Snacking to Boost Your Metabolism

I must start with a disclaimer.  I am not a doctor and I don't play one on TV.  I'm also not a nutritionist and don't pretend to be an expert in how the body works.  Except that I have dieted over the years with poor results and with great results and I read a lot.  What I am sharing here is not rocket science and it has been documented by medical and nutritional experts.  But you should always check with your doctor before changing your diet, and I encourage you to do your own research.  This has been working for us and has the ring of truth to it so I share it with you now in case it may help you, too.

Metabolism is defined as the chemical reactions in the body's cells that convert the fuel from food into the energy needed to do everything from moving to thinking to growing.  If you take in more food than you need at any given point, your body is efficient enough to store it for later use (as fat).  If your body thinks you are starving it, your metabolism slows in order to become more efficient and instead of burning the calories you consume as energy, it stores them for later, thinking it will need them because you are starving.

If you've ever dieted, you have probably noticed that after a few weeks of extreme dieting, your weight loss slows and then stops.   You may even begin to gain weight even though you aren't eating much at all.  This is because you've essentially shut down your metabolism.  Often going off of an extreme diet causes a person to gain back most, if not all of the weight they lost, simply because their metabolism has gone into survival mode and made quick work of storing all that fat for next time!

For diabetics, especially, it is important to eat at regular intervals to keep blood sugars level.  By eating more often throughout the day, you actually speed up your metabolism and level your blood sugar, which in turn helps burn off excess body fat.  The key is to eat every 2-3 hours all day long.  This regularly scheduled intake of food lets your body know there will always be plenty of fuel to burn and there is no need to worry about starving to death so it can stop storing so many calories as fat.

So after reading several articles on the subject, we have begun eating a 100-200 calorie snack between meals every 2-3 hours throughout our day, ending one hour before bedtime.  We eat our first snack within 30 minutes to one hour of getting up - for us, that's 4:00 a.m., so I typically have a Trader Joe's "This Fig Walks into a Bar" bar at 5:00.  At 8:00 I have my daily breakfast, consisting of a granola bar, a small can of V-8 juice and black coffee.  At 10:30 I have another 100 calorie snack, and between 1 and 1:30 I eat my lunch.  I have another snack at around 4:00 and then dinner between 6 and 6:30, and a final snack (usually our low-cal/low-carb evening dessert) around 8:30 - 9:00 (we go to bed at 10).

We make sure that our WW points do not exceed our daily allotment, and we try to limit carbs in our snacks to around 20 or less.  There are so many 100 calorie packs now that it is really easy to do this, even on the fly - we just have learned to carry snacks with us and when we're out, we stick to things that are easy to carry, like granola bars.  But here are some other ideas for snacks with fewer than 200 calories:

• 1 carton of lowfat fruit flavored yogurt
• 1/2 cup cottage cheese
• 3 rye crisp and 2 wedges of laughing cow cheese
• string cheese
• skinny cow ice cream sandwich
• sugar free pudding, topped with fat free cool whip
• small box of raisins
• 1 slice of whole wheat toast with 2 T creamy peanut butter

You get the idea.  Anything that will keep your metabolism moving but won't add too many calories to your overall daily total.  The benefits are great!  We are sleeping better at night and have more energy during the day.  We are not hungry between meals and we eat smaller portions at dinner.   We are losing weight and our blood sugars are good.

Try it and see if it doesn't work for you, too!

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