Why and What to Eat Every 2-4 Hours to Create more Peace with Food
The beginning of the year is full of resolutions, good intentions, and aspirations to start habits that support our best selves to emerge. For many this involves analysis of our time, what do we want to prioritize and what do we want to spend less time doing? How will our time investments lead to feeling the ways we want to feel and accomplishing the things we want to achieve?
As you set your intentions and schedule your day, I encourage you make a plan to eat every 2-4 hours.
This recommendation may feel controversial, especially considering the current popularity of intermittent fasting. After being in the field for over 10 years, I can confidently say the more permission we give ourselves to eat throughout the day, the more mental, emotional, and physical energy we have for the rest of our lives.
Not sure how that works? The rest of this post breaks down the nutritional biochemistry and emotional theory behind the method of eating every 2-4 hours. The post ends with a little suggestion on how to pick what to eat when that 2 hour timer goes off.
If you’d like support implementing this change, stay tuned for next month’s blog post about the 5 stages of behavior change or book a complimentary consultation with me! I’d love to support you.
Nutrition Biochemistry: Feeding the Brain
The TLDR: our brain relies on energy that we get from food or from stores. Problem is, those stores need replenishing after 4 hours.
If you would like more information about the impact of undernourishment, Dr Jennifer Gaudiani, author of Sick Enough, discusses the impact of food deprivation that can occur from common dieting practices in her interview with Allyson Inez Ford on the Body Justice podcast.
Our brain accounts for 20% of our energy needs, no matter our state of being: active, sleeping, fasting, feasting. Thanks to the blood brain barrier (that protects the brain from toxic substances in the blood), glucose is the brain’s preferred energy source. Our body gets glucose from one of two sources: the food we eat and the glucose stored as glycogen in the body. Glycogen is stored in one of two places: in muscles and in the liver.
When we’re exercising, the body breaks down glycogen stored around muscle tissue. Glycogen storage capacity around muscles can change with training. When we are between meals, the body relies on the glycogen in the liver to supply glucose to the brain. The glycogen storage capacity of the liver is relatively fixed and pretty reliably empties after 4 hours.
So what happens when we don’t eat enough? Our body adapts to the energy deficiency and our metabolism is slowed be reducing circulation to our fingers and toes, slowing our heart rate, and pulling resources from growing our hair and our skin. In addition to metabolic changes to inadequate food intake, we can get “cave man brain,” wherein the chemistry in our brain changes to become more rigid and less risk-tolerant. As Dr Gaudiani states, "A starved mammal is not creative or playful” because a starved mammal is preoccupied with surviving what the body is registering as famine.
Relationship with Food: Abundance vs Scarcity
The TLDR: the more we resist food, the more power it has over our thoughts. The more we practice eating, the more power we reclaim.
When a person eats every 2-4 hours they end up thinking about food a lot but the tone is different. Thoughts about food are less about resisting an urge and more about problem solving. Our thoughts go from, “I want to have that thing but I’m not allowed to so but I can’t stop thinking about it” to “Let’s make plan to eat consistently throughout the day.
Overeating due to enjoying a food that may be a treat or novel also reduces. Individuals that begin eating every 2-4 hours that have struggled to stop when they’re full begin feeling more ease around completing a meal or stopping a feast. “I can always come back to it in 2 hours” is often the reassuring thought.
The Intuitive Eating philosophy calls this phenomenon, “habituation.” Psychologists can also call this “exposure therapy,” define as diminishing an emotional response to a frequently repeated stimulus. In this case, that stimulus is food. The more permission we give ourselves to eat throughout the day, the more mental, emotional, and physical energy we have for the rest of our lives.
What do we eat when the timer goes off?
The TLDR: if it’s a snack, eat a grain or produce + protein or fat. If it's a meal, eat all four food groups. Make sure you include the fat!
Variety is the spice of life, that’s what I always say. Different foods break down and turn into usable substances in our bodies at different rates, provide different nutrients, and bring different flavors or levels of satisfaction to a meal. All of these components are important as we consider what to eat when those 2-4 hours are up.
With that in mind, it’s helpful to eat 2 different food groups when we’re nourishing our bodies. Have you ever had a bag of chips and before you know it, you ate the whole thing? And maybe you’re still hungry but chips is the last thing you want? That’s because you still need more nourishment but from something else IN ADDITION to the chips.
Grains and produce break down in a roughly similar rate to one another. Proteins and fats are the same but when we compare proteins to grains, or fats to produce, the rate is different. So if you’re going to have chips, have hummus or guacamole to dip them in. If you’re going to have toast, have some kind of nut-butter to put on top. If you want to have a carrot, pair it with ranch dressing.
There are not bad foods, there are only food combinations that may or may not support your needs in the moment. Have fun playing with different combinations and notice for yourself what feels better for your body!
