Snacks!! Running out of ideas!!!

I politely call BS ...meal timing has nothing to do with metabolism ..you can eat one meal, six meals, 24 meals spaced out at one hour intervals, or four meals, and the impact on metabolism is zero....

if you at 1200 calories in six meals, or 1200 calories in one meal it is the same metabolic benefit...

Blood sugar levels would remain more stable by consuming many small meals versus one giant meal. Stabilizing sugar helps stabilize mood and prevents hunger. Even if it does not have a vast metabolic benefit, a more steady consumption of food every few hours has other benefits. Also, for certain vitamins and minerals, your body can only absorb so much at a time...so a single giant meal could be providing nutrition that would end up going to waste.

actually no ...here is a study from www.leangains.com

"The New Study: Greater Accuracy


The new study seeks to improve on the lacking methodology used in past studies. From the paper:

In contrast to previous research, this study used frequent blood sampling to track glucose and insulin concentrations to three and six subsequent nutrient ingestions.

OK, so let's look at how the study was conducted, what the results showed, and what we can take away from it all.


Method


The participants arrived to the laboratory fasted, after which baseline blood samples were taken. On three separate occasion, each participant was then fed the following 1500-kcal diets:

6 CHO: 65% carbs, 15% protein, 20% fat, split 250 kcal x 6.
3 CHO: 65% carbs, 15% protein, 20% fat, split 500 kcal x 3.
6 PRO: 35% carbs, 45% protein, 20% fat, split 250 kcal x 6.

Meals were taken in the form of liquids; carbs in the form of sucrose and corn syrup, protein in the form of soy protein. Fat came with the protein supplement. Certainly not "ideal" but liquid meals are standard in these types of experiments.

Meals were eaten every second hour starting at 7 A.M. for the 6-meal groups (6 CHO and 6 PRO) and every fourth hour starting at 7 A.M. for the 3-meal experiment (3 CHO). Blood samples were drawn every 15th minute during the study period (7 A.M. - 7 P.M). The results were added together and values for BG and insulin were then calculated to establish averages for each diet.


Results


Baseline (fasted) glucose and insulin values were similar across the three study days. Let's look at the average BG values for each diet-experiment.


6 CHO: 710.0 +-251.0 mmol/L*min
3 CHO: 522.7 +-99.3 mmol/L*min
6 PRO: 442 +- 121.0 mmol/L*min

The 6 CHO-experiment exhibited significantly higher BG values than the other groups. Despite identical carb and calorie-intakes, those who ate 6 meals had 30% higher blood sugar values than those who ate 3 meals. That's a rather striking difference considering the energy- and nutrient-matched condition.

The difference between 6 CHO compared to the high-protein experiment (6 PRO) was even more pronounced (60% higher), but this is not so strange considering the effect of protein on BG.

Insulin values were not significantly different between the CHO-groups and the PRO-group had the lowest values; again, this is not unexpected given that carbs are more insulinogenic than protein."

People who ate six meals a day had 30% HIGHER blood sugar values then those who ate 3 meals....