There are many people who decide to change their eating style, either for health or aesthetics. A large number of them are in the position that they cannot reduce the amount of food they consume since they have anxiety about food, not only in the way of eating but in the quantity and quality.
In today's article we are going to discuss why anxiety to eat arises, how to avoid it and get good nutrition.
What we have always been told, eating every two or three hours, drinking juices, cereal bars etc ... between hours is still a marketing campaign of the companies that sell these products. It does not mean that you should not eat between meals if you are hungry. But If our body is nourished, hunger only arises when there is a need to eat and the anxiety for food ends up disappearing.
Why do we feel anxiety about food?
A large number of products, such as cereal bars, meal replacements, etc. They have a percentage of carbohydrates that are consumed quickly in our body, so they fill us up when we take them, but right away we need to consume more and this awakens the desire to eat. This happens because Nutritionally we take products that are empty, therefore they do not satisfy our body and ends up asking us for more to cover those needs.
By not consuming an adequate percentage of protein and healthy fats, and basing our diet on carbohydrates mainly, our digestion is very fast, glucose passes quickly into the blood, our stomach empties very quickly and hunger awakens again. By consuming protein and fat we make our digestion slower in general, even if we have also eaten carbohydrates, and it gives us a feeling of satiety.
Hunger and insulin resistance
Any carbohydrate becomes blood sugar, our body does not differentiate, all carbohydrate becomes glucose and / or fructose if it has it. Therefore When we consume foods high in carbohydrates, our glucose levels rise in the blood and our body generates insulin to lower glucose.
Most people are insulin resistant because they generally eat very high in carbohydrates. Therefore the body must generate a large amount of insulin in order to lower glucose. As so much insulin is generated, glucose tends to drop excessively and we enter a state of hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia can cause a feeling of discomfort, headaches, cold or bad mood, generated because you have not eaten for two or three hours. In this situation, our brain sends the hunger signal because our energy level has dropped a lot by lowering the glucose level. What leads us to eat again, generate a glucose peak, generate insulin to lower it and our brain asks us to feed ourselves again. So we end up eating every few hours and this is something that should not happen in our body.
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Why is it not good to eat often?
If we look back, towards the 50s or 60s, for example, people did not eat all the time, they did not snack or eat snacks every so often. This is something that has come up with the food industry.
Keeping our body in a constant state of needing to eat and having to work with these foods is generating a multitude of diseases related to food: obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, etc.
We are talking about a constant consumption of soft drinks, sugary or sweetened products, processed products. With this we keep our body in a constant state of work and even in a state of inflammation. Our liver, our intestines and in general all the organs related to food need to rest.
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How to avoid eating all the time and reduce or eliminate food cravings?
Our body is designed to get energy from glucose and fat. However, today, with the low consumption of healthy fats and the high consumption of carbohydrates, we have become used to extracting energy solely from glucose. This does not mean that we cannot get our body to extract energy from fat again, but it does entail an important change in our eating style.
We do not have to eliminate carbohydrates from our diet. We must reduce them and consume those that are more beneficial, such as tubers. The balance between the nutritional needs of our body is essential.
However, at the beginning, It is beneficial to follow a low carbohydrate diet so that our body looks for other sources of energy. This means that we must consume sources of healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil, avocado or quality animal products. If we reduce carbohydrates and eat low-fat foods, we will achieve nothing.
UOnce our metabolism becomes more flexible, meaning that it can extract energy from both glucose and fat, we can reintroduce carbohydrates. That if, without making them the basis of our diet and consuming them at night as they will help us with the release of serotonin, with which we will rest better.
When eating low in carbohydrates, glucose rises little and therefore our body generates little insulin and immediately levels the glucose. When it has been a couple of hours since we ate and the glucose has dropped, our body will change to extract energy from fat. Therefore our brain will not send the signal that we need to eat to obtain more energy. Thus the meals will be spaced without hardly realizing because the needs of our body will be covered.