Good nutrition and eating behavior involve more than just controlling how much and what food goes on the plate. It also includes understanding what times a person should and can eat, how many times a day they should eat, and how to control hunger.
Nutrition vs diet
Rational nutrition is often opposed to dieting. This is due to the fact that the fascination with any restrictive diet is associated with the desire to bring the body into better shape by refusing a number of products, streamlining the regime.
What is the fundamental difference between the two?
The stable phrase “to sit on a diet” provides that after achieving results, it is possible to “get off” from it and return to normal eating behavior. As a result, a person:
- perceives dietary restrictions as temporary;
- does not think that dieting can be harmful;
- more readily accepts exotic options;
- is stressed and chooses options to reward patience.
Unlike dieting, proper nutrition is a long-term project. It involves a complete change of habits, diet composition and only really works when it becomes part of a new lifestyle. The regimen for losing weight on a proper diet and maintaining optimal weight differ only in that the daily requirement for proteins, fats and carbohydrates changes with weight loss.
Nutritionists advise to recalculate and adapt the diet after losing every 5 kilograms of weight. This is the main feature of proper nutrition: if a person feels good and observes positive external changes in the background of the diet, he can stay on this menu as long as he wants. So there is no need to constantly look for new “working” diets and try strange food combinations to lose weight.
Following a regimen to maintain weight in the conditions of proper nutrition should become as much of a habit as controlling your appearance and health.
Calorie intake and daily regimen
Sufficient caloric intake and the frequency of meals protect against hunger. Rare meals lead to the fact that a person can not wait for lunch or dinner and either overeats or begins to snack on foods that are not the most useful for health and figure.
So, how to plan the daily norm of calories and proteins, fats and carbohydrates (PFC), the correct diet and drinking regime – simple advice from a nutritionist:
- It is necessary to calculate the daily calorie allowance. It depends on a person’s sex, age, body weight and activity. Mobile applications or online calculators are used for this purpose; more accurate results can be obtained by contacting a specialist.
- When calculating the ratio of PFC, you should “start” from the fact that a person should eat 1 g of protein per 1 kg of body weight. This amount of nutrient should remain virtually unchanged – the body suffers from both deficiency and excess protein. In general, the proportion of PFC should be close to the classic: 1:1:4, in the case of “overdoing” calories cut back at the expense of fats and carbohydrates.
- A person should drink at least 35 ml/kg of pure water per day. So a girl with a weight of 62 kg will need 2170 ml of water. In order not to experience stomach overflow and discomfort, it is enough to divide it into 10-11 receptions. The first glass – within half an hour after waking up, before breakfast.
- Breakfast is a must for a healthy diet. Skipping or postponing this meal slows down fat burning, forcing the body to urgently synthesize glucose and release lipids into the bloodstream. The composition of breakfast: proteins and carbohydrates. It should be eaten within an hour after waking up.
- It is recommended to eat up to 5-6 times during the day: three main meals and 2-3 snacks. This frequency of meals helps to avoid overeating, not to feel hungry and not to be distracted by food during the working day.
- The serving size is about 200 g. This is the optimal amount, at which a person will be full until the next meal, but will not feel a sense of heaviness and regret that he has eaten too much. To estimate the size, the method of comparing the portion to the palm of your hand, fist, and handful is used.
Nutrition and meal times
Meal times are calculated individually, depending on what time you wake up and go to bed. Here is a standardized meal schedule for those who get up after 6 am and work 1st shift:
- breakfast – 7:00;
- 1 snack – 10:00;
- lunch – until 14:00;
- afternoon snack – until 16:00;
- dinner – until 18:00;
- evening snack – 2 hours before bedtime.
Proper nutrition implies certain food restrictions. To avoid stress and the subsequent desire to “reward” yourself, you should allow your favorite dishes in the menu, taking into account their composition and caloric content. Their energy value should not exceed 10%-20% of the daily diet.
Snacks and main meals
The similarity between proper nutrition and dietary intake is in the frequent and fractional consumption of food. This reduces the load on the GI tract, liver, pancreas, and the person constantly receives the right amount of nutrients. During the day, the intervals between meals should be 2.5-3 hours. The percentage of the energy value of the diet during each meal also matters. Nutritionists recommend allocating up to 5% of the daily calorie allowance for each snack. For example, with a calculated figure of 1800 kcal / day, 1 snack will be 90 kcal. This could be:
- 2 crispbreads and 50 g of low-fat cottage cheese;
- a slice of chocolate;
- 1 bread and a glass of kefir;
- 2 apples.
Larger snacks are irrational, as their main purpose is to protect you from feeling hungry between meals. “Abuse” of snacks and the insistent recommendation to eat more often to ‘boost metabolism’ is nothing more than one of the dietary myths. It was born from a statistical study as a hypothesis that frequent eating is the key to slimness.
Nutrition at work: healthy eating tips
Transition to a rational diet is associated with a constant assessment of the composition of foods. At first, diet planning is accompanied by calorie and PFC calculations.
Traditionally, eating together has been used as a way to socialize. People making the transition to healthy eating may worry about how they will look in front of their peers. Fears that a container lunch or an apple at a shared tea party will look inappropriate are often unfounded. The most common snacks in the workplace are still sweets and fast food, but the growing popularity of healthy eating will keep colleagues interested in new recipes.
When telling you how to eat properly at work, nutritionists advise you to take prepared foods with you. With a standard schedule, you will need to stock up on 3 portions of food: 1 lunch and 2 snacks. The composition of the main meals does not raise questions: soup, meat or fish with a side dish, salads. But among the standard snacks more often appear apples, which are not allowed for everyone: they increase gastric secretion and stimulate appetite.
In the weight loss and weight maintenance regimen, the following variants of dishes are allowed:
- sandwiches of crispbreads and low-fat cheese;
- bread with fish and greens;
- homemade marshmallows without sugar;
- fruit: oranges, bananas, pears;
- cut vegetables with 5% cottage cheese;
- eggs with greens, vegetables;
- natural kefir or yogurt;
- dried fruits, nuts.
Is it possible to eat before going to bed?
Late meals really worsen the quality of sleep: it becomes more restless. The idea of going to bed with a half-empty stomach is more often explained as follows: for 1 hour of sleep, the body spends on average about 50 kcal. Rest from food for 10 hours will “burn” 550 kcal. If a person ate at night, his body will be busy processing food, not burning fat.
However, the proposal “do not eat after 6” has no scientific basis. The myth that every crumb of bread in the mouth in the evening, inevitably deposited on the sides, was debunked by Israeli scientists from the Institute of Nutrition. They proved that eating carbohydrates at night does not increase the risk of weight gain.
Answering the question of how many hours before bedtime you can eat, nutritionists tell us that an important role is played by the total daily caloric intake and energy expenditure. If a person consumes the right amount of nutrients or is in a slight deficit (up to 20% of calories), he does not get better, but maintains or reduces weight. The time of dinner in this case does not play a special role, but the best hours for the main meal – the period from 17:30 to 18:30, and for a snack at night – 2 hours before bedtime.
