Skipping a meal is one of the tips you can read here and there. But is it really a good idea to slim your figure? Elements of answer with Corinne Fernandez, dietician nutritionist in Paris.
To lose weight, some are ready to test everything. Diets, diets, deletion of food categories are popping up everywhere this season.
It is an idea deeply rooted in people’s minds. Skipping a meal would make you lose weight because if you don’t eat, you will lose weight. At least that’s what a majority of candidates for slimming imagine.
Skipping meals can cause weight gain
Yet this is absolutely false and it is even the opposite that can occur: that is to say, weight gain or at least stagnation. “Skipping meals slows down the life of our cells. For them to function properly, you have to replenish your stock every day, and skipping meals doesn’t get you there. Especially since this bad habit contributes to slow down the metabolism, therefore the ability to burn calories “, underlines Corinne Fernandez.
The feelings of hunger and satiety are disturbed
Skipping the lunch, dinner or breakfast stage can therefore quite simply disrupt the body. With several harmful consequences. First of all, an upheaval in eating habits. The feeling of hunger will increase, and give rise to harmful behaviors such as loss of control. We will thus make up for the lack of the previous meal by eating more quantities. And by not prioritizing quality. “When we haven’t had lunch, for example, we will be so hungry in the afternoon that we can rush to whatever we find. Ready-made foods that are easy to eat. So often industrial rich in sugar and fat. This opens the door to an uncontrolled diet, and conducive to development of irrational urges or eating behaviors“, warns the specialist. We will therefore absorb more calories than necessary and therefore fill our cells with fat: the opposite of what we wanted.
Deprived of food, the body begins to store more
Apart from this harmful effect, there are many others. If you deprive the body of food, it will trigger a “fear” reaction by adopting a protective mechanism. “If we are able to deprive the body of food it will store everything at the next meal, or even more, for fear that this deprivation will start again … burn fewer and fewer calories, if not at all, and accumulate fat and therefore weight. This suppressing of meals is ultimately assimilated to an assault on the body “, specifies Corinne Fernandez.
Fatigue and concentration disorders are the key
In addition, when the body does not benefit from a calorie intake, it experiences an energy deficit. And he finds it in food among other things. This will lead to a certain lethargy, slow-motion reflexes or even slight physical fatigue. As for concentration, it may also be affected by the lack of food, even temporary. the brain also feeds on what you give it through food. And by being deprived of its fuel, its functions will slow down, and among them your ability to concentrate. So if you don’t have lunch, don’t be surprised if you spend an afternoon having trouble working.
“The body likes regularity and balance. If you eat too much at one meal, immediately resume a normal or moderate diet at the next. In this way we send the body the right signals, and we avoid disturbances of all kinds” , concludes the dietician. If you want to lose weight, the rule of regular meals is therefore still the norm.
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