We have learned the meal schedule since kindergarten and have acquired a large number of different beliefs and “inviolable” truths: you must have breakfast, and a hearty one, you cannot eat after 6 pm, you need to eat every 2 hours, in addition to the main meals, there must also be snacks. But is everything really that strict? He talks about this Anna Ivashkevich, nutritionist, clinical psychologist-dietitian, member of the National Association of Clinical Nutrition:
— When we talk about the meal schedule, we need to remember that each of us has our own personal schedule: we can’t unite everyone into one single rule, and besides, it doesn’t exist. Of course, many of us have a work schedule: we have to adjust our diet to the lunch break at the office, and take into account the time we arrive from work.
The origins of the two-course diet
In the past, people could not afford several meals a day. Our ancestors worked long hours and ate full meals in the evenings, when they had free time. People could also have a snack during the day. Fruits, milk, and herbal teas were used to satisfy hunger.
In the past, such nutrition was considered correct. Eating small amounts of food or drink during the day helped curb hunger. At the same time, such a snack did not negatively affect the results of work, and a full stomach was considered an obstacle to work. In the evening, the body received a sufficient amount of food to replenish energy and strength.
Who is contraindicated for eating two meals a day?
Important information! Eating with long breaks is not contraindicated only for healthy people who do not have problems with the gastrointestinal tract.
Everyone else should treat two meals a day with great caution and decide to switch to it only after consulting a doctor.
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Two meals a day are especially dangerous for persons:
- Suffering from gastritis, stomach ulcers;
- Patients with diabetes mellitus;
- Suffering from cardiovascular diseases;
- Having hypotension;
- Suffering from cancer.
Opinions of scientists and nutritionists
Modern scientists believe that a two-time diet is physiologically correct. In the morning after sleep, hunger is not felt, because the body has not yet awakened. Only closer to lunch does this feeling arise. It is considered a signal that the body requires energy to ensure mental and physical activity. When a person eats at lunchtime (around 12 noon), the body begins a digestive cycle. It lasts about 8 hours, i.e. the feeling of hunger reappears around 8 pm.
Scientists also believe that eating 2 times a day for weight loss is ideal. Immediately after the feeling of hunger, the body begins to draw energy by spending fat reserves.
Nutritionists do not agree with the opinion of scientists. They believe that even with short-term hunger, the body's metabolism is rebuilt. The adrenal glands secrete cortisol, which stops fat burning and activates the processes of obtaining energy from muscle tissue. However, there is another opinion. Some experts still advise overweight people to use a diet and find out for themselves whether it is possible to lose weight by eating 2 times a day. Each person is individual. For some people, eating two meals a day is effective, but for others it is ineffective.
Hunger and weight loss
Many people also use meals 2 times a day for the purpose of losing weight. Due to the long time interval between two extreme meals, weight loss with two meals a day occurs at an accelerated pace.
If, for example, you have dinner at 19:00, and then, skipping breakfast, have lunch at 12:00, then 17 hours will pass between meals. All this time, the body will not receive fuel from the outside, so to ensure physical and mental activity it will have to draw energy from its own resources. This means that reserves from the fat reserve will be used, and the body will begin to lose extra pounds.
However, modern nutritionists have many objections to this method of losing weight. In their opinion, when a feeling of hunger occurs, the body rebuilds its metabolism into an emergency energy-saving mode. At the same time, the adrenal glands secrete the stress hormone cortisol, which blocks fat burning and triggers catabolic processes, in which muscle tissue proteins are used as an energy source. As a result, fat reserves are jealously guarded, and muscle tissue is thrown into the furnace of energy metabolism.
Thus, according to many nutritionists, with two meals a day, it is not fat that is burned, but muscle, which leads to weight loss while simultaneously increasing the percentage of body fat. It is not known whether studies have been conducted to confirm or refute this claim, but the fact that weight loss occurs at a rapid pace when eating twice a day has been confirmed repeatedly.
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However, if weight loss with two meals a day actually occurs not due to fat, but due to muscles, then there is little good in this.
Basic diet rules
A diet based on two meals a day can help you lose weight if you follow several rules:
- Energy consumption must be greater than energy consumption. This rule applies to all diets. It is recommended to lead an active lifestyle - go to the gym, do physical exercises at home, etc. You can also just go for a walk regularly. Experts have proven that 1 hour of walking outside can replace a short workout.
- When following a diet, you need to strictly eat 2 times a day. Snacking between meals is not advisable. In cases where the feeling of hunger is severe, you are allowed to eat some low-calorie product.
- You should not eat a lot of food at one time. Uncontrolled consumption of food nullifies the effectiveness of two meals a day and negatively affects health.
