This was another mind-blowing lesson for me since we live in a culture that loves to snack and promotes snacking in all kinds of ways. We have entire aisles in our grocery stores dedicated exclusively to snacking. We have handy to-go snack meals and even snack cups and snack boxes for kids. We have snack time in school. We bring snacks for our kids to just about every social event, sporting event, or outing. And we continue the behavior into our adulthood, making sure we’re pretty much never too far from food. In the U.S., there’s no doubt we love to snack and it seems like we’re pretty much eating all the time.
Turns out, that might not be a great thing for the reasons discussed in the prior post about intermittent fasting. Studies show that the more the body has to work on digesting, the less time it has to perform its necessary maintenance and repair functions. When the body doesn’t address cellular issues, breakdowns occur. As those malfunctioning cells continue to operate at less than optimal levels, it leads to more break-down in the body. This is when illness and chronic disease issues arise. The more the body’s rest and repair process is interrupted, the more problems grow.
What’s the point? It sounds overly simple, but it’s imperative to give your body time to rest from the digestive function. Drop the snacks. If you spend your day constantly snacking, identify one or two specific snack times and eliminate the rest. It takes time. You’ll feel hungry at first, but instead of snacking, drink extra water, adding lemon or lime to it for refreshment. The water also aids in digestion, so it will provide an added boost to what you’re trying to accomplish.
I’m still perfecting snacking myself. My goal is to eat at set times each day. If it’s not that time, it’s not time to eat! It’s a good reminder and a good boundary for myself. One of my biggest obstacles is working from home with an office located next to the kitchen—for some reason my favorite place to procrastinate from work is in the pantry! Recently, I put a sign on the pantry door that says “What time is it?” It serves as a visual reminder that there are certain times to eat and to not! I’m still working it out, but I know I’ll get there little by little.
