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The correct diet for a modern person. What to eat to lose weight

Food serves as a source of energy necessary for smooth functioning human body. This is why nutritionists recommend paying attention to what you eat. It is important that breakfast is complete and balanced. After reading this article, you will learn about the main aspects of proper nutrition.

Basic principles

Those who want to understand how many times a day to eat should remember that when drawing up an individual menu, it is advisable to take into account physiological characteristics of your body. It is important that food fully meets your needs for carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and microelements. For example, those whose activities involve heavy physical labor are recommended to use more meat, and those who work in the office are shown products with increased content glucose.

One of key roles V in this case plays a method of preparing certain products. So, much more harmful than boiled or baked ones. You should also pay attention to the temperature of the food you consume. Experts advise excluding too cold and too hot dishes from the daily menu. Otherwise, the breakfast, lunch, dinner or afternoon snack you eat may cause heartburn or stomach pain. Ideally, the temperature of food served to the table should be about 38 degrees.

Among other things, it is important to consider the serving size. According to most leading nutritionists, you need to eat little but often. You should not stretch your own stomach by sending the first, second and third into it at the same time. When thinking over the menu, we must not forget about the recommended

What should be the optimal breakfast?

Those who are trying to figure out how many times a day to eat should remember that they should eat the most high-calorie foods in the morning. At this meal, you need to eat about 30% of the total average daily recommended kilocalorie intake. For completely healthy person this figure is about 3000 kcal per day.

The first breakfast, which occurs at 7-8 a.m., will have time to be fully absorbed and converted into energy. If you neglect your morning meal in favor of a cup of coffee and a sandwich, then literally after half an hour you will feel hungry again.

You can have breakfast. Cereals, cheeses and baked goods are ideal for this. But it is advisable to avoid semi-finished products, sausages and sausages, since they contain large number flavorings, stabilizers and dyes that negatively affect our health.

What foods are suitable for lunch?

Usually by 11 o'clock in the afternoon a healthy person again begins to feel hungry. This means it's time to eat a second breakfast of low-fat yogurt or cottage cheese. These products are considered excellent sources of potassium, magnesium and other trace elements necessary for the normal functioning of our body.

To get maximum benefit, preference should be given to natural products. You can also eat fruit for second breakfast. It is important that they are local and not brought from another country. Most imported products contain practically no useful substances, and their taste is very different from their domestic counterparts.

What can you eat during your lunch break?

Around 13-14 hours of the day you should definitely eat some kind of liquid dish. It could be fish soup, borscht, chicken or vegetable soup chick. Such food will not only satisfy your hunger, but will also prevent you from overeating.

If necessary, the soup can be replaced small portion baked or boiled meat. Products containing sufficient quantity starch. This could be potatoes, beans, rice or pasta.

For those who want to know how many times a day they should eat, it is important to remember that after hot meals you should not drink any cold drinks. Such temperature changes often cause digestive processes to slow down.

What foods can you eat for an afternoon snack?

Around 16 o'clock healthy body again you need to replenish your energy reserves. At this time, it is important not to overeat, so as not to move dinner time and avoid unpleasant sensation heaviness in the stomach. For an afternoon snack, you should choose light and quickly digestible dishes, such as mousse, chocolate, fruit and vegetable salads. Nutritionists do not recommend eating muffins, pizza, buns, cookies and other baked goods at this time.

What to choose for dinner?

Those who have already understood how many times a day you need to eat should remember that during the evening meal you should eat light meals. Ideally, it is recommended to have dinner no later than four hours before going to bed.

During this meal you can eat raw or stewed vegetables. But the meat with fried potatoes or pulses are not considered the best option dinner. You are also allowed to eat in the evening lean fish or boiled white meat. Before going to bed, a glass of warm milk or kefir is allowed.

Nutrition by age

All nutritionists are of the same opinion that, in different periods Throughout life, a person needs different amounts of food. So, a newborn baby eats exclusively breast milk. At the same time, he asks for food every three to four hours, therefore, the baby eats six to eight times a day.

As the baby gets older, the interval between feedings increases. In addition, the baby’s diet becomes more varied, new, previously unfamiliar foods appear in it. A one-year-old toddler usually eats four to five times a day.

