When I did my eating disorder training in the late 90s, I was taught that small, frequent meals would keep the blood sugar levels stable and keep people satisfied and stop the binging. It did help to a certain extent, but eventually it did not really help with weight management or food obsession. It was a commonly held belief in the eating disorder therapy world at the time. Nowadays, there is a school of thought that says that frequent snacking or grazing puts you more at risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, or stroke.
When I started learning about Ayurveda, I realized that the perpetual and endless grazing and snacking meant that there was never enough time between meals for the food to be completely digested. Eating every few hours leaves undigested food from the previous snack or meal in the digestive track all the time. This undigested food encourages the growth of bacteria, fermentation, excess gas and bloating. This can result in a build-up of toxins and excess weight. In Ayurveda, these toxins are called ama and they are seen to be at the root of many diseases.
Building up a strong digestion or agni is thought to be one of the most important things that we can do to keep ourselves healthy. The word agni means fire and it is useful to think of the digestion and metabolism as a fiery process. After all, we do talk about burning our food up, or burning off extra weight.
In Ayurveda, snacking and grazing are thought to weaken the agni and prevent it from doing its job which is to transform food into fuel and waste that can be efficiently eliminated.
The amount of time between meals will vary from person to person and from dosha to dosha, but mostly we do not recommend snacking. Also, when we give the agni a chance to get strong, it will burn up our excess fat by converting stored fat into glucose for fuel.
This is not to say that you should ignore genuine hunger. If you are genuinely hungry between meals then having a small snack is the way forward. However, it is good to make sure it is hunger and not a response to an emotional trigger, thirst, habit, boredom or just because you want a sensory kick.
10 things you can do to build your agni include:
Chew food properly so that it is ready to be digested
Avoid overeating in one sitting, stop at the first burp or before if you are full
Relax and eat mindfully
Observe the Ayurvedic food combining guidelines
Allow 4-6 hours between meals and then more than 12 hours “fast” from the evening meal to breakfast
Make lunch the main meal of the day
Go for a little walk after each meal
Have a little lime, salt and ginger before meals
Make lunch the main meal of the day when you can benefit from the strongest energy of the sun to help with the inner fires
Eat an earlier, lighter evening meal.
The boundaries between snacking and proper meals have been blurred. It’s so useful to take time to reflect on what drives your snacking habits as well as what impact snacking has on your overall health. The snacking landscape of today is unrecognizable to the way people used to eat before it became a bezillion dollar industry. There are so many ‘food like substances’ out there that have been engineered and strategically marketed to draw us in and get us hooked on both taste and body chemistry. We’ve come to think that the strangest things are either treats or normal.
It can take time to build new habits, but taking time to build this is one just might make all the difference to your health… try it and see!