Why I Eat Every 3 Hours

This was a much better day nutritionally, as the balance was much closer to my ideal 25%- 45%-30%. However, I spent the day being really hungry, from breakfast right the way through supper, so some of my timings were off. And I clearly didn’t get enough to eat after my run in the afternoon as I was starving an hour later and ended up eating popcorn while making dinner!

This brings up a couple of point about timing. Oddly enough, when you eat can be just as important as what you eat, especially if you do any exercise. Basically, you should eat about every three hours as this keeps the level of glucose in your bloodstream relatively constant. Once you run out of a ready supply of glucose for energy, your body has to get more from the glycogen in the liver or by converting the fat in our body. You would think this is a good thing. The problem is that our brains run on glucose and when the supply runs low I start to feel tired, irritable, lose my concentration and take longer to process complex information (most people do only they don’t know what is wrong!). If I leave it too long I get so hungry I can eat enough for two at my next meal, or binge on the nearest junk food to get the glucose levels back up as fast as possible. So it sounds counterintuitive, but eating little and often is a far better way to lose weight because you are never too hungry and less likely to succumb to emotional eating.

With exercise, you need enough ready energy to supply your workouts and the right stuff to recover afterwards. There is a 30 minute window right after exercise when the body diverts anything you eat directly into repairing the damage done by exercise and making new muscle. So I try to work out one or two hours after breakfast or lunch so I have plenty in the tank beforehand, then I always have a snack or recovery drink right after. Though it looks like I need to work on what I’m eating after my workouts as 100 calories of fruit and yoghurt just isn’t cutting it!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Fibre:
1870.02	106.37g	234.68g	56.76g	27.53g
	23%	50%	27%
Calories burned through exercise:		352

What I ate:

Time

Item

Amount

07:30	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Mattesson’s Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
08:30	Black tea	500mL
10:00	Brazil nuts	8g
	Cashews	15g
	Apple	100g
	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:15	Shrimp stir fry	245g
	Brown rice	130g
	Sainsburys Freefrom iced rich fruit cake slice	1 slice
14:00	Green Tea	250mL
15:30	Short Easy Run
16:00	Citrus Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	500mL
16:45	Total Greek yoghurt	125g
	Sainsbury's frozen mixed blueberries and strawberries	100g
18:45	Butterkist salted microwave popcorn	35g popped
19:30	Baked salmon	122g
	Roasted butternut squash	200g
	with olive oil	1 tsp
	Steamed cauliflower	91g
	Steamed broccoli	60g
21:30	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill