There may be dietary changes. Why fractional nutrition can play a cruel joke on you and even harm your hormonal health. Good mood and energy all day

Fractional nutrition - not only Foundation stone balanced and healthy diet, but also lovely way lose weight quickly.

Numerous studies have repeatedly proven that this type of diet helps to lower glucose levels and bad cholesterol in the blood and does not overload the digestive system, while at the same time constantly keeping us in good shape.

Today we will tell you exactly how fractional nutrition affects our health and what changes will occur in your body when you start eating less, but more often.

no hunger

Try to count how many times a day we feel acute hunger, eating two or three times a day. Now remember how often you allowed yourself to eat too much for dinner just because you came home hungry, and the last meal was at least 5 hours ago.

Why are we? Anyone who adheres to fractional nutrition and is not lazy to eat 4-6 times a day in small portions, the feeling of hunger is unfamiliar. As soon as you switch to a "better less, more often" diet, you will realize that your body does not need a lot of food at all. It is simply important for him to “recharge” from time to time so as not to experience stress.

Good mood and energy all day

This point follows directly from the previous one. After all, what is hunger? For the body - the transition to energy-saving mode, a slowdown in metabolism and jumps in blood sugar, but for us - an inevitable gloomy mood and a terrible breakdown.

Including in your daily diet several even the smallest, but healthy snacks(for example, a couple of your favorite sweet fruits in the afternoon and a protein salad in the late afternoon), you will always be full of energy and good mood.

Acceleration of metabolism and the general benefit of the body

Starving, the body tries to put aside "in reserve". And coping with overeating, loses efficiency and speed of all metabolic processes(Familiar with the feeling of lethargy and drowsiness after heavy meals?).

Fractional nutrition will help not to overload the body with food, maintaining a normal metabolism and effectively using the calories received. small but frequent portions healthy food and enough water is one of the main recommendations of gastroenterologists for those who suffer from ulcers, gastritis and other stomach problems. In addition, a fractional diet has a positive effect on blood sugar levels.

Creating a calorie deficit without disruption

Everyone who has ever sat on rigid diets, knows for sure that the main success in losing excess weight is the creation of a so-called calorie deficit, that is, spending more than you consume. The standard three meals a day does not really cope with this task: we do not control the size of portions, and besides, we run the risk of "hungry" and at any moment break into something very harmful and high-calorie.

We believe that the easiest way to create a calorie deficit is on a fractional diet. The body will not notice anything terrible, because it simply does not have time to get hungry, getting everything you need, and you will enjoy a stable and gradual weight loss without driving yourself into the unreasonable framework of strict diets.

“Fragmentary nutrition helps to lose weight, improve metabolism and digestion, it fights hunger and helps not to store too much,” nutrition gurus explain to us. True, they do not explain why millions of people, despite all the fractions, are still struggling with overweight, excruciating hunger, lethargy, drowsiness and fog in the head. Maybe because all these statements are garbage in vegetable oil? And we have already said that it is better to eat butter, not lean. A nutritionist breaks down from a physiological, evolutionary, and common sense point of view why eating small meals every three hours makes no sense. Unless, of course, you are a chicken.

Julia Bogdanova
NANP Certified Nutritionist
BUT second blog on the impact of nutrition and lifestyle on health“Spinach and Buckwheat”

For a long time, the issue of intervals between meals was relevant in my family life. For a year in France, my husband was imbued with the format of the local style of eating: only 3 meals at a given time. Missed - wait for the next one. I had more democratic views - I loved to have “fruits”, nuts and even sweets with me on a rainy day.

At that time it was not clear to us how to resolve the dispute. On the one hand, it is known that the French diet has a beneficial effect on health - these were the times when the entire Western world envied ““: very low level cardiovascular diseases and excess weight. On the other hand, my entire adult life eating smaller meals with frequent snacks has been standard medical advice.

And then I became interested in the topic, got an education and a completely new world opened up to me. wonderful world. And now the question that really worries me is: why do many nutritionists still recommend fractional meals?

FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF EVOLUTION

Imagine our ancestors even a few centuries ago. Could they expect to eat breakfast in the morning and snack between lunch and dinner? Perhaps a couple percent of the nobility who had unlimited access to food.

An even less common practice of regular eating was among people of the Paleolithic era - before the advent of Agriculture. The contents of the “plate” and the frequency of its filling depended on how successful the hunt was, the season, weather conditions, least.

That is, it is logical to assume that the schedule and frequency of eating is nothing more than a social convention, but not a physiological necessity that has appeared quite recently, if we consider it within the framework of two and a half million years of the evolution of the homo genus.

Literally over the past 100 years, we have gone from regular fairly long periods of fasting to the need to put something in our mouth every couple of hours. If our recent ancestors were content with 1-2 meals a day, and sometimes spent days and even weeks without full lunches and dinners, today many of us perceive the 5-hour interval between lunch and dinner as a serious deprivation. Why?

Our physiology was formed in conditions of constant food shortage - that is, it was critical for human survival and dominance as a species to enjoy food, give preference to those foods that saturate best, and store calories for a "rainy day" in the form of fat. deposits.

At the physiological level, the love of sugar is supported, among other things, by the release of dopamine, the hormone of pleasure and satisfaction, the love of fat by the release of the hormone leptin, an increase in the level of which is necessary for a feeling of fullness, and storage by insulin, which turns all energy excesses into adipose tissue.

In other words, our entire physiology is geared towards survival at any cost in a food shortage. And with this " old system"We are in a new environment, which, as a species, have never been encountered before - with the dominance of ubiquitously accessible and attractive on hormonal level sugar and fat, packaged in processed foods that are designed to further stimulate addiction and addiction.

PHYSIOLOGICALLY

Digestion that starts every time, even if we eat a couple of nuts and an apple is complex physiological process involving the brain, intestines, endocrine system, liver.

In particular, let's look at the impact of food intake on one of the most talked about aspects of health right now - blood sugar balance.

When we eat almost any food (the exception may be fats - such as coconut, butter, olive oil), the reaction of the body - an increase in blood sugar levels - to a greater or lesser extent. In response, our pancreas begins to produce the hormone insulin, which is responsible for using the energy that has entered the body - spend it now for actual cellular needs or store it for later: for quick access - in the liver and muscles (in the form of glycogen) or for a "hungry year" - in adipose tissue.

With frequent meals, the process of regulating blood sugar levels, which is fundamental to health, and with it the regulation of hunger and satiety, are disturbed:

• high blood sugar causes cells to lose sensitivity to the insulin it delivers to its cells,
• in order to reach the hearing-impaired cells, the pancreas has to produce more and more insulin and its resources are depleted,
• elevated level blood sugar leads to physical damage to the walls of blood vessels and the development of inflammatory processes,
• elevated insulin levels lead to "hearing loss" of the hypothalamus, due to neuronal death and impaired feedback that the hypothalamus provides for the regulation of hunger and satiety
• elevated sugar levels are a signal to the body that there is a source of energy. This blocks the synthesis of hormone-sensitive lipase, an enzyme that is responsible for the breakdown of fatty tissues.

As a result, it turns out that the food has arrived, but the body - due to high level sugar and insulin - immediately put it aside in reserve. And from his point of view, there is not enough energy for normal activity, which means that he turns on hunger mode and forces us to go to the refrigerator or junk food machine again. Even after eating, we often starve at the cellular level and at the same time store energy in the form of fat mass. At the same time, we launch inflammatory processes, we injure the heart and blood vessels.

WHY THE BENEFITS OF FRACTIONAL FOOD IS A MYTH

Adepts of fractional nutrition have a lot of arguments, let's look at why they all break up with science.

Indeed, many people find it insanely difficult to go without food for more than three hours. This is due to the fact that the traditional "Western" diet is rich in sugars and often causes metabolic disorders, in particular - a violation of carbohydrate metabolism.

