Among the most significant contributors to the type 2 diabetes epidemic is thought to be obesity, caused by our modern lifestyles. Are you eating yourself into diabetes type 2? No, I don’t mean’sleep-eating’ (I wonder if there’s anything?) I’m referring to automatic eating with no conscious thought to what’s occurring. How often do you do something else whilst eating?
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Watching TV; reading a novel; reading a magazine or newspaper; listening to music, a radio show or dialog? If you are anything like me it is probably a rare event when you just sit and have a meal, without interruptions. A recent study completed by Penn State lab showed school-age kids, who always watch TV whilst eating, ate around 33% more than they did when they had a meal with no TV on. How much extra do you consume, without realising it, since you’re absorbed in a book or TV program?
Eating speed
Ever completed your meal before others? Ever bolted down your food and then felt bloated afterwards? In a new Sky TV program Paul McKenna (the renowned hypnotherapist) clarified how the simple act of slowing down whilst eating; placing your knife and fork down between mouthfuls, can promote weight loss. Consider it, if you are eating more slowly you will know when you’re full. You won’t continue eating and find that bloated bloated feeling. And you won’t place additional weight on. Seeing that app gave me an’Aha! It’s a standing joke in the family he takes so long to eat a meal – that he often finishes half-an-hour after everybody else.
And guess what? Yep – he’s as skinny as a rake. Wish I could say the same about me! Are you really hungry when you bite? Or is it that you “just fancy a bite to eat”? Snacking is probably among the biggest contributions to weight gain. It’s not so much the snacking, it is what you bite! Cookies /biscuits, chocolate, cakes, snack bars – these contain massive amounts of sugar that increase the burden on our immune system. If you overload your system with sugar it might not cope, you might wind up with insulin resistance which contributes to type 2 diabetes.
Sugar factor
Healthy, no additional sugar or sugar free snacks are the best choices if you MUST snack. Have you got a favorite soft drink? If you do, can it be a sugar-sweetened beverage or a concentrated sugar-rich fruit juice? And, on a hot day, just how much can you drink of the favorite? It’s all additional sugar, which not only impacts on your weight, in addition, it affects on the body’s control of their sugar levels in your blood. So, are you planning to become a part of the diabetes epidemic? A little idea about what you eat, where and how, can lower the risk for you.
