9 to 5 Wellness
Do you have the knowledge you need to help your organization get the best return on the time and capital invested in employee wellbeing? Are you a busy professional or C-suite leader looking to introduce wellbeing program at your work?
Discover the art and science of helping organizations grow their most important resource, their people. In this podcast we discuss how organizations can utilize the potential of wellbeing programs to deliver high return on investment (ROI) to employers. We talk about the radical impact that holistic employee wellbeing programs can have on overall quality of work and productivity. We will be sharing insights on investing in human capital. Such as:
🌟 What has helped their organizations gain a competitive advantage?
🌟 How they see the future of employee wellbeing?
🌟 Misunderstandings that are out in the corporate market today
🌟 Advice to other leaders to create a happier, healthier, and more productive workplace
Our guests are C-suite leaders, and wellness innovators across the value chain: HR managers, wellness champions, community wellbeing ambassadors, service vendors, and wellness consultants.
9 to 5 Wellness
On Skipping Meals and Weight Loss
“I eat only one meal,” said Amy. I met my friend Amy after about six months at a coffee shop last week. She had lost some weight, so I complimented her, and she told me how she’s lost weight by skipping meals. You can listen to the rest of this story on todays's podcast episode.
On the surface skipping meals sounds like a strategy for weight loss and caloric restriction but it can wreak havoc on your metabolic health. Food helps power every system in your body, so it’s important to provide your body with nourishment it needs . Eating at regular intervals is important.
Sometimes it might be work commitments and you end up working through lunch, and skipping breakfast may seem like no big deal but it take a toll on our body.
In this episode you can learn:
What happens when you don’t eat?
How does it affect your physiology?
How skipping meals can affect your productivity and work?
Some tips to stay fully fueled throughout your day.
#metabolichealth #weightloss #obesity #skippingmeals #healthyweightloss #eat #metabolism #health #nutrition#wellbeing #wellnesscoach #dietculture #intuitiveeating #nondiet #disorderedeating #food #nutrition #wellbeing
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🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟
Aesha Tahir is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, and columnist. She delivers high-energy presentations that challenge audiences to leverage their focus to what matters most at work and in life, their health. Audiences love the practical strategies she shares. She helps the organizations create a culture of wellness by implementing h
🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟
My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!
🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com
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Welcome to the nine to five wellness podcast, a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host Ayesha Tahir.
Hello and welcome to this episode of 9 to 5 Wellness. Today, I want to talk to you about skipping meals and weight loss. You know, making diet changes, the healthy way. The inspiration for this podcast comes from meeting a friend. I met my friend Amy last week for coffee and we were meeting up after six months or so.
Amy had lost some weight. So I complimented her that seems like you lost weight. that's really good for your health. I'm so glad, you did it. In reply, she said, yeah, I'm trying. I eat only one meal a day. And when I heard that, I said to her, Hey, make sure you're nourishing your body properly too. She said, Oh, well, I really don't get hungry that much. So for me, one meal a day works. And. The reason I want to talk about this on the podcast is because just like Amy, I see many clients who feel the same way. They restrict food to Much and then they're not hungry. So I thought we need to talk about it.
Why eating just one meal a day Might look like a good way to control calories But it's not the healthiest way to lose weight and it's not good for your metabolic health Now, before I go further into this concept, though, I want to share a little bit more of my conversation with Amy, because I think we can all use the lesson from that conversation too.
Because she went on to say, Oh, Aisha, you know, no matter what I do, I'll never be thin like you. And I know she meant it as a very generous compliment. I said to her, yeah, because you will be much stronger and looking better than me.
In the moment when she said that I could relate with what Amy said and why she said it. I think we have all been there. We have all felt this way about something or someone. I like to look at it this way, that every one of us is an individual. What does individual mean? Individual, like you're unique.
Everyone's goals are different. My health goals are very performance oriented, which can be very different than what another person might want. We are so unique in our own way with our unique needs. So I want you guys to remember that. I believe one of the reasons I've been successful in having my weight in a healthy range throughout my life is consistency And I do want to tackle consistency on this show in one of the episodes too, and we'll do it some other day.
