5 eating habits for better you

Plus: Main science-backed meals rules

Author

Kos Zharoid
April 07, 2024

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit" Aristotle.

You've probably heard the saying, "You are what you eat"? And I'd like to add, "It also matters how we eat"!

Eating right is key to staying healthy. But many miss an important detail: how we eat our food. This includes how many times a day, how often we eat, at what times, how much we eat, and how much we drink.

A good number of meals per day is about 2 to 4.

If you're healthy, eating this many times a day can help you get the right nutrients.

Eating more than 3 meals per day was associated with an increase in BMI

Subjects consuming a single large daily meal exhibit elevated fasting glucose levels and impaired morning glucose tolerance associated with a delayed insulin response during a 2-month diet period compared with those consuming 3 meals per day.

Say “No” - snacking, Say “Yes” to full meals.

It's better to eat complete meals rather than snacking all the time.

If you do snack, make sure it has proteins, fats, and carbs, especially the kind that digest slowly and don't shoot your sugar levels up. This way, snacks won't mess with your blood sugar and will help keep your digestion system running smoothly.

A study found that different types of meals (rich in fat, protein, or carbohydrates) influenced gallbladder contraction differently during the cephalic phase of meal stimulation, with fat and protein-rich meals causing more significant gallbladder contraction compared to carbohydrate-rich meals. This suggests that not just the frequency but also the composition of meals can affect gallbladder function

Don't skip breakfast.

A good breakfast is super important. A hearty breakfast (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates):

  • help you eat fewer calories during the day

  • give you more energy

  • improves cognitive functions

  • even make you look better

the reviewed articles suggest that there is a positive association between having breakfast regularly and healthy lifestyle, justifying the recommendation of programs that stimulate its consumption.

How long you take to eat matters too.

Two important tips:

1. Chew your food slowly and thoroughly.

Digestion starts in your mouth. If you don't chew enough, your food isn't broken down well, and you don't get enough enzymes from your saliva, which helps digest your food.

Saliva contains:

  • the enzyme amylase, whose main function is the digestion of carbohydrates already in the oral cavity, meaning we will feel satiated faster and eat less

  • the immunoglobulin lysozyme is an antibiotic

  • immunoglobulin A is important for our immune system

Inadequate chewing can affect appetite and food intake, potentially impacting weight management and leading to alterations in gut hormone responses related to satiety

2. Put away the phone and turn off the TV.

This will help better control the speed and duration of chewing.

Paying attention to what you're eating helps you chew better and avoid eating too much, which can lead to weight gain and stomach problems.

Relative to the no-TV control, all TV while snacking conditions ate a similarly greater amount on the later TV-free test lunch.

TV watching at meals was associated with unhealthier intake of some foods groups (e.g., increased sugar-sweetened beverages and chips/crackers, decreased fruits), dependent on the meal occasion (e.g., snacks).

Drinking while eating

Some people think drinking water with meals isn't good because it dilutes your stomach acid. But actually, you'd have to drink a lot of water for that to be a problem. Let's just calculate using the dilution law.

Applying this formula, we can see that one would need to drink about 1.5 liters of water.

This is certainly not recommended. Drinking a reasonable amount won't hurt digestion.

It's beneficial to drink a glass of warm water (not too hot 98.6-113F) on an empty stomach in the morning; warm water stimulates and improves digestion in healthy people.

Temperature has major effects on postprandial antropyloroduodenal motility in normal subjects.

So, remember, what you eat, how you eat, and your mealtime habits all play a big part in staying healthy!

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Warm regards,
Kos

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