CHANGE #22
Eat Something Every Two to Three Hours
SIMPLY PUT… Eat. I want you to have breakfast and then follow it up with small meals every two to three hours, so that you never feel hungry at any point of the day.
Why do diets fail? They fail because we get hungry, because we don’t like to be deprived, and because we always want what we’re told we can’t have. Diets fail because self-control doesn’t always apply when pizza, fresh baked bread, wine, and dark chocolate–covered pretzels are sitting around. So what can you do?
Avoid getting hungry. We’ll get back to this in a moment.
Any new parent will tell you: Once your kids are on a set sleep schedule, your life becomes a bazillion times easier. (Actually, is there a number higher than a bazillion? Because that would be it.)
The day you can put your child down and they go down, and they stay down, and they wake up at roughly the same time every morning, is a day that every parent dreams of. Why? Because the uncertainty is finally over—and a schedule is born.
When things happen on schedule—whether it’s at your job, on vacation, in your house, at the airport or bus terminal—everybody gets what they want and the world’s a beautiful place. (Did I go too far? Trust me—if you’re a parent, you understand.) When things are off schedule, people become frustrated and make impulsive decisions. You are left feeling tired and unfulfilled, looking for shortcuts.
Well, your body is just another big stubborn baby that needs to be on a schedule too. When you eat meals or snacks infrequently, your body questions if (or when) it’s going to be fed again, and it can throw a massive tantrum that puts most two-year-olds to shame.
Anytime you wait too long between meals—or miss a meal altogether—your body can interpret that innocent slipup as starvation, which can cause it to break down lean muscle tissue for energy and store a greater amount of whatever you eat during your next meal as fat. It’s not your body’s fault. It doesn’t always know, so it holds on to things it’s not always supposed to hold on to. Worse yet, that big baby can throw a fit in the form of cravings for even larger amounts of food later in the day.
But when you can get yourself on some semblance of a food schedule (by simply eating every few hours at predetermined times), your body begins to learn when it’s going to get food next, making it less likely to send you hunger signals or make you crave more food than you need to eat. But even better than that, it’s less likely to hold on to excess calories.
Getting your body on a food schedule is fairly easy. It’s as simple as waking up and eating breakfast. After that, have something to eat—a healthy, smaller meal or snack—every two to three hours from that point forward.
So a typical schedule might be:
7:30 a.m.: Breakfast
10:00 a.m.: Snack
12:30 p.m.: Lunch
3:00 p.m.: Snack
5:30 p.m.: Dinner
8:00 p.m.: Snack
Once you figure out what works best for you, do you have to eat only at those times? No—none of this is foolproof or absolute. And sticking to a perfect food schedule isn’t something I would expect to happen every single day. But breaking up your daily calories into smaller meals will pacify your inner baby. Plus, digestion burns calories, so by eating more frequently, you’ll keep your metabolism elevated longer throughout the day. (And just to be clear, this isn’t a green light to eat for twenty-four straight hours. That’s gross.)
DON’T STOP THERE…
Are there ways to get even more from this Change? Absolutely, but it does take a little more effort than just eating more often. If you’re serious about eking out everything this Change has to offer, there are several ways to do it:
Make breakfast the most important meal of the day. There are not many things that I will force you to do, but this is one of them. Even if you’re not a breakfast eater, I really need you to have a little something first thing in the morning, and you can start very slowly.
Look, I’m not telling you to sit down and have the lumberjack stack. I just want you to remember that when you wake up, your body hasn’t eaten for the longest period of time of your entire day. It’s burned through most (or all) of its stored glycogen, so it’s looking for calories.
If you don’t send any calories down by eating breakfast, your body is heading for your muscles instead, breaking down what you’ve worked hard at building up. Even if you never wake up starving, if you wait hours to eat after getting up, once you finally do eat something, your body will hang on to those calories for dear life. So start your day with a little something to satiate you.
Try to balance every meal and snack. Ideally, each one should contain one serving of protein, one serving of carbs, and one serving of healthy fats. To be more specific:
1. A serving of a lean protein (from low-fat meat, fish, or dairy products—if you’re vegan, tofu is fine too)
2. A serving of a complex carbohydrate (from fruits, vegetables, or certain grains, such as brown rice, oats, or quinoa)
3. Some type of healthy fat (which may already be present in your protein—cold-water fish have plenty of essential fatty acids, for example—or may be added through other sources, such as nuts, seeds, or certain types of oils, like olive, canola, or sunflower oil)
Why all three? Protein, carbs, and fats are digested at different speeds. Carbs are digested the fastest, protein takes a little longer, and fats take the longest. When you eat all three in the same meal or snack, it gives you a steady stream of energy that keeps you from feeling hungry between meals and snacks and prevents your blood sugar from spiking (so your body never releases as much insulin, which can cause you to store fat).
