In many cases, and apart from those health problems that can cause us to gain weight, weight gain is usually the result of an unbalanced diet accompanied by insufficient physical activity, so that we end up ingesting more calories than our body “burns” (consumes), according to specialists.
However, other factors in our lifestyle can contribute to this caloric imbalance, either by altering our appetite, encouraging our body to accumulate fat, or making it difficult for us to burn calories.
1 BUYING WITHOUT PLANNING
“We live fast and we have the feeling that the days should be longer because we can’t do everything. We cut back on time wherever we can and generally, it’s the time we dedicate to ourselves,” says Sonia Peinado, an expert in human nutrition, dietetics, and nutrigenetics at the European Medical Institute of Obesity (IMEO).
“Out of laziness or thinking that we can manage it on the fly, we often leave aside the ‘shopping list’, arrive at the supermarket and throw everything into the cart, without looking to see if we need it and letting ourselves be carried away by visual hunger,” she points out.
As a result of this improvisation, “we come home with unnecessary food and forget other important ones,” he says.
Peinado advises completing, throughout the week, a basic list of foods, products, and ingredients, which we can save in a notes app to be able to reuse it as a “skeleton” of our food purchases.
Some applications such as Softlist or Listonic allow us to make a shopping list manually using our mobile phone and check what we need to put in our shopping cart when we are in the grocery store or supermarket, she adds.
We can also use the virtual assistant, Alexa, for example, and say by voice, “Alexa, add fruit and salad ingredients to the shopping list,” when we notice that we are running out of those foods, he points out.
2 EATING WITHOUT INNOVATING
“We should also introduce a new recipe every week. This way we will try new culinary options and not be overloaded with repetitive work in the kitchen. This will improve our adherence to a healthy diet and help us sit down to eat in a different mood,” according to the IMEO nutritionist .
“Trying new flavors by adding spices or using different cooking techniques, as well as changing the way foods are presented or combined, is also important for enjoying good sensations when eating,” says Peinado, noting that one of the mottos of food should be “Make it fun!”
“ And if we have children, we can also involve them in cooking. In this way, all family members will learn the concept of healthy cooking at home and adults will help the little ones develop their autonomy and creativity through experimentation,” she emphasizes.
3 DINNER VERY LATE
“Although there seems to be no consensus on whether eating dinner late causes weight gain or not,” some studies indicate that this habit can cause hormonal imbalances, according to Peinado.
For example, “eating late alters the functioning of the hormone leptin (which induces satiety or the feeling of fullness in the stomach), making it more difficult for us to feel full,” he continues.
Furthermore, due to our circadian rhythms (body changes that follow a 24-hour cycle), “at night we begin to secrete melatonin, the hormone that predisposes us to sleep,” according to this expert.
Melatonin hinders insulin activity and, therefore, eating late at night will cause our insulin levels to drop and our blood sugar levels to rise, potentially predisposing us to diabetes, according to Peinado.
4 CHEW WHILE THINKING ABOUT PROBLEMS
In our homes and due to the level of daily stress, we tend to start eating, especially at night, with a certain feeling of anxiety that leads us to overeat very palatable foods (pleasant to the palate ) and generally with a high fat and sugar content, according to Peinado.
He adds that the hormone cortisol (associated with stress) and the hormone dopamine (colloquially known as the ‘happiness hormone’) are involved in this phenomenon, “because we often chew food to avoid chewing on frustration, letting ourselves be carried away more by impulse and less by conscious thought.”
To change this situation, Peinado recommends breaking our routine and looking for activities that calm us and make us disconnect from everyday frustrations, such as walking in the park, taking the dogs for a walk, going swimming, or reading a pleasant and positive book.
“This way we will be able to reason better and be able to discern, when we get home, whether we need to eat that food we have been thinking about all day.”
“Having a refrigerator and a cupboard with healthy foods will also help to achieve this goal,” since we will have the necessary ingredients to prepare foods that we find attractive, without having to resort to products with chemical compounds, according to this specialist.
“For example, when our body ‘asks’ us to eat something sweet, we could prepare some fruit skewers and melt dark chocolate on top,” he suggests.
5. ABUSE OF PRECOOKED FOOD
“We often convince ourselves that our only available option is fast food or food that is sold almost ready-made because we don’t have time to prepare anything,” he explains.
However, “it may be quicker to open a can of canned vegetables and a can of sardines or mussels and prepare a balanced dish with those ingredients,” according to Peinado.
He adds that it is also equally quick to prepare a bag of vegetables that you have stored in the freezer in just 3 minutes in the microwave, complementing it with a previously cooked egg.
But these are not usually our first choices, nor do we usually have the elements to prepare these dishes at home, she says.
Peinado recommends setting the goal of preparing healthy dishes that are appetizing in a short amount of time.
It is also advisable to dedicate part of our free time at the weekend to cooking several dishes in one day (normally Sunday), so as not to have to do it during the following week, storing them in containers that can then be mixed as desired starting on Monday.
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