Posted by Jeanne Schmit on Fri, Jul 24, 2009 @ 04:55 PM
Not the best idea. Combining exercise and diet is the most effective way to lose weight and keep it off. Exercise helps you look your best by improving muscle tone, posture and overall vitality. It also gets you into a fat burning mode to increase your weight loss. However, weight loss from exercise only (without regards to diet) is rare.
Most experts agree that 80% of weight loss comes from diet. Here's a new way of thinking about meal sizes, hunger and your state of fullness.
Are you a person who eats only when you're hungry and stops when the feeling of hunger is gone? If yes, this article is not for you. Instead of reading this blog, go get some exercise.
For everyone else, are you routinely allowing yourself to:
- Get overly hungry before you eat? or
- Do you eat so much you get overly full after your meal?
Even done once a week, this eating behavior is likely to sabotage your efforts at weight loss.
Try using the Hunger/Satiety Scale for one week and see what insights you gain into your eating patterns. The scale helps you choose the right amount of food to eat at the right time.
Hunger Scale in 4 Steps:
- Before you eat, look at the Scale and determine which number corresponds to how hungry you are.
- Write it down.
- After you finish your meal, determine which number corresponds to how full you are.
- Record these numbers for all your meals for one week. Write down the time of your meals/snacks.
Hunger/Satiety Scale
0: Starving and beyond.
1: So hungry you want to eat everything on the menu.
2: Hungry, ready to eat. The urge to eat is strong.
3: Beginning signals of hunger.
4-5: Comfortable. Neither hungry nor full.
6: Satisfied. If you stop eating now, your brain will register a "7" in 20 minutes.
7: Hunger is gone. No stomach pressure. Stop here and you should not feel hungry again for 3-4 hours.
8: Not uncomfortable, but feel stomach pressure. Not hungry for over 4 hours.
9: Uncomfortable and very full. A lot of stomach pressure.
10: Very uncomfortable, even painful. "Thanksgiving full."
What did you find out? Were you never hungry before sitting down to a meal? It usually means you ate too much the last meal and need more time to get hungry again. Others find they go from ravenous to overfull.
Hunger Scale Guidelines:
- Start every meal at a 2 or 3
- Finish each meal at a 6 or 7
- Eat every 3-4 hours
- Avoid ever getting to a 0 and a 10
- Minimize or never get to a 1, 8, or 9.
Eating above an 8 on a routine basis promotes fat gain. If you're eating to an 8 or higher it could be you're allowing yourself to get too hungry, you're eating too fast or you're starting out with too much food in front of you. Start to see how much food you'll need to get to a 7 and remove the extra before you start eating. Use that portion for your next meal of snack.
If you truly are at a 6 or 7, you would be ready to eat and hungry after about 4 hours.
Give yourself time to experiment to find the right portion size and meal spacing.
Let me know what you find out!
photo from Bakko Brats-Back