If you slip up, don’t starve yourself. Will there be times when you don’t manage your meals right and end up eating more than you should? Hopefully not, but if it happens, don’t punish yourself by skipping your next meal. Just go back to eating the same-sized meals and your body won’t enter panic mode.
Finally… Don’t overthink it!!! My little culinary secret is that I don’t cook. It’s not that I don’t love to eat, or that I don’t appreciate good, healthy food—I just never really found my way around the kitchen. Ask anyone I’ve ever dated.
Even when I try, I fail. I failed eighth-grade home economics because I was assigned to make spaghetti and I didn’t know I was supposed to boil the pasta! I just took dry spaghetti, broke it into pieces, and put it right in the sauce. True story. Pathetic, but true.
As a result, to this day, I don’t use/own/read recipes and I avoid math at all costs. So giving me five recipes and asking me to eat 35 percent of this and 25 percent of that is all lost on me.
This is all my way of saying I don’t ever, ever overthink my meals.
I don’t want you to have to think about them all the time either. In Change #15, I showed you how to eyeball your portions with your hand when preparing your meals, so you always know what a normal serving size looks like.
If you look down and see a serving of protein and a serving of complex carbohydrates each time you eat, I’m happy. And if you’re not eating fatty fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids (such as salmon or tuna), then add a thumb’s worth of healthy fats by sprinkling on some nuts or drizzling in some healthy oil.
If that sounds too difficult, let me show you how easy it is to pull together something tasty that mixes all three in one shot:
Some Breakfast Ideas
• A serving of plain (unsweetened) yogurt with raspberries and ½ a whole-wheat bagel
• A whole-grain English muffin with 2 to 3 ounces of smoked salmon and a slice of tomato
• A serving of oatmeal (mixed with raspberries and a teaspoon of flaxseed oil) and a glass of low- to no-fat milk
• A spinach omelet (3 egg whites and 1 whole egg, mixed with a handful of baby spinach) with a piece of fruit
• An egg-white omelet (3 to 4 egg whites with ½ cup of diced vegetables thrown in) and ½ a grapefruit
• A cup of plain nonfat yogurt (mixed with ground flaxseeds and a few strawberries) and a piece of 12-grain bread
• A whole-grain waffle, a glass of skim milk, and a handful of blueberries
• Two slices of whole-wheat bread with a tablespoon of peanut butter and a glass of skim milk
• A serving of unsweetened whole-grain cereal (with a cup of skim milk and a few walnuts mixed in) and some grapes
Some Lunch Ideas
• A whole-wheat pita filled with homemade tuna salad (made with 1 can of spring-water tuna, ¼ cup of low-fat mayo—or oil and vinegar—and some shredded red bell pepper)
• Three ounces of chicken breast, cut up and mixed with 1 cup of whole-wheat pasta and drizzled with olive oil, with a side of mixed greens
• Three ounces of fresh turkey breast or chicken breast on rye bread (with lettuce, tomato, and onion), and ½ cup of mixed berries mixed with sunflower seeds
• A 3-ounce lean hamburger and a slice of Swiss cheese tucked inside a whole-wheat wrap with dark-leaf lettuce, a slice of avocado, a slice of tomato, and a little mustard
Some Dinner Ideas
• Three ounces of shrimp, 1 cup of chopped mushrooms, peppers, and onions (grilled on skewers), ½ cup of quinoa, and 1 cup of mixed greens (with a drizzle of olive oil)
• Three ounces of grilled salmon, 1 cup of cooked long-grain rice, and 1 cup of steamed asparagus
• Three ounces of grilled chicken, ½ cup of couscous (with shredded almonds mixed in), and 1 cup of steamed snow peas
• Three ounces of filet mignon on a bed of arugula with chopped tomatoes and sliced avocado
• Three ounces of top round steak, 1 medium-sized sweet potato, and 1 cup of broccoli drizzled in olive oil
• Three ounces of bottom round, 1 yam, and 1 cup of broccoli mixed with almond slivers
Some Snack Ideas
Some of the pre- and post-workout suggestions I gave you in Change #19 are also great mini-meals and snacks that you can turn to even on days when you don’t exercise. And here are a few more you can try out for size:
• One cup of low-fat cottage cheese, mixed with 1 cup of raspberries and some sunflower seeds
• A hard-boiled egg with ¼ sliced avocado on whole-wheat toast
• Two slices of low-fat cheese and 2 slices of either fresh-sliced roast beef or turkey breast (rolled up inside each other), with 1 ounce of almonds
• A sliced pear covered in one serving of almond butter, and a glass of skim milk
• Fat-free Greek yogurt with almond slivers (I always carry a little ziplock bag of almond slivers with me to sprinkle on yogurt and oatmeal when I’m on the road. They are a good source of protein, magnesium, potassium, vitamin E, and fiber.)
• An apple and reduced-fat string cheese (portable, easy to eat, and healthy!)
• A bag of grapes with 2 hard-boiled eggs or rolled-up turkey slices