Snacking - what are your views? page

[YogaBare]

Hey everyone,

I've been eating (vegetarian) Primal for a month now, and I still get ravenous between meals. However, I'm also pretty sure I am hypoglycemic (never realised before - but learnt about it since discovering the Primal lifestyle. Have just bought a kit to test myself) and I find gaps of more than 4 hours between meals really affect me (I even wake up at night).

I see that many people who eat Primal don't feel hungry between meals. How long did it take before your hunger began to subside? And is no snacking an ideal of the Primal lifestyle?

[jakey]

i personally feel very strongly that eating meals is best. if you're hungry between meals, make them larger. i like three big blood sugar and insulin spikes per day (aka meals!), sometimes two, and i don't want to constantly be digesting, or messing with hormonal levels. i think cutting snacking and sticking to meals is a powerful weightloss tool, as well.

that being said, i'm likely making a bigger deal out of it than i should. if your health and physique are good, i don't think it's a make or break issue.

also, any switch in diet will take some time to get used to. say a few weeks?

[YogaBare]

i like three big blood sugar and insulin spikes per day (aka meals!), sometimes two, and i don't want to constantly be digesting, or messing with hormonal levels.

This is the part I'm confused about. Wouldn't snacking (on the right stuff) maintain the blood sugar at a pretty consistent level, and prevent it from spiking as much?

[SleepyRoots]

For me it took a few days to a week at most to stop feeling like snacking all the time.
I was fairly strict about carbs at the time, but I am not sure how much that mattered.

As for ideal primal: from a purely health point of view, as long as your snacks don't spike your insulin too much, I don't see anything basic wrong with it. From a Grok point of view, you should be able to last a couple of days at least without crashing. You might be ravenous by the end, but you shouldn't suffer stuff like night sweats and shakiness.

[jakey]

This is the part I'm confused about. Wouldn't snacking (on the right stuff) maintain the blood sugar at a pretty consistent level, and prevent it from spiking as much?

actually, i would seek a spike rather than a constant low level elevation. i want mine to be either baseline, or acutely spiked. i have no metabolic dysfunction, and the nutrient spike partitions nicely to lean mass.

[sbhikes]

Read this:
Why Snacking Makes You Weak, Not Just Fat - GNOLLS.ORG

[YogaBare]

A couple of days without eating or without snacking??!

If I don't eat for more than a few hours I start to feel unwell. Really thirsty, nauseous, emotional, demotivated. Then I eat triple the amount once I do get to chow down..! The intermittent fasting thing doesn't work for me, because I just eat heaps more the day after a fast. And even if I go to bed not totally full (ie. after having a very large meal) I won't sleep properly.

[YogaBare]

Read this:
Why Snacking Makes You Weak, Not Just Fat - GNOLLS.ORG

Very interesting article - but it's all about snacking on carbs. I personally only snack on protein. (And occasionally on some raw broccoli!)

[Danielle5690]

A couple of days without eating or without snacking??!

If I don't eat for more than a few hours I start to feel unwell. Really thirsty, nauseous, emotional, demotivated. Then I eat triple the amount once I do get to chow down..! The intermittent fasting thing doesn't work for me, because I just eat heaps more the day after a fast. And even if I go to bed not totally full (ie. after having a very large meal) I won't sleep properly.

That definitely sounds like hypoglycemia. I have had it for most of my life, but changing to this way of eating has eliminated all of my symptoms. At first, I snacked because I thought I needed to. Then I realized I didn't anymore. I find now that I feel better if I don't snack and just have big, hearty meals.

One issue I think you're having is that I found that animal fat and protein at every meal is absolutely necessary to alleviate my symptoms. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to stop snacking, but I think it's probably healthier. If you want to get down to two or three meals with no snacks, you're going to need plenty of protein and fat - which may mean alot more eggs and fish, or it may mean rethinking your vegetarianism.

[Goldsmith]

I've been eating (vegetarian) Primal for a month now, and I still get ravenous between meals.

I think you stated you own problem. I would be starving all the time if I did not eat meat.