Dine in ‘09

As a member of the Chick-fil-A family, I spend a lot of my time thinking about food. Whether we’re pondering adding a new menu item or looking for ways we can make Chick-fil-A favorites even better, there are always thoughts about food and nutrition running through my head. It’s my job, but it’s also my passion.

At the end of 2008, I started to look at that passion a little differently. I’m a reader and during some research I realized something surprising – one of the keys to healthy living is eating less, more often. Only weeks after one of the year’s biggest meals, Thanksgiving, it sounds a little funny to say this, but it’s true. When you eat one or two big meals a day, the body doesn’t know when it will be fed again. The body isn’t allowed to form a good rhythm and starts to store energy away in the form of fat that can be burned just in case you don’t eat another be meal soon.

Sumo wrestlers are known to use this approach because body mass and weight are a big part of their requirements. But for those of us who don’t wrestle professionally, adding extra fat is a negative.

One solution to this problem is to eat smaller meals every two to three hours. When we do this, instead of storing our energy as fat, our metabolism actually kicks up and starts to supply us with a more consistent supply of energy. The body starts to “learn” the smaller eating intervals and gets into a groove.

It might sound complicated but it’s not. I came up with an easy mantra, “Dine in 09” which helped me remember to dine more often this year. I found that simply adding a snack of peanut butter on apples or bananas during the morning and the afternoon helped me bridge the gaps between the three traditional meals. I have more energy, my weight stays more consistent and I feel better.

Try it in 2010, I think you’ll feel better too.

This post is categorized Live and tagged Tuesday Resolutions