This leads to frequent and acute feelings of hunger, which are caused by spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels. When healthy carbohydrate metabolism and adaptation of the body to burning fat, an acute feeling of hunger does not occur even after 5 hours - many can comfortably afford not to eat for longer. This is due to the fact that in the absence of sugar, the body smoothly switches to burning its own fat reserves. Over time, the feeling of hunger, even with prolonged fasting, becomes even softer, while the energy level does not decrease.

IMPORTANT:The state of hunger while adapted to burn fat must be distinguished from a state of permanent calorie deficit. It is a long-term calorie deficit that leads to a state of stress (and this, in turn, to dysregulation of blood sugar levels due to increased levels of cortisol), chronic hunger andreduce energy costs .

As for gallstone disease, according to a number of experts, one of the main risks of its development is a diet withhigh in carbohydrates and low in fat, whilesome research demonstrate that a high-fat diet can prevent the development of gallstones. But if the bile, which is necessary for the digestion of fat, is not used to the full, as on low-fat diets, then it stagnates - with all the consequences.

In other words, the risk of developing gallstones is determined primarily by the quality of your diet, and not by the frequency of eating. Otherrisk of developing gallstones – excess weight, diabetes, metabolic syndrome - in general, most of bouquet chronic diseases, the fault for the development of whichmodern experts entrusted for consumption a large number Sahara.

There is a place and time for fractional nutrition - for example, it works well for gastrointestinal diseases such as colitis, low stomach acid, and bacterial overgrowth syndrome.

However, it is important not to confuse therapeutic diets, that is, a diet that is used to restore health, with a diet, a lifestyle that maintains health and even helps to strengthen it. Therapeutic diets can be compared to a crutch - the leg has healed, you need to develop it and get rid of the support. So it is with our gastrointestinal tract: as its work is restored, we must strive to increase loads - how to introduce useful products that earlier man could not stand it, and increase the intervals between meals, which will help the gastrointestinal system and the whole body recover further.

There are two problems here. First, such statements do not scientific evidence. On the contrary, even the rejection of breakfast - "the most important meal of the day" -does not lead to overeating . Secondly, all this is based on the theory of calorie content: eat as much as you spend - and you will not get better. If you want to lose weight, reduce your calorie intake so that you spend more than you take in. You can read on this topic why the first law of thermodynamics does not work. More precisely, it works, but not in the way we think. But in short: what matters is not how many calories you ate, but what exactly you ate and what hormones are released in response to this food. As I explained above, even hearty and low calorie meal can make your body store everything in fat and think it's still hungry.

CONTRAINDICATIONS FOR LONG MEAL INTERVALS

Don't be afraid to eat "rarely" - skipping popular snacks and maybe sometimes even one of the three main meals. Thanks to pauses, not only is it much easier to control weight. Proper Hunger helps you work more productively, train better and improve your health.

Read about how much longer periods without food affect health. About the benefits of intermittent fasting.

Balanced diet – actual topic. In the modern world, it is fashionable to be healthy and successful. Dr. Stanley Bass has devoted almost his entire life to the topic of healthy nutrition.

The scientist began to experiment with products from the age of 19, arguing that "Man is what he eats." This is perhaps the longest study of an American naturopath, and has been going on for 80 years.

According to Stanley himself and his associates, the main difficulty in the transition to healthy eating, is an intermediate physiological state person.

How to become healthy through nutrition?

At first glance, everything is clear: sprouted grains of cereals are more useful than buns, and fresh vegetables will give the body more vitamins than heat treated. Beef is not as fat as pork, and, therefore, is easier to digest and less burdens the liver. Even more nutrients will enter the body with nuts and legumes.

As we move up the food priority scale, we include foods that are high in protein but do not require heat. Useful: cheese made from raw milk without salt, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, raw nuts.

Eating fresh food, we charge the body with vitality. Absence heat treatment
guarantees the intake of enzymes, amino acids, minerals, vitamins and carbohydrates in the body in the maximum amount. Thus, the process of tissue repair is activated.

