According to data from www.dosfarma.com, the market-leading Spanish online pharmacy, the vast majority of Spaniards (8 out of 10) say they have a good diet. However, the reality is that only 4 out of 10 eat vegetables every day and only 60% eat fruit.
In addition, during confinement, it was difficult for many Spaniards to maintain their usual diet. Months later, good eating habits may not have recovered yet, especially in terms of schedules. But when and how we eat is almost as important as what we eat.
DosFarma experts explain why it is important to pay attention to meal times and the time we spend on each, as well as giving some tips for setting healthy eating habits:
Make five meals a day
When organizing the daily menu, keep in mind that you do not have to spend many hours between each meal. Therefore, between breakfast and lunch it is necessary to include a light snack in the middle of the morning (nuts, whole grains with a yoghurt, a coffee with a tomato toast and oil …). The same goes for lunch and dinner, where you need to include snack. Thanks to these two extra meals, which are lighter, you get the energy you need for the whole day.
Also, making five meals will help balance hunger throughout the day. If we only do three, we will arrive at each one much more hungry, which can lead us to eat more than necessary. However, only half of women make 4 or more meals a day, and only 4 out of 10 men.
Establish fixed schedules
Teleworking or confinement have greatly affected the routine of Spaniards, and of course also their eating schedules. However, keeping a fixed number of hours to eat helps to synchronize our entire body.
The body has a master clock in the brain that controls all activities (hormone production, for example), but it also has other clocks in each organ that depend on the master clock. Light and darkness help regulate the master clock, but so does power. If meal times are always changing, it will be very difficult to get the brain and different organs to synchronize properly.
This desynchronization is usually suffered by people who have rotating shifts or those who make long flights and change time zones. If the body receives food at an hour to which it is not accustomed, it may not assimilate nutrients equally. Over time, mismatches can translate into problems such as diabetes, obesity or insomnia.
early breakfast
The first meal of the day marks the time of our body. It is important to have breakfast sooner or later to synchronize all our clocks. Now, you don’t have to do it at 5 in the morning. We need to let melatonin, the hormone that causes us sleep at night, go down a bit. Between 7:00 and 8:00 is a great time.
Dinner, also early
As night approaches, the hormones responsible for digesting sugars and carbohydrates decrease. So carbohydrates are better metabolized if we had dinner earlier. Also, the earlier we take them, the longer the body will have to digest, so 20:00 is a very good time.
If it is impossible to have dinner at this time, it is important to leave a space of about two and a half hours before bedtime. And if you sleep a lot and have dinner early, you can grab a yogurt or a glass of milk before bed. Dairy products have tryptophan, an amino acid that helps produce melatonin and serotonin, which are essential for falling asleep.
Eat without haste
Not only do you need to consider when to eat, but also for how long. Eating too fast, with anxiety or stress, causes nutrients to not be absorbed properly. This can lead to constipation, gas, hiccups and other digestive upsets.
chew well
Since you don’t need to eat in a hurry, you need to make sure the food is chewed well, even if that means spending a few more minutes on it. It is important that food is well mixed in the mouth with saliva, as it contains amylase, an enzyme that helps digest carbohydrates. If the food reaches the stomach without the amylase working properly, it will have to work much harder to cope with it all.
Drink enough water
Meals should have fixed schedules, but fluid intake should be done throughout the day. The key is to drink before you are thirsty, to replenish fluids lost through sweat and urine (between 1.5 and 2 liters a day, approximately). The important thing is not to leave long periods of time without drinking fluids. It is not necessary to drink water alone, but to insert other liquids will stimulate the desire to drink: infusions, natural juices …
Amanda Dutruc, a pharmacist at DosFarma, commented: “Maintaining a stable schedule when eating is essential. People who, due to their work, have to vary their schedules a lot, often notice this in digestive problems, weight gain. Sleep difficulties and other illnesses It is important to set a few hours to eat which will allow us to synchronize the rhythms of our body.We need to adapt to the cycles with which the body works.From DosFarma we want to help raise awareness about the importance of a healthy diet that of course involves varied and balanced eating, but also devoting time to each meal and distributing food intake properly throughout the day with stable meal schedules. ”