6 small meals vs 3 meals a day?

MrsGreenhill1005

Hi,

I hear mixed things about whether to eat 3 meals a day with no snacking or 6 small meals spread out across the day to stop yourself from being hungry and speeding up metabolism.

Does anyone have any advice on which method might be better for weight loss? What are the pros and cons? If I did the 6 small meals a day, I could imagine myself eating larger portion sizes than I should and defeating the object!

Thanks!

SideSteel

The differences in metabolism between the two are negligible.

The benefits of either will boil down to personal preference, gym performance, and adherence to your diet.

bcattoes

Hi,

I hear mixed things about whether to eat 3 meals a day with no snacking or 6 small meals spread out across the day to stop yourself from being hungry and speeding up metabolism.

Does anyone have any advice on which method might be better for weight loss? What are the pros and cons? If I did the 6 small meals a day, I could imagine myself eating larger portion sizes than I should and defeating the object!

Thanks!

The one that keeps you on track works best for weight loss.

Will_Thrust_For_Candy

The differences in metabolism between the two are negligible.

The benefits of either will boil down to personal preference, gym performance, and adherence to your diet.

As usual, SideSteel is 100% right.

Do what works for you and what keeps you in a deficit (providing your goal is weight loss). I have tried many different things....we are always evolving. There is no harm in trying something. If it doesn't work, change it. But it really does all come down to calories in vs calories out. When you eat those calories really makes no difference!

Good luck! :flowerforyou:

capnrus789

Give both scenarios a try for a few weeks and do whatever you're more comfortable with. 5 small meals works best for me.

RunHardBeStrong

The differences in metabolism between the two are negligible.

The benefits of either will boil down to personal preference, gym performance, and adherence to your diet.

Completely agreed. Do what works best for you. It won't make a difference in your metabolism but may in your adherence. For me, I do much better on 2 or 3 meals. When I tried the 6 meal thing I felt like all I was doing was obsessing about food.

valandario

I did a food management course a couple of years ago and this was specifically covered. It is all down to the metabolism. Once you eat your metabolism starts to work burning it. This is why breakfast is so important, it starts your body working, so the earlier in the day the better. Around mid-morning you will have used up the breakfast "fuel" and your metabolism will be starting to slow or stop again, so kick start it with a small snack. Give it a good top up with lunch, again a small snack mid-afternoon and then the evening meal. The secret is to keep your metabolism working for as much of the day as you can without exceeding your daily calories.

So, in short, 3 meals, 2 or 3 snacks. Hope this helps!

nomeejerome

The differences in metabolism between the two are negligible.

The benefits of either will boil down to personal preference, gym performance, and adherence to your diet.

this

Lizzy622

The differences in metabolism between the two are negligible.

The benefits of either will boil down to personal preference, gym performance, and adherence to your diet.

This^^ I eat 3 meals and 1 or 2 snacks depending on how much I have exercised and how hungry I feel.

Mokey41

It makes no difference except what makes you happy. I don't like eating a big meal, I always feel gross afterward so I pretty much graze all day long. Your body doesn't care when or how it gets fed as far as metabolism and use of fuel.

mumblemagic

That depends on your self control. Studies have shown that with "Free Grazing", when people don't eat big meals but snack throughout the day without limiting their calories, people don't feel full and therefore eat more in total than 3 square meals people. However, if you are counting calories and planning your snacking this shouldn't be a problem.

Personally I prefer to have a big meal in the evening, (around 600-1000 calories depending on how much excercise I do), smaller meals for breakfast and lunch (about 300-400 calories each), and about 300 calories in total of snacks eaten in 2 sessions either morning and late afternoon, or early afternoon and late afternoon.

The reasoning is that I find I don't want to eat more than about 300-400 calories in the morning for breakfast, if I eat more than about 300-400 calories for lunch I get sleepy in the afternoon, I like having a big tasty meal in the evening because it feels like I'm not dieting, and I get hungry sometimes mid-morning and always late afternoon.

I would say listen to your body and see what it wants. Allow it to get hungry at times so it knows what it feels like, but don't let it become so hungry that you binge.

P.S. this usually works out at about 4 hours between meals/snacks.

jetlag

Eat when you're hungry. If you're hungry twice a day, then eat twice a day. If you prefer to eat smaller meals more often, then do that. Sometimes I eat once a day, sometimes 3 times, sometimes 4 or 5. I always try to eat below my calorie limit, sometimes I fail. Sometimes I eat much less than my limit, sometimes more.

There is NO evidence to suggest that eating little and often does anything special to your metabolism. There is no evidence that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. There is some evidence to suggest that eating breakfast helps you lose weight but there is also evidence to suggest that fasting for 16 or 24 hours burns more fat.

While I'm not totally sold on the "calorie is a calorie is a calorie" argument (sorry, but a petrie dish is not a human body), my own personal exerience would lead me to believe that if I keep the booze calories low and stay below a fairly arbitrary number of calories a day/week, I will lose weight.

What time of day, or how often, I eat makes NO difference to my weight loss.

