Why Eating Frequent, Small Meals May be Damaging to Your Health
By Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo
A common recommendation for people suffering with blood sugar imbalances and attempting to reduce weight is to eat frequent, small meals throughout the day.
The idea is that eating every couple of hours keeps your blood sugar levels steady without the dips (and severe hunger that accompanies those dips). In theory, you’ll eat less if you never let yourself get hungry enough to overeat.
Recent hormone research tells us that this is actually the worst way to eat for blood sugar balance and weight loss and can actually be damaging to your health.
Understanding Why Frequent Eating is Faulty Advice
Hunger, satiation, and blood sugar balance are all under hormonal control. And we’re not talking about reproductive hormones like estrogen and progesterone. We’re talking about what I refer to as “the survival hormones.”
Eating between means alters powerful hormonal signals, interferes with the mechanism that burns fat as fuel, clogs liver metabolism, and sends calories right to fat stores.
Insulin is a hormone secreted by your pancreas in response to eating. It doesn’t much matter what you eat; insulin will be secreted. The composition of your meal determines just how much insulin is secreted. The more carbohydrates in the meal, the more insulin that’s required to keep your blood sugar regulated.
The most basic concept that you need to understand is that whenever insulin levels rise, fat burning stops.
The Hormone Relationship Between Insulin and Fat Burning
In order to understand why an increase in insulin levels affects your fat burning ability, let’s start by understanding what should happen with hormones in a perfectly balanced body.
- You eat, insulin levels rise, and glucose is moved into your cells to be burned for energy.
- Insulin triggers leptin levels to rise (leptin is the hormone your fat cells secrete after a meal) which signals the brain to turn off your appetite and tells your pancreas to stop making insulin.
- Glucose levels return to normal, insulin decreases, and leptin triggers fat burning.
If your blood sugar begins to drop too much, glucagon is secreted to mobilize stored calories and all is well, until your next meal.
Typically, insulin levels peak at around 30 minutes after you eat and return to normal at about 3 hours. Then leptin gets to go to work and triggers fat burning.
In the ideal situation, insulin sends 60% of the fuel in a meal to the liver for “quick access” storage as glycogen and triggers the uptake of the remaining 40% of the glucose and amino acids into muscle cells and cells of your vital organs, which use the glucose for fuel and the amino acids for growth and repair.
However, if you’re eating every 2 – 3 hours, as some experts advise, your insulin levels never go back to normal and you never go into fat burning mode.
Understanding the Process of Becoming Insulin Resistant
When you eat frequent, small meals throughout the day, insulin levels stay elevated all day, triggering fat storage and leading to insulin resistance. What this means is that your cells no longer hear the cry of insulin to allow fuel in for energy. As result, more fat storage occurs and you feel tired all the time.
If everything is functioning properly, then after a meal there is no need to eat again for 5 or 6 hours.
The hormone glucagon is in charge of keeping your blood sugar steady between meals. Glucagon signals the liver to turn the stored glycogen back into glucose as your sugar levels begin to drop between meals. It also triggers a process called “gluconeogenesis” which triggers the creation of glucose from stored protein and fat.
In a healthy person, insulin and glucagon are good siblings and take turns.
There’s enough carbohydrates stored in the liver in the form of glycogen to last 24 hours, unless you are engaging in extreme exercise like marathons or triathlons, so when things are functioning well, there are no blood sugar dips between meals.
Snacking between meals causes insulin to rise again, even before it’s returned to normal, suppresses glucagon, and raises leptin levels unnaturally, leading to a condition called leptin resistance wherein the brain and pancreas no longer hear the signal from leptin to turn off appetite and reduce insulin secretion.
Constantly elevated levels of insulin, either from snacking between meals, deliberately planning meals close together, or eating foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates, causes hyperinsulinemia, a condition of too much insulin in your blood. This condition leads to insulin resistance as the cells can no longer take in so much sugar and “close their ears” to the insulin signal.
Insulin resistance leads to weight gain, especially around the middle, stiffening of your arteries, elevated blood pressure, systemic inflammation, and eventually to cardiovascular disease like heart attack and stroke.
