Scheduling Your Meals?

Planning when you'll eat helps you manage hunger, avoid unplanned eating and make healthier choices.  

There's a lot to be said for this.  If you have a scheduled healthy eating plan for the day, you're definitely less likely to go off the rails and eat unplanned foods (and for most of us, that's junk food- Am I right?).  A few years back i saw a nutritionist to help me in my weight loss efforts and that was the main sticking point to her whole program.  Eating breakfast as soon as you wake, then a snack a few hours later, then lunch, another snack, dinner and an optional snack in the evening if you needed something to tide you over until the morning.  Her schedule also included "food rules", that I won't go into all of them here, but one of them sticks with me today - which I still try to achieve (not nearly as much as I should) is no carbohydrates for dinner - proteins and veggies only.  Which makes sense if you really think about it.  Going to bed with a tummy full of carbs isn't the best plan for weight loss.

Something that we rarely think about is there are two types of hunger:  Internal and External.  It's vital for your weight loss efforts to be able to manage internal hunger, because when you're internally hungry, you'll eat just about anything and it raise your risk of external hunger.  the best way to manage internal hunger is to create an eating schedule that helps you from going long periods without eating.

So what's internal and external hunger?  Here are some ways to recognize the differences:

What's the trigger?

• Internal - things inside your body.
• External - outside forces, people, places, emotions, the sight of food, the smell of food.

Physical Sensations:

• Internal - Growling stomach, slight lightheadedness and/or headache.
• External - None

What you'll eat:

• Internal - Anything 
• External - Specific food

Occurs:

• Internal - Usually more than 4 hours after the last time you ate.
• External - Usually less than 4 hours since you last ate.

Once you are able to recognize the difference between internal and external hunger, create and eating schedule to help you manage it.  Another good way to know, really quickly, if you are really hungry or if it's your emotions (or any other from the list) - is what kind of food is going to satisfy you - will an apple fulfill your need for food or is it something super specific? (and for most it's junk food)  

Scheduling your meals can also help in stopping yourself from overeating, because you are most likely planning your scheduled meals ahead of time.  When you meal plan you're making better choices and creating a serving size for yourself.  You're less likely to overeat when you've had something to "top off" your tummy all day long too.

Have you tried this?  Do you like it?  Any tips?