By rights, this should be your main meal of the day – so don’t waste the glory by settling for a second-rate sandwich and a slab of rocky road. Go to town. Make a meal of it. Linger. I like the Ayurvedic principle that we are designed to eat a larger meal in the middle of the day because our ‘digestive fire’ is strongest between ten a.m. and two p.m., allowing our system to operate at peak efficiency. You may think this is codswallop. Fine, but do try to eat lunch at lunch time, won’t you? Leave it any later and studies show you are more likely to consume a greater number of calories. Do, however, bear in mind that glucose levels plummet in that post-lunch dip, so you might want to have a few nuts about your person for that mid-afternoon slip slot
Have A Carb Curfew After Five PM
With the greatest respect to dear departed Dr Atkins, there is a time and a place for carbohydrates. Just not too many, the right, complex kinds, and not at supper.
Why? Well … Some dieticians say that the body will burn fat only after it has first depleted its store of carbohydrates, so why make night carbs an obstacle? Others submit that our metabolism is on go-slow at night and will tend to store night carbs as body fat. Some women report less bloating when they reduce their night carbs. Whatever, whatever. The science isn’t really sussed on this one quite yet. All you really need to know is that if you cut back on carbs in the evening you are likely to diminish your overall daily calorie intake without it being too much of a sacrifice. If, by contrast, you down a twelve-inch pizza late at night, and then sleep on it? Arrivederci slim.
Have A Smallish Supper.
The idea here, really, is to go easy in the evening; as the irritating old saying goes, ‘Breakfast for a king, lunch for a prince, dinner for a pauper.’ The problem is that
our culture, with its speedy days and lazier nights, its autopilot evening eating and its socially prescribed multi-course suppers, tends to ‘backload’ calories at the end of the day. If dining out, we’ll bravely embark on an epic journey from appetizer to coffee, taking in whatever sorbets, savouries, side dishes and specials come our way, as if doing it for a bet. At home, we associate evenings with wallowing in food and drink, and if we weren’t consuming, wouldn’t we get a little… you know… bored?
‘Evenings are the time when most people munch on high-fat foods, such as cakes and biscuits, because they are bored or tired,’ says Louise Sutton, a senior lecturer in health and exercise science at Leeds Metropolitan University. OK. So, a carb curfew will put paid to that (eat a little more protein instead in the evening; it will help you stay fuller longer). And if you’re plagued by the soul rotting ennui of an evening robbed of endless eating, just do something else -liberate your nights. Learn to salsa. Play cribbage. Yodel. Embark on a journey through Dickens or Jilly Cooper. Go to bed. Demote eating and start to live.
~ And finally… One more thing: eat supper at a reasonable time, leaving yourself at least a couple of hours to digest before you go to bed. That way, you’ll sleep well and wake refreshed.
Cellulite treatment can be tricky and understanding its formation is important. Cellulite.co.uk is the UK’s #1 cellulite website and features dozens of articles to help you beat it.
You must log in to post a comment.