The Dangers of Insulin Resistance
Once you understand how the hormones are supposed to work together, you can understand why eating frequent small meals is not just a bad idea for weight loss, it’s outright dangerous.
In addition, eating too frequently can cause your liver to get congested. Remember, ideally, the liver takes 60% of the fuel from each meal and stores it as readily available fuel. When the liver becomes insulin resistant, those calories eaten head directly for fat storage as your liver can no longer accept them without the aid of insulin. Further, eating too often clogs your liver’s fuel storage system, resulting in fatigue and impaired detoxification mechanisms.
Eating too often also triggers your liver to produce excess VLDL, the most dangerous form of cholesterol. As a result, snacking between meals causes cholesterol to rise even more than eating cholesterol rich foods.
A Chain of Collapse
This whole process, a guaranteed “chain that makes you gain,” becomes a vicious, vitality-sabotaging cycle:
- When your liver gets clogged and develops insulin resistance, it’s hard to go 5-6 hours between meals or to sleep through the night because your liver can no longer produce a steady stream of glucose – it needs to comes from outside.
- When there is insulin resistance in your liver, your liver turns calories into fat at an increased rate, leading to excess weight.
The constant high levels of insulin due to eating too frequently result in excess leptin and eventually leptin resistance, which further confuses your liver and turns down the production of glucagon, the hormone that keeps your blood sugar steady between meals by stimulating the release of stored fuel.
- To make matters even worse, the lining of your blood vessels and your nerve cells do not become insulin resistant and are subject to the stiffening effect of excess blood sugar and insulin.
- The net result is stiffening of your arteries and hardening of your nerves, leading to cardiovascular disease and mental decline.
Breaking the “Gain Chain”: Solutions to Restore Your Hormones
So, now that you understand the dangers of eating frequent, small meals and how they affect your hormone balance, what’s the solution?
Timing your meals to optimize hormones is key.
It’s important to remember that fat burning is impossible when insulin levels are elevated. It takes about 3 hours after a meal for insulin levels to return to baseline, even if you just eat a small snack.
Until then, fat burning is impossible.
If you have weight to drop, are fatigued, concerned about family history of heart disease, cancer or diabetes, make use of that critical fat burning time.
At 3 hours after a meal, do some exercise, drink some water with lemon juice and do whatever it takes to hold off the next meal for as long as you comfortably can.
It may only be 3 hours and 15 minutes to start, then 3 hours and 30 minutes, and then eventually, in 15 – 30 minute increments, you’ll be able to gradually move your meal spacing to at least 5 – 6 hours.
As you stretch the time between meals and change the foods you eat to foods that require less insulin, you’ll see the pounds melt away, your energy rise and your mental clarity improve. And maybe, even more importantly, you’ll protect yourself from the top 3 killer diseases in our modern world.
To find out more, register now for the free teleseminar recording, Dr. Ritamarie’s “Hush Hush” List of Hormones and Strategies for Busting Your Holiday Bulge.
Tags: appetite, belly fat, blood sugar, fat burning, glucose, hormones, hunger, insulin, insulin resistance, leptin, meal spacing, metabolism
Posted in Holistic Nutrition, Hormone Imbalance, Reduce Belly Fat
How a Lack of Sufficient Sleep Makes You Fat
The subject is SLEEP: how lack of sufficient sleep disrupts your hormones, your immune system, and your ability to think clearly. The average person in our modern world gets between 5 and 6 hours of sleep each night. And that’s just not enough.
Ever wonder why you can’t diet or exercise your weight down to where you’d like it? Or, have you ever thought about why you have a spare tire around your midline, even though the scale says you’re not overweight?
Resistant weight loss and belly fat are intimately related to your hormones, and your hormone balance can be severely disrupted by chronic sleep disruption.
Did you know that your sleep habits are just as important as what you put on your fork when it comes to releasing weight? (especially the extra padding around your middle!) Research shows that shift workers are, on average, heavier than those who work day jobs! And it has to do with disruption to the hormone dance that happens while you sleep.
