Making Room

This is something that I come across quite a bit.

You’re dieting, but you know you’ve got a party or dinner that night where there won’t be any diet food available. It might be a cookout with nothing but hot dogs, brats, and burgers. It could be an event that’s all cake and ice cream. So, what most people do is they hold back on eating all day to “make room” for the bad food coming that evening.

The thinking behind this is that you’ve allotted yourself the calories to eat this food. The problem is that your body doesn’t work this way. As I’ve discussed in previous articles, your body’s metabolism works best when it is being fed several meals throughout the day. Just because you’ve made a calorie allowance in your day for the bad food, doesn’t mean it will stop your body from adding fat to it from that meal. In fact, by doing this you’re actually setting it up to store MORE fat from that meal than you may have otherwise. You’ve created this lull in your metabolic activity by not eating, and so when you finally do eat you will garner the same results as if your body were in starvation mode.

In these scenarios, the best thing you can do is eat your multiple meals throughout the day as you normally would leading up to the event. Then, right before you eat a small meal that is comprised of food on your diet. Now, even if you do eat some of the bad food at the event you’ve at least got some metabolic momentum, and your stomach is somewhat full leaving less room for you to eat the bad food. If the situation allows it of course is always good to bring a healthy portable snack with you, such as a protein bar, carrots, or fruit. 

Doing this will be far more beneficial than “making room” for the bad food. Some people have a hard time understanding how eating more can actually help you lose weight, but I promise you that when done the right way it absolutely works.