This is the final draft of my Assignment #4…a non-fiction article of 500-1000 words. It’s titled as above.
Hey! You there! Yeah, you, the one with your mitts in the 20oz bag of Doritos! FREEZE! You’re playing with a time bomb!
Gently put the bag down and step away with your hands in the air. NO, don’t put that chip back after you touched it, that’s gross!
Ok. Take this 1oz bag of the same chips, relax and open your eyes.
According to an article on emedicine.com approximately 100 million adults in the United States are overweight or obese. Approximately 35% of women and 31% of men older than 19 years are obese or overweight, and the numbers among children are alarming: approximately 20-25% of children are either overweight or obese. This translates to over 8,000,000 children.
One of the reasons Americans are so out of shape is that we were never taught how to eat properly.
“Sit up straight and chew your vegetables” just didn’t cut it.
One of the things that’s extremely important to understand is that, as far as our bodies’ metabolisms (how our bodies breakdown and use the nutrients from food) are concerned, we’re still in the Ice Age. Our bodies don’t know that if we’re hungry all we need to do is walk 10 feet to the refrigerator pantry and get some food.
40,000 years ago we were all hunters and gatherers. When we could hunt, we ate. When there were nuts, seeds and fruit available, we ate. When the weather was so bad we had to huddle in caves, our bodies fed off of our stored body fat so we wouldn’t starve before we could hunt again.
Our bodies still work that way. If we go for long periods without eating our bodies go into “Starvation Mode” and think “Uh-oh. Food must be scarce. There must not be any Wooly Mammoths around to hunt. Better store everything we eat as fat so we’ll be able to survive the long winter!” So when people think that by skipping meals they’ll lose weight, quite the opposite is true: if we eat at regular intervals during the day our bodies will metabolize what we eat more efficiently.
Certified Nutritionist Karen Marino, who’s been helping people all over the country with weight management for over 15 years, explains:
“When we eat food our blood sugar, or glucose level immediately rises and insulin is released. Insulin is a hormone that helps control blood sugar and helps our bodies metabolize our food. Insulin looks for the nutrients in our food and helps to deliver those nutrients to our cells, which use them to fuel our bodies with energy.”
Our bodies naturally release Insulin every 2 to 3 hours. Because of this, it’s important that we put something in our stomachs at regular intervals during the day. Ideally the average person should eat something at least 8-9 times a day. If we don’t eat that often our bodies will produce insulin and there won’t be food there to take the nutrients from. Our bodies will then take nutrients, in the form of essential minerals like calcium and magnesium, and proteins from our muscles.
The opposite scenario is also equally bad: if we overeat or snack all day long our bodies won’t be able to handle all the glucose in our blood. This could eventually cause a condition called “Insulin Resistance”, a stepping stone to Type 2 Diabetes. This is a stone it would be better to skip than step on.
When we talk about eating 8-9 times a day, we don’t mean 8-9 regular sized meals. Ideally, a person ought to eat something within an hour of waking up, since our bodies have gone through 6-8 hours of sleep without food. This is why it’s said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. About 2-3 hours after eating breakfast it’s a good idea to have a small snack, ideally no more than 150 calories, or a piece of fruit. Lunch should consist of a good amount of proteins and not too many carbs. Between lunch and dinner it’s best to have 1-2 more 100-150 calorie snacks. Dinner should then consist of approximately double the amount of proteins and carbs as lunch. The average person should be having approximately 2-3 oz. of protein for lunch and 4-6 oz for dinner. Carbs should be no more than 1 to 1.5 oz for lunch and about 4 oz for dinner.
About 1.5-2 hours after dinner, another 100-150 calorie snack. Before bed, it’s great to have ½ cup of a dairy snack, say a 4 oz cup of yogurt or even ice cream! Believe it or not, it can help you sleep. This is where the whole “warm cup of milk before bedtime” adage comes from. Calcium helps you sleep better.
“How the heck will I ever eat all that food, and not get fat” you may wonder.
Again, it’s all about blood sugar and insulin levels. When we give our bodies fuel, in the form of small amounts of food, periodically during the day, it helps maintain healthy glucose levels and helps our bodies metabolize the food we give it. When we overeat, our bodies can’t break down all the food so a lot of it gets stored as fat. When we don’t eat enough, our bodies break down muscle to get what it needs and whatever we do eat, even the best of foods, gets stored as fat.
Of course, regular exercise is also extremely important. Get out and take a walk or a run or a bike ride. Take a yoga class. Go swimming. Just put down the joy stick and the remote control once in a while.
And go ahead. Enjoy the chips, but with a 1 oz bag. Most chips, cookies and nut snacks now come in more human sizes. Enjoy them, but space them out during the day.
Eating in this way will help your body burn calories more efficiently and help you to be the best you that you can be.
Looks good.
Very sensible advice! I’ve long thought that this is the way to good health. I think it’s stupid when people skip meals.