What Skipping Meals Does to Your Body

Skipping meals is a nasty habit far too many of us have picked up. I mean, how easy is it to skip breakfast after looking the mirror and realizing how amazingly thin you look before eating (and why mess that up with breakfast, right?). Unfortunately, skipping meals is horrible for our health, our bodies and even our attempt to look our best at all times. You might think that you can handle less energy throughout the day with extra caffeine, but what most women don’t realize is that skipping meals has many negative effects on the body.

Hormonal Changes

The first thing that happens when you skip a meal is a change in your hormones. You will immediately begin to produce more cortisol. This is a hormone that causes severe stress and anxiety, making you feel worse for the wear. Your insulin will increase and then drop dramatically, which causes issues with your blood sugar and even causes weight gain in the long run. It’s hard to lose weight when your hormones are all out of whack.

Digestive Changes

When you don’t eat, you make it difficult for your body to digest food properly. What this means is that your metabolism and digestive tract have no idea when to work and when not to work and how to work properly. If you’re not eating all your meals throughout the day, you confuse your body. As a result, it stops working effectively. This can cause severe health problems later in life.

Fat Changes

When your body doesn’t get proper nutrition on a regular basis, it begins to panic. It goes into protective lock down mode, storing fat whenever and wherever possible since it doesn’t know when it’s going to get nutrition next. So, in short, not eating actually makes you fatter than actually eating.

(Photo by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for Microsoft)