IN adolescence, when active growth of the body occurs, nutritionists advise transferring the child to 3 one meal. During this period, your heir needs a full breakfast, lunch and dinner. Between these meals you can have light but nutritious snacks.

Most adults eat the same as teenagers, three times a day. But they are not so active, so they need fewer calories. If a thirteen-year-old boy should consume about 3200 kcal per day, then for an adult this figure drops to 3000.

Food in summer

It's no secret that during the hot season you need to adjust your diet. It is advisable to exclude salty, smoked, fried and fatty foods from the daily menu. Best suited for summer: cottage cheese, milk porridge, stew, vegetable salads, okroshka and chicken meat. As a dessert, you can eat fruit ice, various mousses and ice cream. For breakfast, it is advisable to eat porridge rich in all useful substances and slow carbohydrates. It can be sweet (with honey or fruit) or salty (with cheese or nuts). It is also recommended to supplement your morning meal with fermented milk products.

For lunch you can eat vegetable soup with sorrel, parsley or spinach. Don't forget about meat and fish. However, in summer you need to be very careful when choosing these products and be sure to subject them to heat treatment. It is advisable to boil fish and meat, stew, steam or bake in the oven.

In the evening you can eat some light, low-fat dish. It is not recommended to eat fruits and berries for dinner, as they can cause fermentation and abdominal discomfort.

To quench your thirst in summer heat It is recommended to drink fruit drinks, juices and compotes. Lack of fluid can cause blood thickening, headaches, weakness and deterioration in overall health. Therefore, on hot days it is important to maintain a drinking regime.

During the summer months, you should not abuse lemonades, carbonated drinks and packaged juices, since they contain large amounts of sugar and other substances that have a diuretic effect. Chilled water is considered a good way to quench your thirst. green tea, as well as a decoction of rosehip or mint.

The very first question that arises for those who want to obtain slim figure- how much to eat when losing weight. To give the correct answer and not harm yourself, you need to consider several important factors, on which the final result will depend.

The answer suggests itself - you need to eat less than what your body spends. But understanding how many calories he actually burns is not an easy task. The simplest method is to calculate your calorie intake for the week and divide by seven. If the weight did not change during the week, then the resulting value is the daily intake to maintain the current weight.

Unfortunately, without a kitchen scale and strict discipline, calculating your weekly intake is very difficult. Moreover, it is almost impossible to count complex dishes, because the proportions of ingredients in each serving may differ. Fortunately, there are more or less average values.

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Daily calorie intake table

If we do not take into account people with obvious metabolic disorders, then the average daily consumption in women looks like this:

With this consumption, you don’t have to worry about gaining extra pounds, but to lose weight, you should reduce your daily calorie intake. But in no case go to great lengths, almost completely eliminating meals. There are values below which you should never fall.

A bit of off-topic humor:

Minimum caloric intake per day

It would seem that by reducing your daily caloric intake to almost zero, you can quickly lose weight to the required number on the scales, and then stop limiting yourself again.

Unfortunately, the body is not so easy to deceive. With this approach, the following will happen:

Metabolism will slow down greatly
Immunity and resistance to infections will decrease
The body will intensively burn muscle and leave fat for later.
The water will go away temporarily

When you resume your previous diet, all the water will return, but the slow metabolism will not be restored immediately, and the person will return to the previous weight or even gain extra pounds. Moreover, this time there will be less muscle and more fat.

To prevent this from happening, in no case should you reduce your daily caloric intake below 1200 kcal for girls and 1600 kcal for men.

What and how much to eat to lose weight

The easiest way to find out your daily calorie intake for weight loss is to look at the value in the table above and reduce it by 10 percent. In this case, the weight will definitely begin to decrease. But to achieve real slimness and fit, you need to understand how many macronutrients you can eat when losing weight.

How much protein can you eat when losing weight?

Proteins are the building blocks for all cells in the body. When losing weight, you need to get enough protein from food, otherwise your body will start burning muscle instead of fat. General recommendations In terms of protein intake they look like this:

For intense sports – at least 1.5 grams of protein per 1 kg of body weight
With moderate physical activity - about 1 gram per 1 kg of weight
At sedentary work and no load - at least 0.7 grams per 1 kg of weight

Thus, for a girl weighing 60 kg, who exercises 1-2 times a week and works as a salesperson, the daily protein intake is 60 grams.

