Snacks

[B222]

Reading “body harmony” atm and she says it’s bad to snack between meals, which was kinda confirmed through Google, but was talking mostly about unhealthy snacks and I think sugary snacks. Is it ok to eat nuts between meals? Why is it bad if not? Need to study more but something to do with digestion and blood sugar levels right? Cheers

[Vincent S]

Can always align yourself with your body and follow what it wants, rather than what we "think" is good or bad for it to consume.

It's also about being adaptive to what you have eaten in your previous meals. Lets say I had salad for breakfast. An apple or some fruit fits just fine as a snack, 1-3 hrs later. Or if I had a rice & veggie wok for lunch, then a piece of dark chocolate/dates/figs and some tea, is best suited 1-3  hrs later. For example.

Nuts are perfect as a snack, but then depending on what type of nuts you consume, you would have to complement that with some hydration. Salty nuts will just end up in the body requiring more water.
Fruit is an amazing snack IMO, since it gives you energy and hydration. But then again, it depends on what you had in your meal. If you had a carb heavy meal with low protein. Then complementary snack would be perfect with some nuts.

Or if you had a protein heavy meal, then some carbs as a snack would be perfect to complement your low carb meal. Then some fruit or a rice cracker might be better in this example.

Also good to be able to distinguish hunger with hydration. Myself as an example, I have been horrible, and I mean absolutely horrible at keeping my body hydrated. It's been like this for years. Although it is getting better, sometimes I am having a hard time distinguishing if I'm thirsty or hungry, because I mostly have been going after food, when really, what my body needed, was some water.

When we give the body something to eat, when it actually is thirsty, that pattern gets recorded and we just keep repeating the same "mistake", over and over again. And that programming has to be seen and dealt with. To go deep within ourselves and learn to listen to what the body wants.
Break the habit, and maybe try drinking a glass of water when you feel thirsty, rather than eating some more food or a snack. And then after 30 mins, if you are still hungry or wanting something, then that can be a sign that you weren't just thirsty, you were hungry as well. Just as an example, in my case.

And since we don't really get a manual as we get born, what to eat when. It's also best to just learn from your own mistakes and to listen to your individual body. Your specific needs, for your specific lifestyle, that is always unique in it's own way.

There really isn't one schedule or style fits all. It's really about listening to your unique body, at the end of the day. IMO.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Vincent S

[Username]

When you snack you spike your insulin and activate mTOR. However it seems that it's more important to make you eating window rather short (if you care about longevity). There is no need to eat more than twice a day.

Snacking doesn't mean that you 'listen to  what your body needs'. You are feeding your compulsive eating patterns.

[B222]

@Username so you just eat two meals a day with no snacks? 

 

@Vincent S thanks  

[Vincent S]

2 hours ago, Username said:

When you snack you spike your insulin and activate mTOR. However it seems that it's more important to make you eating window rather short (if you care about longevity). There is no need to eat more than twice a day.

Snacking doesn't mean that you 'listen to  what your body needs'. You are feeding your compulsive eating patterns.

First of all, that totally depends on what you are snacking on. Second of all, not everyone has the same lifestyle. We all have different jobs, activities and training routines. There is no one regiment fits all.

I would love to see a healthy active person, that workouts/trains 3-5 days a week, eating 2 meals a day and starwing themselves. Your body would be hungry all the time.

I do agree with making your eating windows smaller, because then you have less focus from the body being on digestion. But how are you going to fit in your carbs, proteins, fruits and veggies in 2 meals?

There is also something that most people cannot mess with too much, which is food type combining. Like eating meat and fruit in the same meal, or beans and oranges. That would completely mess up digestion. Which is why it is also important to space out your different food groups that you eat, during your day. So you avoid bloating, gas and digestions complications.

Certain foods digests faster or slower than others. It's important to look in to how they combine and are able to digest and to work together for maximizing vitamin/mineral uptake and so on.

Most people above a certain age, cannot combine eating candy and food at the same time like they did when they were 10 years old

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Vincent S

[Michael569]

You can approach this from a few perspectives

1. Constant eating stops the migrating motor complex from its gut cleansing activity so you become more predisposed to have something like bacterial proliferation in small intestine (I might be making this more dramatic than it really is tho) - seems we still don't fully understand what MMC really does. 

2. Even small amount of snacking triggers release of digestive enzymes and acids and so you are triggering this Colossus of a process just to digest 5 almonds you snacked on, it may not be the best use of the resources and energy

3. Another perspective is simply from already stated blood sugar and triggering insulin response but that response is proportional to the glycemic content. Still for person with a disrupted glycemic control, constant binging is actually counterintuitive.

4. When you don't eat you allow deeper cleansing in the cells to happen although you'd be talking about not eating over 36 hours to go really deep into this. Still even not eating couple hours allows an occasional metabolic shift into your body releasing triglycerides and adapting to the stress of not having food... occasionally we need that. It appears caloric restriction may be one of the tools of achieving prolonged telomere life but we don't have as much data on longevity other than mice data and diet as most biohackers would have you believe. It probably comes down more to things like passion, purpose, movement and life enjoyment. 

5. A lot of people snack from boredom or frustration so cutting that snacks actually helps one shine a spotlight on that behaviour and identify the cause

Either way, you have to adjust your nutritonal requirements to your lifestyle and your goals. If you can pull of omad, good for you but if you need 5 meals a day to compensate for a busy athletic schedule then you do that. Obsession about what is and what should be and could and and who said what is just gonna give you endless stress response and make your life miserable.

Enjoy this unique experience and don't overthink too much ??

[B222]

@Michael569 cheers mate. Will look deeper into the things you said ??