Tuesday's Tip - Eat Smaller Meals and Often

Most of us have heard it before.... eat small frequent meals throughout the day. However many of us are more likely to still eat 2 or three large meals daily. It is true that smaller- frequent meals is absolutely the only way to go. Why? Because when we go longer than 3 hours without eating, our levels of the stress hormone Cortisol increases. And high cortisol levels signal the body to store fat in the abdominal region. Keep in mind too that studies show people who skip meals have the highest cortisol levels of all!

 

Research suggests that eating small meals more often reduces Cortisol levels. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who ate six small meals a day for 2 weeks, as opposed to three large meals containing the same total number of calories, reduced their Cortisol levels by more than 17 percent! And they lost belly fat too!

When you eat small (for example 300-350 calorie per meal), frequent meals (about every 3 hours- while awake) long term, the body becomes efficient at keeping cortisol levels low, which helps both men and women reduce belly fat. Eating regularly throughout the day also makes you less tempted to overeat at any one sitting or be overly tempted to raid the snack machine at the office.  For more nutrition tips visit www.EatAndBeFit.com