How much fat can you eat when losing weight?

Fats are also the most important plastic material for the body. Human brain almost 2/3 consists of fat, so it is very important to consume it every day. But, unlike protein, the daily intake of fat is slightly less. It is recommended to receive at least 0.5 grams and no more than 1 gram of fat per day per 1 kg of body weight. It is equally important to consume both animal (milk, meat, etc.) and vegetable (nuts, oils) fats.

Consumption of protein and fat below normal levels is dangerous in the long term and can harm a person's health. Therefore, to reduce calories and lose weight, the most optimal approach is to reduce consumption.

How many carbohydrates can you eat when losing weight?

Carbohydrates are undoubtedly needed by the body. They are a source of strength and energy. However, in an age when cheap carbohydrates can be found at almost every step, their use should be taken under consideration. strict control. You need to figure out how many carbohydrates you need to eat when losing weight.

In order to achieve long-term and sustainable results in weight loss, it is necessary to reduce the amount of carbohydrates absorbed gradually. Under no circumstances should you completely and abruptly exclude them from your diet. Fortunately, there are proven methods here too:

In the first month of the diet, you should consume at least 5 grams of carbohydrates per 1 kg of body weight per day.
Starting from the second month, it is necessary to reduce the amount of carbohydrates consumed by 10 percent every week, to 2 grams per 1 kg of weight
Upon reaching this level consumption, once every one or two weeks you can arrange a fasting day for yourself to get rid of nervous tension

People who do not intend to compete in fitness bikini competitions should not go below this carbohydrate intake level. Also, do not forget that you cannot consume the entire daily norm. nutrients in one approach. When losing weight, frequency of meals is extremely important.

How often should you eat to lose weight?

Nutrients need time to be absorbed into the body. A person who fasts all day and then eats a bowl of dumplings for a meal exposes his body to enormous stress. With this kind of nutrition, you can not only not lose weight, but also gain extra pounds. Simply because the metabolism will slow down enough for the body to store excess fat even with one meal a day. It is imperative to think about portion sizes and how much to eat when losing weight.

How many times a day to eat when losing weight

Nutritionists say that you need to eat more often, because split meals in small portions speed up your metabolism. Indeed, eating 4-7 times a day has several undeniable advantages:

It is easier for the nervous system. It is extremely difficult to fight the feeling of hunger and not overeat when the next meal is only a few hours away
It is healthier for the stomach. Large meals stretch the stomach and create a feeling of heaviness in the abdomen
Social component. Having tea with a colleague, going to lunch with a client, meeting friends after work - it's hard to do this if you limit your diet to two meals a day

The main trick here is to choose a single serving size that will make you feel full. It’s good that there are well-known rules here too.

Serving size for weight loss

How much food should you eat at a time when losing weight? good question. A whole plate, or maybe only half - everything is individual. Some people can eat a handful of nuts and feel full, while others cannot eat until they feel a stretch in their stomach walls. To maintain balance, you can follow the following rules:

Eat no more than 250-350 grams of food at a time. The weight of the food in its raw state is calculated. For example, 70-100 grams + 100 grams of fish + 100-150 grams of vegetables. You can eat about 4 such servings of food per day.
If this portion of food is too large, you can reduce it and add an additional 1-2 meals per day
If such a portion is small, then increase it with vegetables until the body feels full
When reducing carbohydrate intake, you need to compensate for the serving size with additional
The last meal should be no later than 2 hours before

In the end, what we have: how to eat and lose weight

For a person who has read to the end, the question of how much food you need to eat to lose weight has already disappeared. He knows how important it is to control the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates in food, as well as monitor portion sizes. Yes, sometimes it is necessary to deviate from these principles for a short period in order to relieve nervous system. But, with a smart approach and following the recommendations, the result will still not be long in coming!

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How to eat properly: often, but little by little, or rarely, but heartily?

