Skipping meals makes you FATTER

Young people who do extreme detoxes find it harder to shift weight later in life because it slows their metabolism.

Dieting and skipping meals can do more harm than good to your waistline, new research warns, according to Daily Mail.

Detoxes tends to lead to overeating, they found, suggesting there are more downsides than benefits to dieting in both the short term and the long term. 

The study’s authors, conclude that eating meals regularly is the best way to ensure a healthy weight, and making it easier to control your weight in later life.

 Researchers, led by nutritional therapist Ulla Kärkkäinen, collected data from more than 4,900 young men and women. The participants answered surveys mapping out factors impacting weight and weight change when they were 24 years of age, and again ten years later at the age of 34.

They found that most participants gained weight during the decade-long study, while only 7.5 percent of women and 3.8 percent of men lost weight.

Over the 10 years the average weight gain in women was just under two pounds per year and in men, 2.2 pounds. 

Kärkkäinen and her colleagues said one of the common factors among young women and men who succeeded in managing their weight in the long term was eating food regularly as opposed to dieting.

‘Often, people try to prevent and manage excess weight and obesity by dieting and skipping meals. In the long term, such approaches seem to actually accelerate getting fatter, rather than prevent it,’ Kärkkäinen said.

This isn’t the first study to show this link. 

Research found that skipping meals not only leads to weight gain, it can increase the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

A similar study found that limiting calorie intake increases the risk of weight gain by making unhealthy food more attractive.

The current study concludes that the cornerstone of successful weight management is refraining from dieting and observing regular eating habits, in both women and men.

‘Generally speaking, weight management guidance often boils down to eating less and exercising more. In practice, people are encouraged to lose weight, whereas the results of our extensive study indicate that losing weight is not an effective weight management method in the long run,’ said Kärkkäinen. 

The findings prove that instead of losing weight, it is more important to focus on eating regular meals, taking care of one’s wellbeing and finding a more general sense of meaning in life.

Regular and sufficient meals support the natural biological functions of the body, and help in managing one’s eating habits and weight management in the long term.

N.H.Kh