Three Eating Habits You Can Incorporate Now

James Fowler Physical TherapyDiet & NutritionLeave a Comment

Eating healthy in New York City is a challenge – constantly persuaded by the many restaurants, food advertisements, food trucks, and coffee shops. You’ve tried all the diets, the juice cleanses, and ‘special tricks’ that your best friend swears by. But have you ever tried just simply changing your eating habits?

We’ve put together a list of the best recommendations to help alter your eating routines to lead to a healthier life.

Time of Day is Important

It turns out eating at certain points during the day has multiple benefits. Not only does it limit weight gain, but it to lower your blood pressure, reduce your risk for heart disease and diabetes, and also help you fall asleep at night.

As mom always says, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. By eating a full breakfast, you are preparing your body for the day to come – supplying your body with energy to last the 8 hour work day. Eating in the morning allows you to fill up early, and eat less in the afternoon and evening. By filling up early and eating less later, your body has more time to burn off calories, helping you to lose weight. If you skip breakfast, you tend to get a lot hungrier, a lot faster, causing you to overfill yourself during lunch and eat at a much quicker pace.

For dinner, multiple health magazines recommend eating 3 to 4 hours before you go to sleep. If you eat right before going to bed, your body has less time to burn calories. “What you don’t burn off, your body stores as fat”, says Tracy Lockwood, a registered dietician. Eating earlier in the evening also helps you fall asleep faster at night. By eating right before bedtime, your body is resupplied with a dose of energy, halting the production of melatonin, which helps you fall asleep.

Avoid Multitasking

I’m sure you’ve heard that walking and eating is very bad for you. Well what you heard is right. When you are multitasking, e.g. walking, you are distracted by many other things happening around that you don’t pay attention to how much you are eating and at what speed. Prevention magazine reported on a study that analyzed people who multitask while eating compared to those who do not. They found that the group of people who were walking and eating ate 5x more compared to the group who sat and ate their food. Do your body and mind a favor and do not eat on the go.

 Eat Slowly

Eating slowly is an important tip to avoid overeating. According to livestrong.com, it takes your brain 20 minutes to register that your stomach is full. By eating slowly, you consume less food and allow your body to fully digest what you’ve eaten. But don’t fret, just because you eat less does not mean you will be left feeling hungry. It just means that you will feel full on less food, allowing for weight loss.

We hope these eating habits are simple enough to implement into your daily routine. If these are things you already do, well then great!

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