The idea is that when we eat regularly throughout the day, the body knows that food will arrive soon, and the calories consumed with more likely will be burned rather than stored as fat. Eating at regular intervals helps stabilize blood sugar levels and maintain energy balance.

But, in practice, the conditions for reducing the amount of food are often not met, or two snacks are added to the three main meals. However, it is difficult to blame people for this: the same theory claims that in no case should you bring the body to severe hunger, otherwise you will be at risk of overeating at the next meal.

Thus, considering hunger as a terrible enemy, a person does not allow himself to become completely hungry. . A the digestive system, instead of receiving relief, is in permanent job .

The long-standing ideas that fractional nutrition “speeds up metabolism” and “opens fat burning windows” have no basis in reality. evidence base, and is not true.

Besides this, modern research showed that from the point of view of metabolism and calorie expenditure there is no difference between fractional meals and eating large amounts of food once or twice a day (with the same daily calorie content).

Recent hormone research tells us that this is actually the most worst way What to eat can affect your blood sugar balance and weight loss and can actually be dangerous to your health.

If we talk about research, a 36-hour fast did not reveal any changes in the metabolism of the subjects.

Researchers say: “Eating only breakfast and lunch reduces body weight, liver fat, plasma glucose, C-peptide and glucagon. These results suggest that for patients with type 2 diabetes, splitting meals into only breakfast and lunch may be more beneficial than splitting into six servings."

Ancient Indian wisdom, according to Ayurveda and Yoga Shastra, says: yogis (seek happiness within) eat once a day, bhogi ( ordinary people who are looking for happiness outside) - twice a day, rogi (sick people- one who cannot achieve satisfaction, and therefore is always in suffering) - three times a day.

But, to then he eats four times a day, he is a DROKHI (greedy person).

Yes, the amount of food consumed by wealthy people today far exceeds the necessary needs. Overeating has become a fashion.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, people ate 2 meals a day. The first meal took place at about 10 o'clock in the morning, and the person woke up at sunrise. We had dinner at about 6 pm. Thus, there was quite a long period of time between meals.

The ancient Greeks and Romans ate once a day. You can verify this by studying historical sources. Ancient Persia and ancient Israel were also characterized by such nutrition.

However, it cannot be said that people in those days were fat. But this is exactly what, according to nutritionists, threatens those who eat “not often enough.”

Understanding why fractional meals are wrong

Hunger, satiety, and blood sugar balance are all under hormonal control. And we're not talking about reproductive hormones like estrogen and progesterone. We're talking about how hormones are for survival.

Eating multiple meals (5-6 times a day) changes the hormonal signal, interferes with the mechanism that burns fat for fuel, liver metabolism, and sends calories to fat stores.

Snacking between meals is sure to stress the liver and is simply not recommended. The liver must relearn how to normally use gluconeogenesis again when you are asleep or awake. Snacking simply destroys time and the circadian clock, which works in unison with leptin.

The total digestion time for an average portion of food is approximately 5-6 hours. The very idea that skipping one meal can affect metabolism and muscle loss is fundamentally illogical - the body does not rebuild itself so quickly.

In addition, you often have to force yourself to eat food in fractional meals, since your appetite is dulled and there is no feeling of hunger.

Hormone Recovery Solution

So, now you understand that fractional or frequent meals in small portions negatively affect hormonal balance. What's the solution?

It is important to remember that fat burning is not possible when insulin levels are elevated. It takes about 3 hours after eating for insulin levels to return to original level, even if you just ate a small snack.

If you want to lose weight, eliminate fatigue, are concerned about a family history of heart disease, cancer or diabetes, use critical time for burning fat.

3 hours after eating, exercise, and do your best to hold off your next meal for as long as you can.

It may only be 3 hours and 15 minutes to start, then 4 hours, and then eventually you will be able to go at least 5 to 6 hours without eating.

As you stretch out the time between meals and change foods to foods that require less insulin, you will see fewer numbers on the scale. Reconsider food than just Glycemic index when you want to lose weight or just for health. And maybe even more importantly, you will protect yourself from the top 3 deadly diseases in modern world(, Oncology and).

Small or frequent meals may be beneficial for the following categories of people:

People with certain disabilities.

For example, with violations digestive system. For them, as a rule, normal portions of food cause some negative consequences, therefore, fractional nutrition for them is the optimal regimen.

