 hour period of ‘fasting’ that allows the time and space for my body to do important cellular repair work. Rather like a car, we need periods of downtime from eating (driving!) for our system to get a clean and a service.
* If you are taking medication you should discuss dietary changes with your doctor and fasting may not be suitable for anyone with an eating disorder.
My snacking experience
I did my own self experimentation earlier this year with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) which you wear on your arm. The chart below shows what happened when I decided (solely in the interests of experimentation of course!) to have a Devon scone with the thinnest smattering of jam and dollops of clotted cream.
The green band is the normal blood sugar range and I had been trotting along in green with my low carb breakfast until the middle of the afternoon when I had the scone. Wham! My blood sugar shot up to almost 18 which is super high. My insulin levels would also have been high, turning the scone into body fat to get the toxic blood sugar spike down.
Seeing this certainly made me think eating the scone really wasn’t worth it. It also shows me my diabetes is in remission and not reversed. I usually eat very low carb meals and no snacks to avoid such spikes and keep my levels in the normal range as much as I possibly can.
The CGM is an amazing piece of kit and can be a very useful tool to understand how your body responds to different foods. And we all respond differently as I am sure you have heard from me before! I often discuss blood sugar testing with my clients, starting with a much cheaper finger prick monitor, to help them better understand their own challenges but it is great to also have the CGM suggestion in my coaching toolkit. If anyone wants to talk blood sugar testing with me do get in touch.
Finding ways to spoil yourself that don’t involve food, is worth spending some time thinking about, as a strategy to stave off the urge to snack. I have recently created a ‘joy list’ of small things I like doing that can bring me 5 minutes of pleasure during the day. Especially useful when I might be tempted to have a snack as I boil the kettle in the kitchen. My list includes messaging a friend, dancing to a favourite song and drinking my coffee outside in the garden.
What would be on your joy list?
Contact me to arrange a chat if you struggle to sustain weight loss or are worried about diabetes or prediabetes to discuss how I could help you make sustainable changes to your diet that fit with your lifestyle, helping you improve your long term health. I can help you find your waist again.