The hormones affected by sleep control your appetite, the growth of lean muscle and your fat, and carbohydrate metabolism.
How Insufficient Sleep Affects Your Weight:
Decreased serotonin and dopamine production, which leads to cravings for sugary foods to bring the levels back up.- Increased ghrelin (a hormone that makes you feel hungry even if your body has enough food) and decreased leptin (makes you feel full and satisfied after eating) – the result means sugar cravings and continued hunger even after you’ve eaten a full meal.
- Decreased growth hormone, leading to decreased ability to burn fat and lay down lean muscle.
- Increased cortisol, “the stress hormone” which triggers the breakdown of muscle stores, increased blood sugar, and increased insulin. This leads to the deposition of fat, mainly around your waist.
Module 3 of my new program, B4 Be Gone, is called The Hormone Dance. In it, I outline the exact steps to take to determine how much sleep you need and what to do to get your hormones in balance so you burn rather than store fat at night.
Sleep Your Way Slim
My video, The NOT-So-Sexy Hormone Imbalances That Keep You Flabby, Foggy and Fatigued goes into a lot more detail more about the hormone imbalances and offers you a couple of steps to take right away to turn your bed into a super charged fat burning monster. On that video, I bust the myth of eating small frequent meals, which plays havoc on your hormone balance.
It’s not just important for your appearance that you get a good night’s sleep. These same hormone imbalances can have long term, dangerous consequences on your heart, increase inflammation and pain put you at a higher risk for cancer.
The loss of my parents, then my sister, a couple of friends and cousins, and most recently my brother-in-law and father-in-law has made me fiercely determined to stop the madness. I know their deaths could have been prevented had they just known what to do and had a guide to take them through every step of the way.
Turning Loss into Life
I created the B4 Be Gone Program to offer just that step by step guidance that so many need. Within 30 days, most people have lost their cravings and reset much of the faulty metabolism by bringing into balance five key elements: diet, stress, exercise, sleep and TIMING.
All the sleep research has me really taking a look at my own choices. I push the envelope with sleep because I feel fine even when I don’t sleep. But that’s on the outside. I know enough to realize that what’s going on inside as a result of my lack of sleep could come back and bite me in the you-know-what. Indeed, I have noticed that I’ve been extra hungry during the day these past few sleep-deprived weeks.
I am looking forward to doing the 30-day metabolic reset with the group and committing to getting enough sleep.
It’s All About Balance.
Balance is the key. It’s not enough to just drink green smoothies or just exercise daily or just get lots of sleep. The balance among stress, sleep, exercise and diet are key.
And on top of that, Timing is EVERYTHING.
You can do all the right things, but if it’s out of sync with your bio-rhythms, your belly will stay flabby — no matter how many sit-ups you do or green drinks you drink.
If you’re feeling flabby and frustrated, my advice to you is to sleep on it and then join us in the next B4 Be Gone Journey.
Tags: belly fat, cortisol, cravings, dopamine, Exhaustion, fat, fatiuge, ghrelin, growth hormone, hormones, lack of sleep, leptin, serotonin, sleep, stress, weightloss
Posted in Chronic Fatigue, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment, Holistic Nutrition, Reduce Belly Fat, Sleep for Vibrant Health
Fear, Anxiety, and Thanklessness – A Sure-fire Prescription for a FAT Midsection
Most people consider me an expert in restoring and maintaining health using diet and lifestyle approaches. My “claims to fame” are my in-depth knowledge of nutrition and biochemistry, and my program effectiveness for restoring balance to achieve vibrant health and energy.
Countless people come to me for advice, wondering why they are still overweight and ill, in spite of eating a healthy diet.
How Stress May Supersize You
While I can usually find things to tweak in clients’ diets, and I can recommend herbs or natural nutrition supplements to restore balance, we’re fighting an uphill battle if we ignore the role of stress, negative emotions, and worry; your health, energy level, AND weight are all affected.