People who need smaller meals to control their appetite.

Such people also cannot be called healthy, since initially each of us has self-regulation of appetite, which controls the correspondence of calories consumed to calories spent.

People who want to reduce fat under intense exercise.

The key point here is intense physical activity. The fact is that with such a diet, the body often receives amino acids that can accelerate the body’s protein synthesis. Meanwhile, protein synthesis itself is an extremely energy-intensive process. Thus, with the help of amino acids, you can increase the body's energy expenditure from several hours to several days.

For athletes to build muscle.

Eating 5-6 times a day is the preferred method for many athletes and bodybuilders. It's possible the best way nutrition, for those who want to increase muscle or maintain high level physical activity. Insulin is an anabolic hormone that enhances cell division and tissue growth. In fact, it is even more anabolic than growth hormone. The problem is that he is an indiscriminate anabolic and does not care whether he stores fat or increases muscle mass. But insulin should not be blamed for this. This hormone is simply doing its job. And its main job is to maintain a safe and stable glucose level in the region of 80-100 mg/deciliter. When blood glucose levels rise above 100, the pancreas begins to produce insulin. Always ready to help, insulin “selects” excess glucose from the blood and sends it to storage.

Therefore, to build muscle, you will have to take care of high insulin levels throughout the day, therefore, eat 5-6 or even 7-8 times a day.

It is especially important to ensure high insulin levels immediately after exercise because... At this time, muscle cell membranes are especially permeable to insulin and everything that it carries with it (for example, glucose, BCAAs).

But, if our goal is only fat loss, then we need to make sure that throughout the day there is low level insulin. Physiologically speaking, it is impossible to burn fat and build muscle at the same time, because one process is catabolic (fat loss) and the other is anabolic (muscle building).

However, if you eat little every 2 to 3 hours, as some experts advise, your insulin levels will never return to normal levels and you will never start burning fat.

On the other hand, even if you are not interested in building muscle, it is still very important to initiate at least some insulin production after. This will stop workout-induced catabolism and also direct glucose and amino acids into muscle cells. Otherwise you will find yourself losing valuable muscle tissue, and therefore interfere with the metabolic mechanism that burns fat.

But still, it is better to eat 2-3 times a day without snacking between meals for weight loss, rejuvenation and longevity.

The path of nature is the only direct path to health and longevity.

Where did it come from
After seeing how clear the conclusion of this study is, many of you will wonder why some people, “certified nutritionists” by the way, keep harping on about “firing up the metabolic furnace” by eating frequent, smaller meals. My smartest guess about this is that maybe they misunderstood TEF a little. Whatever one may say, theoretically they are right that metabolism always remains increased if you eat often. They really missed the most important point that TEF is strictly directly proportional to the calorie content of each meal.

Another option is that this story is based on epidemiological studies that found inverse relationship between the number of meals and the weight of the population. This means that researchers looked at the diets of thousands of individuals and found that those who ate more frequently tended to weigh less than those who ate less frequently. It is very important to note that these studies do not take into account calorie intake, and were conducted on average Vanya (i.e. normal people who do not count calories, and their nutrition is more spontaneous, like most people)

There is a saying “correlation does not imply causation”, which makes further explanation inappropriate, because explains many other stories about nutrition. Just because there is a link between eating more frequently and being lighter does not mean that eating less often causes weight gain. The same studies clearly show that people who tend to eat less often:

They also have an irregular diet; This is the type who replaces breakfast with a donut on the way to work, is undernourished all day and gorges himself in the evening. Most often, they pay less attention to nutrition and health in general than those who eat more often.

One strategy for losing weight is skipping meals. This could be another reasonable explanation for the link between eating less frequently and being overweight. People with overweight It is much more common to diet and skip meals.

The link between eating less frequently and increased weight in the general population is behavioral, not metabolic.

Some experts advise eating at least 5 times a day, others say that you should never eat more than 3 times. Still others insist that two or even one meal a day is enough for a person. So which one is right? Let's try to figure this out.

5 times a day

Many modern nutritionists say that you should eat 5 times a day. Required condition- portions should be small. Thus, every separate appointment food, the stomach needs to cope with less food compared to three meals a day, which should reduce the load and improve digestion.

