Never Skip a Meal!

     Around the world, people are skipping meals, fasting for hours or even days, and just not eating for a given amount of time. Not because they don't have food to eat, or money to buy it, but simply because they want to lose weight. They've all heard the 'calorie in=calorie out' speech, and they are hoping, that by consuming less calories than they burn, they will lose weight even faster! Maybe they will lose weight, but that weight will almost always come back once they start eating a normal, even healthy, diet. And, if you look at what it does to their health, it doesn't make it look all that worth it. In fact, starving your body is a lot more harmful to your body and future weight loss, than it is helpful!

Skipping a Meal Puts Your Body on a Blood Sugar Rollercoaster!
     When you skip a meal, you are supplying your body with the food it needs to use a fuel for it to run on. Because of this, your blood sugars drop and you feel a loss in energy. Glucose is something that all our organs need to function smoothly and it is super important for optimal brain activity! After four hours of not eating your brain starts getting a fuel shortage, you become tired, sluggish and moody, and your cognitive functions become affected and you will have problems with attention, memory and general mental performance.
     When you constantly put your body in a period of fasting(starving) your blood sugars go up and down a lot. This will seriously effect your dieting efforts! Also, because your insulin is disturbed, you are contributing to the development of diabetes later in life.

Putting Your Body Through Constant Periods of Starvation Will Change Your Metabolism
     If you are looking to lose weight, you want your metabolism to be working well and fast! If you increase your metabolism, it will help you burn calories faster with less effort.  However, when you skip meals, it causes your metabolism to slow down. Not eating gives your metabolism nothing to do, and when you provide it with food again, it finds it harder to kick in. As a result, the food is more readily transformed into fat and stored. 
    When you starve your body it must look for other sources of energy. Your metabolism starts transforming your stored fat into energy. While this might sound like a good idea, it comes with some serious health problems!  It causes nausea, constipation, serious fatigue, kidney stress, and low blood pressure.  And with time, your body gets used to the shortages in food and starts holding on to the food you do give it. It stores it as fat, while reducing your lean muscle tissue.


As you can see, skipping meals is not a healthy choice! It causes so many health problems, and will even harm your weight-loss and dieting efforts! No one wants that, now do we?

     Because of the effect that starvation has on your body, it will hinder you in doing the things that you need to do, both for your health and daily activities! When you don't eat, you don't have any fuel for your body to run properly on, so you won't be able to exercise and be active like you should, especially for weight-loss. Also, you will feel tired all the time and you won't have the energy to do your job, participate in school, run your errands, care for your kids, and all the other task that fill your life.
     Another symptom of starvation is moodiness! The lack of glucose in your system causes you to be extremely moody! Your mood swings, mostly bad-moods, will not only effect you, but the people you are around! There is truth in saying you get moody when your hungry, or even ( to use the popular term) to get hangry!  Do yourself and others a favor by eating a good balanced diet!

     Headaches, nausea, toothaches, loss in hair, blurry vision, low-blood pressure, cold hands and feet, a dry mouth, and stiffness are just a few more of the symptoms of starvation! You can do a quick search on any search-engine and you will find that there are so many more reasons not to skip your meals!

     They are some people who had been skipping meals for years, and there are medical-terms for their condition. Skipping meals can quickly become a mental condition, and can even lead to death, if not taken care of. Anorexia and Bulimia are just two of the types of extreme starvation diseases.


Eating More Food can Be Your Key to Weight loss
     Not eating food might help you lose weight fast, but you will put it on even faster once you start eating normally again! You can bypass that whole yo-yo effect and simply eating more of the right types of foods! Eating more causes your metabolism to become faster, which helps your body burn food faster! The faster you burn food(calories) the easier it will be to lose weight!
     Eating healthier food, and more of it, gives you the energy you need to be active. Being active also aids in speeding up your metabolism, thus helping your weight-loss efforts even more!
When you eat a balanced healthy diet, with at least three meals a day, you are putting your body in a much better stage of health! You have the right amount of glucose in your body which causes your body to function like it should! No more nausea, mood swings, headaches, hair loss, tooth aches, and so on! Your brain works better, allowing you to concentrate and get your work done faster!

