BREAKING FREE FROM RUT EATING

Are you a secret rut eater?

Perhaps you simply must eat your beloved peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch every day. Or, you love snacking on peanuts for a morning, afternoon and evening snack. Sound familiar?

Rut eating is defined by eating the same food over three days in a row, or eating the same food at the same meal day after day. Chances are, you’ve gotten in an eating rut a few times in your life, but you probably didn’t know that rut eating could cause weight gain.

The reasons people rut eat are varied. Some folks believe they are simply too busy to cook a different meal every day, so it’s easier to eat what’s available. Five body types, Pancreas; Spleen; Stomach; Liver and Brain are generally more susceptible to this eating pattern, tending to eat the same thing one meal a day (usually breakfast). For other people, eating the same foods at the same time is an ingrained habit. After all, who doesn’t have a relative who must eat a huge bowl of ice cream while they zone out to the television?

The problem with rut eating is that it initially stimulates and then exhausts the pancreas gland by depleting the enzymes, necessary for digesting that particular food. When the body can’t digest its food properly, it has to store it until the right enzymes can be produced again. Over time, this accumulated stored food becomes unwanted fat and weight gain. That’s a side effect most folks want to avoid.

Let’s say that you prepared scrambled eggs and rice each morning for breakfast. The first day you ate it, your body would easily digest your food and your pancreas would secrete the appropriate enzymes. However, by the third or fourth day, things would change drastically.

After you’ve consumed scrambled eggs and rice for a few days, you’d find your favorite breakfast choice less appealing. You may think it’s because you’re getting tired of your food choice, but actually it’s your pancreas’ way of warning you it’s out of the necessary enzymes. As a result, your scrambled eggs and rice is stored for later digestion and you gain weight.

Rotating your food does take some planning, but the benefits are worth your time. In order to give your pancreas sufficient time to replenish enzymes, you need to give yourself a four-day break from any one food. So, instead of eating the same breakfast every day, you can select four breakfast meals from the menus in Different Bodies, Different Diets and rotate them.

Another way to rotate foods is varying the time you eat them. For example, if you eat scrambled eggs for breakfast on Monday, eggs ideally shouldn’t be eaten until Friday. However, you could eat eggs for lunch or dinner on Wednesday -- which still relieves the pressure on your system without you scrambling for an egg alternative.

Rut eating is a habit most of us share at one time or another. If you carefully watch your diet and plan your meal rotations, you’ll successfully break free of the rut eating habit -- and stop gaining unwanted pounds from undigested food.