On a past radio show, Your Muscles May be Making You Fat, I explored in detail the mechanism by which stress and worry contribute to belly bulge, and I encourage you to listen for details.
In summary, fear, worry, stressful thoughts and situations, and negative emotions trigger the release of cortisol and adrenaline from your adrenal glands. This hormone release triggers a series of fight or flight mechanisms that cause your liver and muscles to release sugar into your blood. Normally, this release would ready you for your “chase” or “escape”.
But what also happens, and this is the troubling part when it happens frequently, is that your insulin is also triggered to rise, so the sugar in the blood can be absorbed by your cells and fuel them to flight or fight. Keep in mind, that extra sugar in your blood would normally get used. Unfortunately, when your stresses are mental, you can’t burn all the released sugar. Insulin, in following through with its job of maintaining healthy blood sugar levels, causes the sugar to be put back into storage… as white adipose tissues, whose main receptors are – you guessed it – right around your belly.
I discuss more details concerning insulin, its role, and insulin resistance in Video 1, of the 5-part Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout video series.
When you get stressed over situations that are beyond your control – like fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, traffic, other people’s attitudes – you are creating the perfect environment not only for “turning your muscles into fat” but for injuring your insides and setting yourself up for diseases. The three most serious and very common sequelae [secondary conditions] to chronic stress are the BIG 3: Heart disease, Cancer and Diabetes.
If achieving a slim trim body and keeping yourself safe from “the Big 3″ aren’t enough motivation to get a handle on stress, there’s more.
A Change of Heart Can Mean a Change in Dress Size
Your thoughts and emotions impact others around you, both those in close proximity and those far away.
Let me explain.
Research at the Institute of HeartMath has confirmed that your thoughts and emotions affect your heart rate variability (HRV). When you’re calm, HRV, when graphed, looks like a nice even sine wave and when you’re frustrated or angry, worried or anxious, it’s erratic and spikey. Notice the difference in the graphs to the right.
The smooth wave pattern is associated with ideal blood pressure, clear thinking, proper metabolic function and overall well being. The other pattern hallmarks disease, dysfunction, resistant weight loss and a host of other serious metabolic disruptions.
This article on the HeartMath website gives all the details, and it also takes you step-by-step through a couple of their techniques for restoring balance:
http://www.alternativeworldwidehealth.com/files/Heartmath_Stress_chapter.pdf
According to HeartMath:
In my Mend Your Metabolism & Maximize Your Vitality webinar, I will take you step-by-step through one of the HeartMath processes for Transforming Stress so you can feel for yourself the effects of being in a state they refer to as “coherence”.
It’s an amazing feeling and you too can learn it. In my 30-day B4 Be Gone program, I guide my patients and students through daily practice of this technique, and send them daily reminders and a recording of me guiding them through the process.
Join us on the webinar to get yourself started.
Get Slim, Stress-free, and Save the World
So now for the really amazing, almost unbelievable finding.
YOU have more power than you think over the state of the world, the energy in the room, and the stressful feelings of others.
Hear me out on this one…
When two people with different HRV patterns come into each other’s energy fields, the HRV’s tend to synchronize, and the strongest field prevails. This has been measured by the institute of HeartMath researchers on medical equipment!
By practicing the HeartMath technique called Quick Coherence several times a day, with as little a time investment as 5 minutes a day, you’ll become proficient at changing your emotional state and the HRV’s of others with whom you come into contact.
How cool is that?
And when you practice their more advanced technique, called Heart Lock-in, you actually practice deliberately projecting your energy out into the room. To master Heart Lock-in takes a bit more time, 15 minutes about 3-4 times a week!
When natural disasters like fire and flood strike, the natural tendency is to feel victimized. That puts you into the “triple P emotional state” that has been shown to be the most damaging of all… powerlessness, pessimism, and pervasive worry.
It’s times like these that we need to band together energetically and send positive thoughts, prayers, and uplifting energy to those whose lives are affected. Imagine the effect of thousands of people all over the world projecting their positive energy field! According to the above aforementioned article from the Institute of HeartMath (which I highly recommend you read in its entirety), “positive thinking” without accompanying positive feelings usually only provides temporary relief from emotional distress. Whereas the activation of positive emotions is more likely to transform the stress at its source.
