The Battle of Excess Calories
If we would look at food in the same way that we look at fuel for our vehicle, it would make things pretty simple in whether we need fuel or if a refill is not at all necessary. Unlike a vehicle, our fuel tank is expandable and when we overeat, (if we don’t burn off these extra calories over the next 3 to 6 hours), our body will simply store this extra fuel inside mini storage cells (fat cells) all over our body, especially if we eat again before this extra is burned off. These extra calories become the energy matter inside our fat cells and this is what causes us to appear overweight.
Often, we mistake hunger for the feeling we get when our body starts getting to the end of a sugar load, this is when you need to wait a little longer and let your body shift its energy source over to burning fat for energy. This is also when you can cash in on the stored calories, but to do so your sugar level has got to drop in your blood.
A little trick I’ve found that seems to work really well, is creating a calorie deficit by being active and not eating for an extended period, prior to a heavy meal and then doing something to burn off the excess blood sugars about an hour after eating. You can also skip eating the next meal or go really light, to balance out the excess calories. The energy from these (last in) extra calories should be readily available if we do not eat anything that is sweet or starchy, (too much sugar and starch turns the fat burning process off! When insulin levels rise in the blood, it signals for the body to turn off burning fat for energy and to focus on clearing sugar out of the blood. Can you imagine how syrupy our blood supply would get if it didn’t work like that?
Losing weight and maintaining healthy weight: if you overeat, stagger it with a light meal or by simply skipping the next meal. Heavy meals that are not staggered by light meals that have plenty of fiber (such as raw vegetables) is asking for excess weight gain.
Getting to know our own body so that we know when it needs food and when we need to give it time to clear food out of our system is important if we want to reduce our weight or maintain it. When we eat excess calories, it gets stored in the pantry areas of our bodies as reserve fuel. Getting our sugar levels low enough (for long enough), releases the calories from these areas and reduces the size of these fat deposits.
