Tesh Tuesday- Break those Bad Eating Habits!

Break Your Bad Eating Habits

Want to get in shape for summer? Then start breaking your bad eating habits now! Here’s a list of the most common bad eating habits, with tips to help you break them, courtesy of Rodale publishing:

• Bad eating habit #1: You skip meals. Nutrition experts say your brain runs on glucose, which is a simple sugar produced by the breakdown of food. So when you skip meals, you basically deprive your brain of the glucose it needs to make simple decisions – like saying “no” to unhealthy snacks. That’s why people who eat throughout the day generally eat less overall. It’s because their brain gets a steady supply of healthy glucose. So, you should aim for three meals at 400 calories a piece, plus two snacks under 200 calories.

• The next bad eating habit: Pigging out on the weekends. A recent study found that fatty foods contain an acid which blocks the body’s ability to regulate hunger for up to three days! So, gorging on chicken wings Friday through Sunday will prime your brain to keep overeating well into Wednesday! In other words: Limit yourself to only ONE diet-cheating meal during the weekend - not three full days of them.

• Another bad eating habit: Munching too many salty snacks. As we’ve talked about before, sodium dehydrates the body in a way that causes us to crave more snacks. A Boston University study found that what most people really crave in snack foods is the crunching sound – not the sugar or salt. So, consider replacing a bag of potato chips with a bag of celery sticks, or baby carrots. You may find that as you eat fewer salty snacks, you’ll crave fewer snacks overall.

• Bad eating habit #4: You eat in front of the TV. Researchers at the University of Chicago call this “a double whammy” to your diet, because you’re ingesting calories while burning none. If your TV time cuts into your sleep time, studies have shown you’ll eat up to 200 more calories the next day!

• Here’s one more bad habit: Drinking alcohol. One beer a night can add more than a thousand calories to your diet in a week! So, before you try breaking any of your bad food habits, try skipping the booze first.

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