It's coming up. I don't want to go too much into that, but I do want to, share with you what is behind the, the fact that I have had my weight in a healthy range so far. And the reason I'm using this conversation in this episode is because Amy is my friend.
I've known her over 10 years now, and this was such a casual conversation. She was much more open about her feelings to me than I believe a lot of my clients would be. And I could get her permission to use this episode. Example on our podcast because she's a friend So I think there's always like a barrier when i'm working with clients where Everybody's not able to share their feelings right away or fully as a coach though, I Want you guys to know I want the best for you. Honestly, that's what I want for all my friends and all my clients. I want them to be much stronger than me, much healthier than me and have a better body composition than me.
I want you to be Way better than me. I'll You Always have your back and I'm here to help you reach your goals. I want you to thrive. I want you to think about a time though when you felt this way. When you felt like you will never be able to achieve a goal. You'll never be able to look as good as whoever that person is.
I want you to think of that moment and then pin it in your head. Now, I want you to remember that you and your goals are unique. Your successes and value are entirely unique to you and your purpose in this world. They can never be properly compared to anyone else. Honestly, comparison puts focus.
on the wrong person. And it would often deprive you of the joy of the process, the joy of the process of achieving the goal . It doesn't add any value, meaning, or fulfillment to our lives. So the focus should be your goals and the focus of your goals should be you.
Now let's talk about why skipping meals is not good for weight management and metabolic health. On the surface, it looks like, it's a good idea or a good way to control your calories, but it can backfire. So many of my clients believe that skipping meals or eating less often helps them to lose weight, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
When we don't eat, For whatever reason, maybe you're busy, you're commuting to work, you have a long commute, or you travel for work, whatever reason it is, We are using willpower to overcome hunger, and ultimately, we get very hungry, because our bodies are programmed to survive, and because of this survival instinct, our brain thinks food is food.
is not available. So we start making unhealthy choices because we become so hungry that we can only think about food. The food we usually crave in situations like this where you have waited too long to eat are mostly high in carbs and fat. They're quick and easy grabs like soda, fast food, chips from vending machines or pantry.
Chips from vending machines is one of the guilty pleasures, which my clients tell me that they reach out for. office. What's happening when you are depriving your body of food is that you are making yourself like over hungry and when you get to that point you're gonna eat anything that you get a hold of, anything that's easily available
another reason why this survival mechanism is not super helpful is because it slows down our metabolism, which can cause weight gain, and it makes it harder to lose weight. in the long term. So when you're not eating and restricting calories and losing weight by just restricting calories, what's happening is it's slowing down your metabolism.
And that is not a good idea. Now physiologically, one of the other processes that's affected by long term fast or starvation, as in the case of skipping meals, is that your blood sugar levels drop or your glucose levels go down in your bloodstream, which causes interruption in your ability to think straight because our brain uses glucose to run efficiently.
And if there's not enough glucose for the brain to use, Well, now your body is not going to be able to function at 100%. And this is one of the complaints of my clients. I work with busy professionals and a lot of the professionals come to me and tell me how they have brain fog and how they can't focus.
And one of the reasons is because they're not. eating at regular intervals. Low blood sugar levels often also lead to confusion and fatigue. Your body begins to increase the production of cortisol, which is your stress hormone. The stress hormone is released to help you regulate that dip in blood sugar.
But now, it's also creating a stress response in your body, which can leave you feeling anxious, or depressed, or just stressed out. We don't need more stress in our lives. You would agree with that, right? So, it's important to fuel your body, it's important to eat at regular intervals. Another noteworthy physiologic change that occurs with skipping meals is the dysfunction of your hunger and fullness cues.
Our bodies have built in hunger and fullness cues in the form of hunger hormones. Leptin is the hormone responsible for decreasing your appetite when your body has had enough food. And ghrelin makes you hungry when your body needs more fuel. These hormones can easily lead to hunger. be thrown off if you ignore them.