In practice, the conditions for reducing the amount of food are often not met, or two snacks are added to the three main meals. However, it is difficult to blame people for this: the same theory states that in no case should you bring your body to extreme hunger, otherwise you will be at risk of overeating at the next meal.

Some nutritionists and fitness trainers go even further, advising to eat 6 times a day, i.e. approximately every 2 hours.

Thus, considering hunger as a terrible enemy, a person does not allow himself to become completely hungry. . A The digestive system, instead of receiving relief, is in constant work . However, some nutritionists and fitness trainers go even further, advising to eat 6 times a day, i.e. approximately every 2 hours.

3 times a day

Three meals a day became a classic long before five meals a day became popular.

With three meals a day, the interval between meals is approximately 5 hours, but in fact 4, since you spend an hour eating food.

Your workday is broken only once - during lunch; the rest of the time you can concentrate on business and forget about everything else.

If you fail and within an hour after eating you feel hungry again, this is not a reason to think about switching to five meals a day - the problem lies in your menu. Most likely, this is an excess of fast carbohydrates, which are rich in white rice, pasta, potatoes, confectionery, bread.

Another reason to be careful about dieting with small gaps between meals is the loss of control over hunger. In just two hours you simply won’t have time to get really hungry. You may feel like you're hungry again, but most likely it's psychological hunger. If you allow yourself to eat 5 times a day, it will be very difficult to refuse another meal, even if you don’t actually need it. In addition, if you have not prepared food for the whole day in advance, you will always be thinking about what to eat, and this will only increase your appetite.

Three meals a day makes be more critical of your diet, because you know that if you eat something that does not give you a feeling of fullness for a sufficient period, then you will have to suffer from hunger until next appointment food. Considering that products that have this effect are harmful to both your figure and your health, the need to limit them will only benefit you.

If you allow yourself to eat 5 times a day, it will be very difficult to refuse another meal, even if you don’t actually need it.

Short-term hunger in itself does not cause any harm. When the digestive system has finally finished digesting food, the body switches to cleansing mode. If skipping one meal results in overeating, the reason should be sought in your diet. What gives you such an appetite? It's hardly fresh vegetables and fruits.

2 times a day

In the morning they ate only whole grain bread with water, and in the evening it could be the same. Incompatible types of food were not mixed with each other and what was eaten was natural. This is another confirmation that when proper diet food is absorbed efficiently, and a person does not need to consume it non-stop.

1 time per day

The ancient Greeks and Romans ate once a day. You can verify this by studying historical sources. Ancient Persia and ancient Israel were also characterized by such nutrition.

However, it cannot be said that people in those days were fat. But this is exactly what, according to nutritionists, threatens those who eat “not often enough.”

To be fair, it should be said that ancient people, as a rule, ate food in raw, accordingly, these were mainly fruits, vegetables and nuts. And products such as meat were very rarely present in the diet of ordinary people.

What conclusions can be drawn?

Not only the number of meals per day matters, but also what exactly you eat.
A moderate number of meals makes you take your diet more seriously and makes it possible to use up what you ate last time, while with 5-6 meals a day you will not have time to get hungry.
Don't be afraid of panic strong feeling hunger. If skipping one meal leads to overeating, this is a reason to think about your diet.

How many times a day do you eat?
Vote

Confusion in such a seemingly simple issue as diet is created by several factors. Firstly, if we look at history and traditional cuisines different nations, it will become obvious that people in different times and in different countries they ate completely differently: in some places it was customary to eat a large meal once a day - late evening- after a long working day, in some places frequent breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner were held in high esteem, in others tradition called for taking a long break from any work in the middle of the day and sitting at the table for hours, enjoying a whole string of dishes for a long time. Secondly, confusion was caused by modern systems nutrition - often proprietary, based solely on the opinion of a particular nutritionist with his unique views on nutrition.