In an effort to heal the body with the help of a qualitative increase in food, you should say goodbye to such not very useful additives as salt, sugar and pepper, as well as say "goodbye" bad habits: alcohol and tobacco. Coffee, cocoa, and chocolate are inherently toxins and hinder your wellness transformation.

To start the function of recovery processes, it is very important to observe the following rules:

• balanced nutrition (competent combination of proportions and selection of the right products);
• observance of the order of taking products (first of all, there are easily digestible products, complex ones - in the second, and concentrated ones are left in the end);
• the optimal volume of products of each type in a single reception;
• eating schedule (based on the feeling of hunger).

Exacerbations during the transition to a healthy diet

Having cleaned the refrigerator of food products of dubious benefit and going on a diet, a person expects a surge of strength, getting rid of ailments, the formation of a slender silhouette, clean skin, thick and shiny hair.

But in practice, amazing metamorphoses occur. Man switching to nutrition useful and quality products, begins to feel weakness and apathy, the body is tormented by nausea and diarrhea, and a rash covers the skin. I want to forget about nutrition nightmare, pour a good portion of coffee into the stomach and have a snack with a bar of chocolate.

Don't give up so quickly. The secret of the alleged deterioration of health lies in the natural wisdom of the body. The evolutionary process is that each cell prefers the good to the bad, and the best to the good. The natural instinct pushes out the accumulated rubbish from the inside: toxins, slags, residual elements of countless medicines. In the end, the tissues themselves become "morally obsolete components", which must be replaced with qualitatively new substances coming from useful products. Brick by brick, atom by atom, the body is being restructured. It's like during a renovation: they rip off the wallpaper, ditch the walls, and the visual impression states a complete defeat. But now the repair is over, the garbage is thrown out, the floors and windows are washed ... the room becomes cozy, clean and beautiful. The same processes occur in the body.

As foam forms on the crest of a wave, so all hidden diseases are washed away by a new way of life. They go outside and cancel. The temperature may suddenly jump out. But, later a short time All will pass. This is how “dirt” comes out, diseases “nailed down” with medicines. They just leave the body. They have no place in the new body.

How long does the restructuring of the body take with a change in nutrition?

From infancy, a set of rules is imposed on every member of society: you need to eat at certain hours, you should drink coffee in the morning, best breakfast- bacon and eggs. The mentality that has been formed over the years and decades requires adherence to traditions, and the process of body renewal is accompanied by unpleasant symptoms.

Are you already drinking clean water and fresh juices, eat raw vegetables and nuts. Useful material displace accumulated toxins, and the cells are renewed and healed.

Waste materials are excreted from the body through sweat, vomiting, diarrhea and unpleasant odors. It is not a fact that the whole range of "charms" will fall upon every adherent of naturopathy, but it is quite possible.

You should show wisdom and rest more if weakness is felt. When the body is prevented from healing, it always seeks to "lull" consciousness so that it does not interfere with the struggle for survival. Get plenty of rest and your body will adjust faster.

For decades, the body has been stimulated by tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, alcohol and tobacco. And suddenly all these products disappeared from the diet somewhere. During the period of restructuring and adaptation, this list of products will not be enough. Without doping, most people feel depressed and irritated. The main secret is that discomfort will soon pass, the joy of life will return. BUT physical state come out in high quality new level.

Changes occur not only in every cell of the body, but also in the brain.

If you know main secret- all difficulties are surmountable. It takes 40 days to form a habit. The brain, like an idle caretaker with a huge ledger, conducts a daily inventory: the habit of drinking coffee is there ... The habit is there, but coffee is not. There is a feeling of discomfort in the body. 40 days the body will require doping. But after the expiration of the specified period, it will become easier and, on the contrary, an occasional cup of coffee will cause dizziness and cardiopalmus. Why? Because now there is an item on the list of habits: healthy eating.

Gotta be prepared to get worse general condition within 40 days. But if the rebuild only takes a week,
so much the better, you can consider it a pleasant bonus from the body.

In some cases, the conversion goes in leaps and bounds. The trend towards improvement is replaced by periods of malaise. This is fine. With patience, you will be rewarded with: good health and longevity, quality of life and high performance.