According to Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor, “there are over 25 scientific studies that prove when a group of people meditate together, they can change their surroundings — just by getting settled inside.”
Dr. Vitale lives not too far from where I live, just outside of Austin, and he sent out a plea for help with getting the fires under control through the power of positive emotion.
I’ve printed his entire letter on my blog, where Joe tells of his experience with this process when Hurricane Rita threatened Austin a few years back.
Whether you believe Dr. Vitale’s account of changing the course of natural events or not, there’s no disputing the positive effect of appreciation and love on your own chemistry and that of those around you. Lots of studies at www.heartmath.org support this.
So, what do you have to lose?
Even if you think it’s goofy, it can’t hurt and it will change your own emotions and your internal well-being.
So take a deep breath… find that place of peace inside yourself where you know all is well. Access that area of inner calm…and then just feel the fires going out; imagine the hurricanes heading out to sea; envision the earth’s core relaxing; and perceive that all the people affected are safe, sound, and protected.
Stop, breathe, focus, pray, or in some positive way send out an energy that will help dissolve the fear.
It’s your way of making a difference in the face of disaster, even if you can’t send lots of money or travel to the scene to help.
Check out the book Unconditional Bliss by Howard Cushnir. He says you can find happiness in the face of hardship.
And in the words of Joe Vitale, “… be happy, right now. Smile. Send that loving energy out, in the direction of Texas.
Intend for all to be well, for, in reality, all is well.”
Tags: anxiety, belly fat, brain fog, burnout, cortisol, fatigue, fear, HeartMath, hormones, Joe Vitale, stress, weightloss
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Brain Fog, Chronic Stress, Events, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment, Health Coach, Reduce Belly Fat, Vibrant Health
Thyroid Issues: What’s Really Leaving You Feeling Flabby, Foggy, and Fatigued!
- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo
Thyroid imbalance can leave you feeling flabby, foggy, fatigued and unfocused because your thyroid gland rules your metabolic rate.
Fatigue is a huge part of thyroid imbalance… and not just general fatigue either. Did you know that your organs and glands can suffer from fatigue? Your skin and immune system can too.
When you turn down the internal metabolic furnace and burn your fuel more slowly, the inevitable result is weight gain or the inability to easily shed your extra pounds. Generally, this slow-down is accompanied by a feeling of exhaustion, but not always.
Often the “exhaustion” is at a cellular level. When your skin is tired, you get outbreaks and slow wound healing. When your digestion becomes sluggish, you may experience constipation or indigestion. A fatigued immune system can’t adequately protect you from microbes and starts to attack itself. And a worn out liver is unlikely to be efficient at eliminating toxins.
While fatigue and exhaustion can have many causes, an underactive thyroid is a very common one. And what most people don’t realize is that most hypothyroidism (about 80%) is caused by an autoimmune process. Which, incidentally, means the real cause of your fatigue and weight gain has nothing to do with your thyroid. The thyroid gland is just an innocent bystander in the war that’s raging in your immune system, for it’s your immune system that creates antibodies that attack the thyroid and make it malfuntion. So simply replacing thyroid hormon without fixing your immune system does not solve the problem.
Learn all about thyroid function, testing, and a few tips to restore balance on my video here. It’s best to identify autoimmune thyroid problems early on, before your thyroid is completely destroyed. And the best way to do that is to balance your immune system. We’ll discuss that more in the new 5-part video series Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brainfog, and Burnout, so be sure to sign-up and follow the series!
Join the program here:
Tags: belly fat, digestion, Exhaustion, fatigue, hormones, immune system balance, thyroid
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Brain Fog, Chronic Fatigue, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment, Hormone Imbalance, Reduce Belly Fat, Vibrant Health
Explanations and Exclamations for “Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout!”
If you’ve been following our newsletter or if you subscribe to the blog, then you’ll know we’ve been focusing on helping people fight fat, fog, and fatigue. Dr. Ritamarie’s brand new 5-part FREE Video Series Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout was juuuust released on Friday and it’s already receiving an overwhelming response of comments and subscribers.
