Can eating smaller, more frequent meals really help with weight loss? A scientific explanation of the truth about appetite and hormones.
When it comes to weight loss methods, most people try exercise, dieting, and frequent small meals. Frequent small meals, as the name suggests, involves dividing food into multiple portions and consuming small amounts at different times. Many people believe that eating small amounts of food frequently will prevent hunger, satisfy cravings, and perhaps even lead to eating less overall. In fact, this method of frequent small meals will not only fail to help you lose weight but will also increase your appetite.
Besides leptin, two other hormones control appetite: ghrelin, which stimulates eating (higher ghrelin levels mean more hunger); and peptide YY (PYY), an appetite-suppressing hormone responsible for satiety (higher PYY levels mean greater fullness and less desire to eat). The biggest obstacle to weight loss is hunger, and people often attribute weight loss failure to a lack of willpower. In reality, this isn't simply a matter of willpower; hunger is a normal physiological response produced by bodily hormones.
When your stomach is empty, your body releases ghrelin, which sends hunger signals to your brain, making you feel hungry until you start eating. Only when you are full will ghrelin levels decrease and remain low for 1-3 hours. Therefore, frequent small meals keep you in a state of constant partial hunger, preventing ghrelin levels from fully decreasing and PYY levels from rising. You will constantly feel hungry and crave food. Those who enjoy Western cuisine know that there's an appetizer before the main course. The reason it's called an appetizer is that it stimulates your appetite, making you want to eat more.
After ghrelin is released, the body also reduces the burning of fat cells. In other words, in a state of hunger, the body is more inclined to store fat. For weight loss, frequent small meals not only fail to reduce hunger and cravings but also make it easier for you to store fat.
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