Renewal of the body is accompanied by high emotional pleasure. You begin to feel gratitude to God and unity with Nature. Call it what you want. Feel like a part of the Cosmos, a component of the Universe. Happiness and pleasure from life will fill your whole being to the very edge.

Go to proper nutrition

Any abrupt transition to unusual food is reflected in the well-being of a person. After all, now we know that the body for new, unusual foods (sprouted grains, raw vegetables, fruits, etc.) must also supply specific enzymes, which are almost absent.

A different microflora should develop in the gastrointestinal tract. The intestinal, hormonal system is being rebuilt, taste habits and the need for food are changing. There must be a restructuring of the whole organism, which is reflected not only in physiology, but also in the human psyche. Naturally, this process is extended in time. In addition, many systems have a large inertia, so you need to know physiological mechanisms underlying these processes.

In addition, you should know that when switching to proper nutrition from our usual - perverted - there is a number of rearrangements in organs and systems that can manifest themselves in the form of painful crises. Know this and don't be afraid. Crises only indicate that you are on the right way, after such crises you rise to a new level of health.

As practice has shown, enzyme systems gastrointestinal tract are rebuilt on a new food for 3-12 months. The same thing happens with the intestinal microflora.

The intestinal hormonal system is highly inert; it takes 1–2 years to rebuild.

Changing the taste habits, behavior and psyche of a person requires an even longer time: 2-3 years. In about 3 years, all these mechanisms enter the required strength and work perfectly.

Criteria normal operation gastrointestinal tract are:

When you receive beetroot juice urine does not turn beetroot. This points to normal condition epithelium of the gastrointestinal tract;

The chair becomes easy and happens 2-3 times a day. This indicates normal gastrointestinal motility;

The consistency of the feces is semi-soft "sausage", odorless and without the inclusion of undigested pieces of vegetables, fruits, etc. This indicates normal absorption of water in the large intestine. And the absence of smell and pieces of vegetables indicates the development of a full-fledged, correct microflora;

Eating habits and needs are slowly changing. After 1-3 years, you will stop consuming "normal" food, because you will feel for yourself how it negatively affects the entire body.

Transition steps to the new kind food are as follows:

1) change the sequence food products: liquids before meals, fruits before meals, the first course is a salad, the second course is either carbohydrate or protein, but only one;

2) exclude all harmful products: refined and stimulants such as coffee, tea, sausage, cake, etc.;

3) change the proportion of raw and cooked food in favor of raw. Slowly accustom your body to raw food. Start drinking 100–200 g of freshly squeezed vegetable and fruit juices. Stew the vegetables first, and then less and less cook them, and in the end try to eat them raw. Alternate: once - stewed, once - raw;

4) start little by little (20–50 g each) include raw vegetable dishes: germinated wheat, soaked cereals, wild edible fruits and herbs. Soak porridge more than boil it.

In the same way, you should do the rest: eat fruit for breakfast; replace a lunch of first courses, bread, meat with a glass of freshly squeezed juice, raw or lightly stewed vegetables and cereals; replace dinner from the first and second courses, tea drinking with salad and nuts.

According to the season, you can arrange a “strawberry day”, “apple day”, “grape day”, “melon day”, “watermelon day”, etc.

If you follow this nutritional regimen, your taste habits will gradually and imperceptibly change. Food that at first seemed tasteless, even unbearable, will become pleasant and desirable.

Eat when you're hungry.

Half of the daily intake of food should be fresh raw plant foods.

Drink liquids and fruits before meals or make them separate meals.

Chew and moisten food well with saliva by eating slowly until the food turns into mush. Juices should also be moistened with saliva, so drink them in small sips.

The first dish is a seasonal vegetable salad (leaves, roots, fruits - triad salad); the second dish is also desirable according to the season - protein or starchy food.

Prepare raw plant foods, as well as second courses, immediately before consumption.

Avoid artificial and refined foods (sausages, cakes, biscuits, sugar, etc.). Do not use any stimulants: tea, coffee, alcohol.