To see why the buzz has been so exciting, Click HERE!
How to Fix Your Fat, Fog, and Fatigue:
While many people want to change their lifestyle, so many have struggled to find long-term success because the programs they attempt to follow fail to address the underlying conditions that created the weight gain, cloudy thinking, and energy drain in the first place. This series puts a spotlight on the biochemical individual reactions that may be occurring in your body.
Every other day or so, until the final Webinar on September 7th, 2011, a new video in the series will be released including:
- Video #1: 3 NOT-So-Sexy Hormone Imbalances
- Video #2: The Dangers that Lurk Around Your Midline: Balance Your Blood Sugar Naturally
- Video #3: Breaking Through the Fog
- Video #4: Quenching the Fire of Burnout
- Video #5: B4 it’s Too Late!
- Webinar: Mend Your Metabolism and Maximize Your Vitality!
- Including bonuses such as Breakthroughs that Balance and Foods that Flatten Your Belly, Focus your Mind, and Fight Fatigue!
Even though ONLY TWO videos have been released so far, it’s exciting to see the comments and stories that are already being shared:
Comments on Video #1: 3 NOT-So-Sexy Hormone Imbalances:
- I am so thrilled to be hearing what you are sharing about hormones, cortisol, adrenal glands, thyroid, growth hormone and brain fog/belly fat!!! The DC I am seeing recently told me the same thing you reviewed in this video and right now I’m taking natural ways to clear my liver and getting rid of cortisol thru exercise. Your explanation of eating… is something he did not mention, he didn’t go into the growth hormone aspect of it all yet, so I am thankful to have a heads-up on this so I can put this into practice also! What a blessing to learn this, and you put everything into such easy-to-understand terminology…good thing since brain fog can make things a little bit harder to absorb at times LOL! Thank you so much!!! - Stacy
- Dr Ritamarie:
Thank you for all the information. You explain things in a way that is so very easy to understand. I always learn something new when I listen to your classes. As someone who just stopped taking cortisone, what I learn in your Webinars is priceless in helping me regain fantastic health. I am looking forward to the rest of the series.
Muchas gracias, - Beatriz
You can read these and see all the comments when you sign up here and open the link to Video #1!
Video #2 was just released a few hours ago and already we’re receiving feedback.
Comments on The Dangers that Lurk Around Your Midline:
- I was very glad to receive this notice from you for these online courses. My doctor is the standard “eat less, excercise more” type, but with little guidance. I have hypothyroidism, sleep apnea, osteo-arthritis (one hip replacement), Factor V Leiden (genetic blood clotting disorder, overweight… I identify with all the symptoms; I am supposed to have the other hip replaced, but, the doctors want me to lose weight, of course to eliminate a risk factor, understandably. I haven’t felt like myself in many years… I am now 63. I have looked into “raw foods”, but don’t seem to fully get onto it… hunger wins out. BUT, I am open….. still… bring it on. – Sheryl
You can share YOUR comments when you sign up here. You’ll have instant access to both Video #1 and Video #2!
We all know some people are more ready than others for natural lifestyle changes. While excess belly fat, brain fog, and burnout may seem like superficial conditions, they can be symptoms of more serious illness. Dr. Ritamarie recently lost some close family members to conditions that could have been addressed through a better understanding of how the body works and the underlying causes of disease. This 5-part video series is her free gift of education to the world to prevent others from suffering.
We hope you’ll share it with those you know. Let’s help spread education instead of midlines!
Click HERE to watch the free 5-part series, Bye-Bye Belly Fat, Brain Fog, and Burnout!
Tags: belly fat, biochemical individuality, blood sugar, brain fog, burnout, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, fatigue, hormones, imbalance, insulin, natural health, nutrition, solutions, strategies, testimonials, video, weight loss
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Brain Fog, Health Coach, Hormone Imbalance, Immune System Support, Reduce Belly Fat, Vibrant Health
