Why do I need to eat so often during the day (including snacks)?

The reason for eating small meals throughout the day is to fuel metabolic rate. Remember, if the body thinks it is being starved, it “saves” itself by slowing down metabolism and will store what it can as fat, to stave off starvation. With a child who overeats, it may not be a problem if the child is an ecto-morph or mesomorph, especially if they are very active. However if the child has a preponderance of endomorphic factors, you can help that child by continually feeding them, but with the foods that I recommend in the food chapter. If you eat healthy, clean, non-processed foods, eating six to eight times a day is great. If you are eating fast food, junk, candy, and whatever your parents put in front of you, you will gain more and more weight, and eventually, your body will reflect your eating habits.

The Sumo Wrestler diet…Do you know how Sumo Wrestlers gain so much weight? They don’t eat breakfast, wait until about midday to eat, then consume a huge meal. Then, they wait until about dinner time and consume a huge meal again. Does this sound familiar? Two meals per day, both very large! How does this promote weight gain? When you sleep, your metabolism slows way down, know to many as hibernation mode. It doesn’t speed up again until you eat something-break the fast. If you don’t eat, even if you workout, your metabolism stays slow until you do. By then, you’re usually very hungry and consume a rather large meal. Your body can’t utilize all the food at once it stores it as body fat…a lot of body fat.

Then, if you wait a long time before eating again, your body goes into what most people know as starvation mode and slows down again. Then, you go home and eat a large meal comprised of “comfort food” which inherently causes weight gain anyway! Then you go to sleep after eating this comfort meal and your body stores most of the meal. This is the fastest way to gain weight and most Americans wonder why they gain weight so quickly.