3 normal meals? 5 small meals?

Oncebittentwiceshy38

If your meal frequency is too high, your body will release insulin constantly, sugar is stored, fat is building up. Eventually your overworked pancreas might give up, leaving you with diabetes. When you allow for time inbetween meals, maintaining low levels of insulin allows your body to more easily tap into your stored fat for fuel. A scenario of three meals a day and a mid-afternoon snack which makes you fuller for longer boosts your metabolism.

Keeping everything constant, calories and macro nutrients.

Eating 2x a day will release x amount of glucose and y amount o insulin.

Eating 6x a day will release x amount of glucose and y amount of insulin.

in a 24hr period, it's the same.

As someone with insulin resistance (pre diabetes) I agree with you totally. It's the amount of sugar over all, not how often you eat.

WannaDizzolve

small high protein, low carb noshes all day. Literally every hour or 2. No huge meals. it's how i function, and i'm pretty active. of course, i'm now visiting my mother which makes this form of eating all but impossible.

MoJokes

Eat when you are hungry.

This.

Personally... i just do fistful carbs, protein palm size, lots of veg. done.

bobf279

I'm in the 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks brigade and I am steadily losing weight by making sure I have a calorie deficit most days. Occasionally I only have 2 meals usually weekends with a late but substantial breakfast and decent sized dinner.

charismanoodles

I like 5 small meals because I am at uni all day, and my energy slumps if I don't snack. When I was working a desk job though I was on 3 meals a day. Do what feels right for you.

SammiSpring

It depends only on what you prefer. For some people, more meals take away hunger.

For me, I like 3 filling meals vs. 5-6 small ones. Snacking just makes me more hungry! This way I'm also not thinking of food all day. I eat three times and can get on with my life. Plus, dentists say 3 meals is better, it's how our ancestors and people in thin countries eat (French actually uses the American term 'snacking', because we are the country that invented it. More thin countries are starting to eat between meals and their obesity rates are climbing as a result).

I hear that numerous meals increasing the metabolism is mostly a myth. There is a slight increase, but not big enough to matter or make much of a difference.

So whatever you personally prefer, and whatever keeps you on track, is the best way to go.

Mock_Turtle

meal timing is irrelevant unless you're a mega serious athlete or training for something severe like a marathon.

It's more important for you to hit your daily calorie goals - whether that's in 1 meal, 2 meals, 3 , 6 or 12 snacks ..... do whatever is easiest for you.

mistesh

I was also listening to a radio documentary a few months ago that said that 'grazing' was probably a contributing factor to obesity in the Western world. Even as short a time ago as the 70s we had an average of 4-5 hours between meals and now apparently it's about 2.

Thank you. I have been looking for an opening to reference the following.

"In 2006, 97% of people reported consuming snacks on a regular basis, up from 71% in the 1970′s. The total contribution of the snacks to daily calorie consumption also rose from 18% to 24% during that time. That means the average American now gets about a quarter of their calories from snacks."

http://keepingitrealfood.com/2010/01/23/snacks-now-account-for-a-quarter-of-daily-calories/

"The estimated age-adjusted percentage of overweight U.S. adults between the ages of 20 and 74 increased from about 43 percent in 1960-2 to about 54 percent in 1988-94
The fraction of the population that is obese - that is, with a BMI greater than 30 - increased from about 14 percent in the mid-1970s to about 29 percent in 2000."

http://www.nber.org/digest/apr06/w11584.html

And then there's today of course. And the future.

mistesh

Diabetics and borderline diabetic's pancreas cannot handle the major influx of insulin needed for one large meal. Sugar spikes and they have issues. So, unless you far in one of the 3 numbers above...whatever fits your day is best. Since there are a lot of obese folks on here, who may be borderline and don't know it, it is best to go with more frequency of meals until they out of danger of any unforeseen diabetic problem.

People are somewhat divided on this. Joel Fuhrman, M.D., is an American board-certified family physician who specializes in nutrition-based treatments for obesity and chronic disease. He is also the author of a recent book entitled The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes. Having read it, my impression is that he thinks that for diabetics a high meal frequency is a last resort, as there are various other things you can address first, in particular what is eaten.

conorpatmanCHANGED

i have 3 meals (or 2 on the weekends usually) and a snack but whatever works for you is best