Diet depends on different factors: No matter how beneficial one particular regimen is, the way you live and work still has an impact on it. Examples of such factors are familiar to everyone. This is the climate (in hot countries people eat more heavily early in the morning and late in the evening, and during the day they limit themselves to a light snack), the work schedule (someone who is on duty at night, for example, naturally shifts their meal times to the evening), the distribution of workload (if a person there is hard work ahead in the first half of the day, he has a big breakfast), etc. In principle, the diet can be influenced by anything: leisure, habits, family composition. When choosing your own diet, it is very advisable to take into account not only “how healthy” it is, but also all the factors influencing you. It is unreasonable to simply brush them aside and not take them into account: the most correct diet has no chance if it comes into conflict with your lifestyle.

Three times a day or four times a day?

The classic option - three meals a day - is considered obsolete by modern nutritionists: four meals a day are more physiological, which includes breakfast, second breakfast (lunch), lunch and dinner. Time between meals should not be more than 4-5 hours, which is impossible with an early breakfast and no second breakfast. With such a time interval - 4 hours - the load on digestive tract perfectly distributed; for example, you have breakfast at 8 am - then at 12, lunch at 15 and dinner at 19 o'clock.

At the same time, nutritionists do not recommend organizing afternoon tea– in the afternoon – instead of second breakfast. The fact is that in the first half of the day it is advisable to consume up to 40% daily ration, which just fits into two meals. An afternoon snack can contribute to weight gain. However, nutritionists do not rule out an afternoon snack between lunch and dinner if the time interval between these two meals is too long (for example, you have lunch at 14-00 and dinner at 20-00), but in this case the afternoon snack should be quite light: a fruit snack will do salad or low-fat cottage cheese, sandwich with greens.

Why is late dinner bad?

The point is not only that late in the evening and at night everything eaten “gets tied up in fat.” There must be at least one long break per day, a rest of at least 10-11 hours. That is, if you had dinner at 20-00 and then had breakfast at 7-00 in the morning, then 11 hours passed between these meals - this is normal. If you had dinner at 23, and had breakfast at the same 7-00, the time period will be only 8 hours - this is not enough to rest and restore the digestive system. The same applies to cases of “night snacking”. If your meal schedule is shifted due to work or other life circumstances, calculate the time of meals so that the digestive system has the opportunity to rest from food for at least 10 hours.

The ratio of portions and calories during the day

It is desirable that the amount of food consumed be more or less evenly distributed throughout the day. The ideal guideline ratio is:
Breakfast – 15% of the diet
Lunch – 25%
Lunch – 35%
Dinner – 25%
You don't necessarily have to calculate in detail percentage, it is enough to estimate by eye and distribute the planned volume of what should be eaten, so that the most satisfying meal is lunch, lunch and dinner are approximately the same, and breakfast is light but nutritious. But most importantly, make sure that there is no serious imbalance: for example, coffee for breakfast, lunch - a cookie, lunch - a couple of apples, and after all this, dinner consisting of five courses, soup, meat, carbohydrates, dessert.

What exactly is appropriate to eat at different meals is always an open question, including for nutritionists, classic version The division is as follows: carbohydrates for breakfast, for lunch, vegetables and dairy products for dinner. For example, breakfast - porridge, fruit; lunch - sandwich; lunch - meat () dish with side dish, soup; dinner - vegetables in any form, cheese, cottage cheese. But of course product selection depends not only on expediency and usefulness, but also on availability. Although it is most physiological to eat meat for lunch, many people cannot afford it: during the lunch break at work it is more convenient to eat something lighter and leave the meat for a solid dinner at home.

The best guide and assistant in compiling suitable mode food is always individual approach: take into account all the features of your lifestyle, as well as information about the most successful medical point schedule view. To simplify the task, answer the following: questions:

Is it convenient for you to have a big breakfast every day?
- Can you eat a substantial meal at lunch - or main reception food for you - dinner?
-Aren't you having dinner too late? Does 10-11 hours pass between dinner in the evening of one day and breakfast in the morning of the next?
- What exactly do you prefer for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
- What is your highest calorie meal?
- On what points can you adjust your regime to a healthy diet, and over what conditions of your life do you, on the contrary, have no control?

Remember that the main sign of a suitable, successful diet for you personally is the fact that you can stick to it for a long time, ideally - all your life. Don't force yourself to live according to a schedule that you are guaranteed to break in the near future.