    All in all, eating more healthy food puts you in better moods, helps you lose weight, and keeps you feeling great all day every day! Why would you starve yourself when eating more food gives you all these benefits?


     I hope this post is helpful to you! Starvation and skipping meals is a serious problem, so educating yourself of the harmful effects of it will help you take care of yourself an even others! If you found this helpful, please share it with someone else who might find it helpful!

You can follow the blog via email, Google, Twitter @ SpinachisGood, Tumblr @ justrunningforfood and Pinterest @ Hannah Plunkett.

I post every Friday!

Stay Healthy, Happy and Laughing!
H. Banana

5 Diets Explained

   There are so many different diets and food-lifestyles out there right now! It can be hard to keep them straight, or to even know what they mean! People change their diets for many different reasons, like for health issues, beliefs, to challenge themselves, to make a statement, become healthier....and so on. When talking to someone about their diet or lifestyle, its important to understand just what their diet means.  No one wants to offend anyone or be stuck with their foot in their mouth!

For me, I love to learn about different diets and ways of life. I don't follow a specific diet or food-lifestyle, but I do incorporate a few parts from a couple of them into my own.

Vegan
Going Vegan and being Vegan has become super popular! There is a growing number of recipes tailored for those following a Vegan lifestyle. But what exactly does Vegan mean? I was confused about it for a little while before I looked it up. Vegan means not abstaining the use of animal products. This means that what Vegans eat, drink and even wear, doesn't contain any animal products or byproducts. Why do people go Vegan? Most people are Vegan because they dislike the idea of animals being killed, but some go Vegan for health reasons, whether they are allergic to meat or another animal-based products. Others go Vegan simply because it is a healthy way of life, if you can live without meat!

Vegetarian
Vegetarian isn't as popular as Vegan, but there are still plenty of info out there on going 'Veggie' and what it means. I used to get Vegan and Vegetarian mixed up, but now I have it straight! Vegetarian, or 'Veggie' means not eating any meat( Chicken, fish, red meats, or the flesh of any animal). So Vegetarians still eat some byproducts of animals, just not the meat or flesh it's self. Some people are Vegetarian because of religious beliefs, others because of Animal Rights, and still others are 'Veggie' because it, like Veganism, is a healthy lifestyle.

Paleo
This is another popular diet right now. I personally like using Paleo recipes because they tend to be the recipes that use unprocessed products and natural products and ingredients. A Paleo diet or the Caveman Diet means eating only things that our ancient ancestors would have eaten, like meats, nuts and berries. This means that a lot of today's foods aren't on a Paleo diet. Most people adopt a Paleo diet because it is a very healthy way of life, but some use it because they have allergies or health issues.

 

Raw
A growing number of people are 'Going Raw' and I see more and more recipes for eating raw. What does Raw mean? It means eating only raw, uncooked and unprocessed foods. For most people following a Raw diet, this means being very Vegan and/or Vegetarian as well. This diet is mainly used as a healthy diet and way of life. Some people do Raw till 4 or any other time in the day. This means that up to a certain time in the day you eat only Raw foods and then after that time you can eat non-Raw foods.

Fasting
Fasting is a general term and there are many different types of Fasting Diets. They are simply diets where you go for a certain period of time without eating. Some are fast-by-the-hour diets, others are days and some even are weeks. But, these diets can be dangerous if not done properly and carefully. Make sure you do your research and you know your body before trying to fast. Some people fast for religious reasons, others for the healthy benefits, and some use it to detox their bodies.

So there you go! 5 different popular diets explained. Now I hope you know a bit more about the different diets and ways of life out there and you can better understand each one. If this was helpful to you, please share this with a friend or family member to spread the knowledge and love of healthy living!

You can follow the blog via email and Google, Twitter @ SpinachisGood and on Pinterest @ Hannah Plunkett.

New post every Monday and Friday!

Keep Healthy and Safe!
H.Banana