SideSteel

I did a food management course a couple of years ago and this was specifically covered. It is all down to the metabolism. Once you eat your metabolism starts to work burning it. This is why breakfast is so important, it starts your body working, so the earlier in the day the better. Around mid-morning you will have used up the breakfast "fuel" and your metabolism will be starting to slow or stop again, so kick start it with a small snack. Give it a good top up with lunch, again a small snack mid-afternoon and then the evening meal. The secret is to keep your metabolism working for as much of the day as you can without exceeding your daily calories.

So, in short, 3 meals, 2 or 3 snacks. Hope this helps!

This is essentially not true. Diet induced thermogenesis is dependent on caloric load and macronutrient content, not frequency.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/meal-frequency-and-energy-balance-research-review.html

MrsGreenhill1005

Thank you all. Thats really helpful.

Escape_Artist

I did a food management course a couple of years ago and this was specifically covered. It is all down to the metabolism. Once you eat your metabolism starts to work burning it. This is why breakfast is so important, it starts your body working, so the earlier in the day the better. Around mid-morning you will have used up the breakfast "fuel" and your metabolism will be starting to slow or stop again, so kick start it with a small snack. Give it a good top up with lunch, again a small snack mid-afternoon and then the evening meal. The secret is to keep your metabolism working for as much of the day as you can without exceeding your daily calories.

So, in short, 3 meals, 2 or 3 snacks. Hope this helps!

This is actually wrong on so many levels. First breakfast is breaking the fast, doesn't matter if it's in the morning of 6-7hrs after waking up. Second your metabolism works accordingly to how much food you intake. 500 calories 3x a day or 250 calories 6 times a day, in the end your metabolism will work exactly the same.

Eating twice a day or 5-6 times a day does squat for your metabolism.

If I were you I'd ask a refund on those huh... Food management classes :laugh:

bcattoes

I did a food management course a couple of years ago and this was specifically covered. It is all down to the metabolism. Once you eat your metabolism starts to work burning it. This is why breakfast is so important, it starts your body working, so the earlier in the day the better. Around mid-morning you will have used up the breakfast "fuel" and your metabolism will be starting to slow or stop again, so kick start it with a small snack. Give it a good top up with lunch, again a small snack mid-afternoon and then the evening meal. The secret is to keep your metabolism working for as much of the day as you can without exceeding your daily calories.

So, in short, 3 meals, 2 or 3 snacks. Hope this helps!

What is the difference in metabolic rate between eating breakfast vs drinking caffeine or exercising in the morning?

megginanderson

I agree, i think you need to find your own rythm when it comes to that. I personally do better with 5 small meals. I did try to change from 5 to 3 larger meals a day and It didnt work for me.
Listen to your body, if its hungry feed it.
The best thing that you can do is just research and read about everything so that you can make the best decision for yourself. What worked best for me, may not be the best fit for you, you know?

jetlag

I did a food management course a couple of years ago and this was specifically covered. It is all down to the metabolism. Once you eat your metabolism starts to work burning it. This is why breakfast is so important, it starts your body working, so the earlier in the day the better. Around mid-morning you will have used up the breakfast "fuel" and your metabolism will be starting to slow or stop again, so kick start it with a small snack. Give it a good top up with lunch, again a small snack mid-afternoon and then the evening meal. The secret is to keep your metabolism working for as much of the day as you can without exceeding your daily calories.

So, in short, 3 meals, 2 or 3 snacks. Hope this helps!

You're talking about the thermogenic affect of food. Of course your "metabolism" slows down; there's no food left to deal with. If you eat all the calories in one go, you will burn just as many calories as if you drip fed yourself all day long. The logic of eating more to then "rev up your metabolism" is a nonsense.

icimani

I don't think there is any one way that works "best", although I'd bet most nutritionists/dieticians would tell you to spread out your calories throughout the day and eat some protein at every feeding.

For me, the problem is using the word "meals". I could easily eat 6 full meals a day and not think twice, but I eat 3 meals and generally 2 snacks a day.

I've found that what works for me is to eat every 4-5 hours. So that means breakfast, lunch, a late afternoon snack (about 200 cals and 8-10 grams of protein), dinner at about 7:30-800, and a snack before I go to bed, usually some form of protein. Depending on how hard I've worked out, sometimes there's a post workout snack that's also about 200 cals and 8-10 gms of protein.

I know a lot of people say it doesn't matter what time of day your eat. or if you eat all your calories in a small window, etc, etc. Some people will have very strong opinions about what works "best". For me, spreading out my eating throughout the day means I'm not really hungry and reaching for the quickest thing to eat, which usually means calorie-dense and not particularly healthy. And it also keeps me mindful which is a huge thing for me.

Some of my schedule is because of my work and workout schedule, but it's also developed over time. For instance, I've found I like eating a late afternoon snack and then a later dinner, and then I'm not hungry before going to bed and looking for some high-calorie snack food.

Do some experimenting and find what works best for you.

DeadliftAddict

I don't agree with this. People including myself are doing intermittent fasting and having now issue with dropping fat on two or three meals per day. She should do which ever will keep her satisfied and getting the results she wants with the least amount of stress possible. That's my take on it, that's my advice. Do whatever the F@#$ you want to do. (Hodgetwins voice)