- It is recommended to exclude fatty, sweet and starchy foods from your daily diet. It is best to boil, steam, or bake food, avoiding frying in any fat.
Advantages and disadvantages
The rhythm of modern life often does not allow for split meals - 5-6 times a day, so a two-course diet is the most suitable nutrition option. The convenience of the diet is one of its advantages. Another plus is that there is no harm to health with a properly composed menu.
The disadvantages of eating two meals a day include the fact that it can cause harm to the body. However, the negative impact is not due to infrequent eating, but to the way people eat. Having reached food, a person may overeat due to a strong feeling of hunger. Eating too much food can trigger various diseases (for example, gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers, myocardial infarction, etc.).
The harm of eating twice a day is also associated with improperly organized meals. Some people eat on the run, drink little water or eat unhealthy foods (chips, hamburgers, crackers, candy, etc.).
If you analyze reviews of two meals a day for weight loss, you can find another drawback of the diet. People complain about excruciating hunger pangs that they have to endure every day.
Hunger and longevity
The famous American healthy lifestyle promoter Paul Bragg devoted a significant part of his life to studying the effect of hunger on human health and life expectancy. He hypothesized that short-term fasting has the ability to rejuvenate the body.
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Paul Bragg regularly arranged fasting days for himself and for many years adhered to two meals a day, but not to lose weight, but to rejuvenate his body. The American naturopath's diet consisted of only lunch and dinner. In his opinion, long breaks between meals (the time interval between dinner and lunch was at least 16 hours) mobilize the body's forces responsible for longevity, as a result of which the aging process is inhibited.
Paul Bragg's hypotheses were partially confirmed in studies that were carried out after his death.
Experiments on mice have shown a correlation between poor nutrition and life expectancy in experimental rodents. And although similar studies have not been conducted on humans, the idea of increasing life expectancy through short-term fasting seemed very tempting to many.
Many people around the world, including many famous personalities, adhere to two meals a day precisely for the purpose of rejuvenation. Whether this diet will help them live longer is unknown, but they do not consider the daily feeling of hunger to be too high a price to pay for the illusory hope of living a longer life.
Recommended menu
The daily menu can be compiled at your discretion. The main thing is that the food is healthy. Vegetables are ideal for the diet. They can be eaten raw in the form of salads, boiled or baked in the oven. Unsweetened fruits, dairy and fermented milk drinks, foods with a small percentage of fat, lean meat and fish, and seafood are also useful.
The daily menu for two meals a day may look like this:
- lunch - oatmeal cooked with milk and seasoned with a piece of butter, a tomato, 2 boiled chicken eggs, a slice of rye bread, tea or coffee;
- dinner - any soup, buckwheat porridge with chicken breast, vegetable salad, compote.
The menu for a week with two meals a day for weight loss should be varied, so it is recommended to make changes to it regularly.
Results, tips and price of the diet
Those who have lost weight by eating 2 times a day note that this diet was effective for them. If you follow all the basic rules, you can consistently lose 1–3 kg per week. It is important not to give up when you feel hungry, and the following tips can help:
- Drink clean, still water between meals. It will allow you to deceive your stomach for a while.
- Include protein foods of animal origin in your diet. It takes longer to digest in the body. Thanks to it, you can postpone the onset of hunger for some time.
- Associate hunger with getting rid of extra pounds. This makes it easier to endure unpleasant sensations and reduces the likelihood of failure and refusal of the diet.
Judging by the reviews about the diet, eating 2 times a day is not expensive. For a week, you may need an amount of 1.5 thousand rubles when purchasing products in the mid-price range.
Why should you choose two meals a day rather than split meals?
Many nutritionists contrast split meals with two meals a day and advise focusing on the first option. They justify this choice by the fact that a fractional daily diet is part of a healthy lifestyle and promotes weight loss without causing harm to the body. However, few studies have been conducted. Their results showed that the facts about fractional nutrition, previously considered reliable, are actually myths.
Myth 1. Small meals improve health
Nutritionists believe that when consuming small portions, less stress is placed on the body. This point of view is wrong. With a fractional diet, the body digests any food eaten throughout the day. He hardly gets any rest. This causes harm to the person. The body needs rest, because at this time processes of cleansing cells from harmful and unnecessary substances take place in it.
In order not to cause harm to the body, it is best to choose two meals a day for effective weight loss. If you ignore this recommendation, there is a risk of encountering inflammatory processes and diseases due to the body’s lack of time to cleanse itself.
Myth 2. Small meals speed up metabolism
Fractional nutrition has almost nothing to do with metabolism. Acceleration of metabolism occurs in the body only during the digestion of food.