That's why my friend and a lot of my clients like my friend who skip meals tell me that they're not hungry. The reason they're not eating more than one meal or more than two meals a day is because they're not hungry. Well, hunger is part of a negative feedback loop, meaning that the only way to decrease the feelings of hunger is to eat.
When you continue to skip meals, your body will produce more and more ghrelin, the hormone that causes hunger pains. It will also produce less leptin, the hormone that decreases appetite, making it harder for you to know when you're already full. or it also makes it very hard for you to understand you're hungry.
Now, if you can't understand when you're full, what's going to happen is it will lead to overeating or what we call binge eating. And a lot of times when you get that one meal, you will binge. for this reason. Same thing when you, when the ghrelin signals are not working properly, you will not be able to know if you're hungry or not.
So by ignoring hunger cues, you're really messing up the whole hormonal system. Many hormones are disrupted because of this, which include insulin. leptin, cortisol, and ghrelin. All of these hormones work together in our body for us to have healthy metabolism.
Now your body's hunger cues are an indicator of when you need nourishment. When you are eating at regular intervals, you'll be so in tune with your body that you'll be able to eat if you need to eat or if your body is deficient in certain macronutrients or micronutrients. Just last week, I was craving cucumbers.
And I , went to the grocery store, grabbed cucumbers and salad and I ate a lot of salad last week just because , I was craving cucumbers and lettuce and salad. And I think there was some sort of micronutrient or an electrolyte that was missing from my diet that my body needed.
So. If you fuel your body properly, if you nourish your body properly, if you give it food at regular intervals, you'll be so in tune with it that it will tell you what it needs. You'll crave the foods that your body will need. That's why it's always important to listen to your hunger cues to eat at regular intervals.
Another reason why it's not a good idea to skip meals is because it, it puts you at a higher risk for eating disorders. So you become a candidate for developing an eating disorder because it can lead to binging later on. And the most important reason for not skipping meals is because it robs you of enjoyment of food. Eating food should be joyful, , enjoyment is an important part of eating. . We have taste buds for a reason, right?
So, I don't want you to make eating a chore. Food is a necessity, but it should also be pleasurable. All of these consequences are harmful to our overall well being. And at a deeper level, they keep us from being fully present in our lives, from living our purpose. and from harnessing our power to make an impact in this world. And that's why you should be eating at regular intervals. How can we avoid skipping meals?
Here are a few practices that I recommend to my clients. First practice is mindful eating and intuitive eating where you're involving all of your senses to enjoy food. Instead of eating your lunch at your desk, set aside some time and walk away from the desk to eat.
Simply focus on enjoying the food you're eating and the nourishment it's providing. Second thing that I recommend is to plan ahead. Keep healthy snacks and no prep foods on hand in your office, home office, or outside, like fresh fruits baby carrots, sliced vegetables, yogurt, cheese, nuts are all good options.
Another tip that I give is to prep the ingredients for the week. So, you know, find some time during the week to prep your meals, wash and chop vegetables, and pre portion out your foods in containers. That always helps, especially for breakfast and lunch.
For breakfast, try overnight oats, yogurt, hard boiled eggs as a quick and easy on the go option. And have some lunch on the go options for yourself too from the leftovers you had from dinner. If you cannot cook every night, buy healthy prepared meals from the deli section of your grocery store.
Like grilled chicken is my go to. You can use it so many ways. Tuna salad is another healthy choice to get from the deli. Again, you can use it multiple ways. And finally, have lunch dates with your friends. This way you can block off your calendar to catch up with a friend and eat a healthy meal with them.
It's easy to eat healthy meals at regular intervals if you plan ahead. And in a few weeks, it will become natural for you to eat that way. You will start reaping the benefits of high energy and good metabolic health. That's all from me this week, friends. I have a lunch date with a friend planned today. So I have to go see my friend. It was so nice talking to you. Talk to you next week. Bye.
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