Weight loss: can you skip dinner?
Skipping a meal to lose weight can be tempting. Indeed, logically, we could say thatone less meal equals a few fewer calories. A trend also driven by intermittent fasting. And if you want to lose weight, any fewer calories are welcome. However, this is not what specialists recommend, quite the contrary.
In fact, skipping a meal, the evening meal, when you are hungry, will not make you lose weight. You may just create more hunger and will want to compensate the next day at breakfast. Disrupting your eating habits risks creating a yoyo effect: gaining as much or even more weight than before.
To lose weight, while continuing to dine, the best thing is to listen to yourself. If you really aren’t hungry in the evening, and it’s not likely to wake you up, don’t force yourself. In the same way that he don’t force yourself to finish your plate if you are no longer hungry. Conversely, if you are hungry, you can eat. Consider adjusting your dinner time: it is advisable to eat at least two hours before going to bed for better digestion. Finally, adapt your meals according to those already eaten during the day. If you ate heavy at midday, go lighter in the evening. One meal won’t make you gain weight. You just need to balance it, vary it and avoid dishes that are too rich.
What exactly is dinner for?
Your body, even when you go to sleep, does not pause. While you sleep, he continues to work! Hormones circulate in particular to trigger and maintain the state of sleep. The digestive system rests, the muscles regenerate while the brain processes a lot of information while continuing to make your vital organs work. This is the basic metabolism, that is to say all the physiological needs that serve to make your body function.
So, for seven to eight hours, while you sleep, your body continues to burn calories. “Not providing enough of it risks, for example, disturbing your sleep or your digestion, or even waking you up!” specifies Laurent Dufay, nutritionist.
What should you eat in the evening?
“To promote quality, restorative sleep, I recommend that you consume animal or vegetable proteins, oily fish or legumes, rich in omega 3, vitamin D and amino acids which “zenify” sleep. indicates the specialist.
It is also advisable to consume rather complete or semi-complete starchy foods at dinner. It can be wholemeal pasta or a little rye bread for example…”Lack of fat or sugar at night can lead our body to develop strategies to draw on its reserves instead of sleeping and this can happen without you really being aware of it” says the National Institute of Sleep and Vigilance.
Eat grain products in the evening, that is to say sugars that are slower to digest, facilitates the production of serotonin, this hormone essential for the secretion of melatonin, sometimes called the sleep hormone. The latter brings information to our body that it is night and that it is time to sleep. This allows you to keep a well-balanced day/night rhythm.
“This dinner can be accompanied by a little cheese (30/40 gr) or a whole milk yogurt, because the calcium they contain also helps with the production of melatonin and the regulation of muscle movements ” explains Laurent Dufay.
In summary, the idea of skipping a meal to lose weight isn’t exactly a good strategy and undermines your sleep. However, dinner can be kept light. Excesses are indeed unwelcome in the evening. Particularly because the metabolism is at rest, in slow motion. Excesses at this meal will tend to cause fat storage. If you want to pay attention to your line, it is best to avoid high-fat meals and sugars, which are best reserved for breakfast, for a boost of energy.