Myth 3. With fractional meals it is impossible to overeat
With fractional meals, a person eats every 2–3 hours. He eats food until the feeling of hunger occurs, when the body does not need food. This is overeating. In addition, when eating fractional meals, some people forget about what the portion size should be and eat more than they should.
Myth 4. Small meals help you lose weight the fastest
British scientists specifically conducted a study on the topic of fractional nutrition and weight loss. The results showed that the number of meals had no effect on extra pounds. Weight depends on calories consumed. When the calorie intake is low, the body begins to use fat reserves. Physical activity plays an important role.
Myth 5. Small meals help reduce appetite
Nutritionists say that increasing the number of meals helps reduce appetite. However, American scientists from the University of Kansas Medical Center have proven that this information is unreliable. Each meal is associated with eating the usual amount of food, but you have to eat a small portion. As a result, a person feels less full.
If you eat 2 times a day, you can lose weight quickly. This is what many people who adhere to a two-a-day diet say. However, this does not mean that this diet is ideal for everyone. The only way to know whether two meals a day is appropriate is through personal experience. If there is no effect, it is recommended to use some other diet.
IMPORTANT! Informational article! Before use, you should consult a specialist.
Health on the night shift
Many professions require working at night. Security guards, dispatchers, law enforcement officers, medical personnel, employees of air and other carriers, gas stations, printing houses, nightclubs, industrial enterprises and many, many others are forced to work at night. 25% of all working people in our country work in night mode. We can also recall the “chronic deadline-setters” who have to fulfill the “five-year plan” on the last night...
So what threatens the shift in the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness, laid down by nature itself?
Night work ruins your health
All over the world, dozens of studies are conducted annually on the topic of how and why the body suffers due to night work. Some researchers even argue that the harmfulness of night work can be compared to excessive drinking and smoking over many years.
Scientists agree that working at night increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, depression and obesity.
Working at night is a serious threat to human health. By the way, you can also earn “chronic lack of sleep” - this is a habitual state of the body deprived of proper rest. After all, few people return from a night shift and go to bed for 8 hours. In addition, it has been proven that daytime sleep is less deep than nighttime sleep, since it does not correspond to natural biorhythms. As a result, people become aggressive, irritable or, conversely, absent-minded and inattentive, their character deteriorates, fatigue quickly accumulates, they are more prone to “professional burnout,” and moving away from family does not lead to anything good.
However, sleep specialists (somnologists) note that these problems are typical only for those who work at night more than 2 times a week. If a person works the night shift only once a week and then gets a good night’s sleep, he is not at risk of chronic sleep deprivation.
There are people who actually work better at night. These are “people with individual adaptability to night work.” At night their brain works at full capacity, and during the day they are able to fully relax during sleep. But even for them, an immutable rule applies: the work schedule must be stable. If night and day shifts change haphazardly, then colossal harm will still be caused to the body.
Previously, scientists were confident that the effects of medium-term sleep loss could be offset by subsequent long periods of rest, but recent research shows that some aspects of brain function, such as focus, are not fully restored even after three days. Night work kills the brain, experts say. One week - and a person who suffers from regular lack of sleep risks losing as much as 15 points of his IQ - intelligence quotient. So what to do if there is no escape from night work?
Night shift workers
1. Monitor your health.
Complete preventive examinations and medical examinations on time; do not treat medical examinations before your shift as serfdom. Moreover, they will not be canceled and, on the contrary, will be strengthened. New inspection rules are being developed, and penalties for ignoring them are being tightened. The “human factor” in accidents costs us too much to ignore the health of those responsible.
And if, on the contrary, no one at work is interested in your health, take care of it yourself. Before your shift, take your blood pressure and count your pulse. Check to see if you have forgotten your usual medications. If you have diabetes, make sure you bring sweets and a blood sugar monitor. If you have hypertension, have a tonometer on hand. A patient with bronchial asthma needs to check that the medication canisters are full. All these are little things, at first glance, but they are the ones that lead to the most serious consequences in your life and the lives of people who in one way or another depend on your performance.
2. Get enough sleep.
A healthy adult needs to sleep 7–8 hours a day. At night. It is when the body's circadian rhythms are completely set to rest. For daytime sleep, the time is extended by 1 hour. What they usually do is not quite right: in the morning they sleep as much as they want, and then, sleepy, they go to the night shift. Scientists have proven that it is best to get enough sleep immediately before work, and about 2 hours is enough. Therefore, in the morning you should sleep about 4–6 hours or a little more, and closer to your shift, get a couple more hours. Maintain good sleep hygiene: ventilate the room, buy thick curtains, insert earplugs. Scientists advise wearing dark glasses in the morning when you return home so that bright sunlight does not “wake up” the brain and put it in a state of combat readiness.
