On- and off-season, figure competitors keep their meals timed to perfection. Why? Timing is everything when it comes to weight loss. Why don’t figure competitors just eat when they are hungry? The reasons are logical and numerous.
Fitness models rely heavily on macronutrient, or nutrient dense diets. Macronutrient diets aim to pack the greatest, and most ideal amount fat, carbohydrates and proteins per calorie that a person consumes.
Macronutrient diets are so effective at creating a filling of nutritional fullness that they reduce binge-eating episodes in women with bulimia and binge eating disorder.
A study entitled Binge Eating and Satiety in Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder: Effects of macronutrient intake found that adding protein to the diets of women with bulimia and binge eating disorder reduced the participants food intake and binge eating over a two-week period.
When most people begin a macronutrient diet, their first complaint is, “I can’t eat all this food!” People complain about macronutrient diets because they have never packed so much protein, carbohydrates and fats into so few calories. Now, for people new to macronutrient eating, they may not feel hungry every three to four hours, which is how often they are advised to eat.
So nutritionists and dieticians advise macronutrient novices to commit anti-dieting heresy by eating when they are not hungry. Why? Macronutrient diets re-train the palate and the body.
Before, your body may have subsisted off a few vitamins and minerals from your typicalbagel, cheese, lettuce and fruit juice diet. But now that you are eating oatmeal, salads and pastas that are loaded with nutrients, you do not feel as hungry or as energy depleted as before.
Eating meals at a consistent time also keeps your metabolism working optimally while maintaining your blood sugar level so that you have sustained energy.