How often do you eat?

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  • annacole94
    annacole94 Posts: 997 Member
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    3 meals, plus 2-3 snacks. Generally a small breakfast (300 cal or a bit less), mid-morning snack of around 100-200 cal, lunch around 300-400 cal, coffee in the afternoon, early supper at around 400-600(I've got kids, so we get home at 5 and eat as soon as the food is cooked), and then an alcoholic drink in the evening if I've got room, and/or another small bedtime snack.

    I have cut out some snacking - I did it by taking my breakfast to work to eat (delaying it an hour later) and having another coffee or tea at 10 instead of more food. I also try to eat veggies when I get home from work and need to eat NOW.

    You can always do some quick exercise to bump up the daily calories. Run for 10 min. Kettlebells for 10 min. It gets you an extra apple. ;)
  • ItsBetterThisWay
    ItsBetterThisWay Posts: 42 Member
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    A big meal to you is 500 cals? Man that's rough. I work with 2050 cals and I eat when I'm hungry which looks like this: a light meal at 3ish then a 1000+ cal meal in the evening followed by another light meal/snavk in the night.
  • Evamutt
    Evamutt Posts: 2,335 Member
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    everyone is different , experiment to see what works best for you. For a long time, my main meals were in the 400-450 area with several small snacks in between. recently, I have been having my snacks right after I finish eating as a dessert, 20 minutes later I feel so full. so my 2 main meals are close to 1200cal total I never had breakfast before mfp, but I do usually have a smoothie or 1 eggo waffle with PB2 on it (my go to snack) I found when I snacked between meals it made me get more of an appetite. I do usually have an ounce of veggies straws with a glass of tea before bed time if I'm hungry
  • oat_bran
    oat_bran Posts: 370 Member
    edited June 2017
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    slaite1 wrote: »
    I vary greatly depending on the day. If I'm home or idle I tend to graze and not really have a meal. If I'm busy I might have two meals and maybe one snack.

    I hear you in feeling like you're the only one that wants to eat so often. I ALWAYS felt this way in college especially, and around the BF and his friends. Now I realize that it's just that I'm always so aware of food so it's on my mind more. Either I've pre-logged- so I'm already thinking about lunch in a more detailed way than the casual way most people are; or I'm thinking about what to get to fit my calories. The guy in the next cubicle feels a rumble, thinks "I'm hungry" and spends five seconds determining what he wants for lunch....

    Plus, a lot of us are pretty good at creating satiating meals for 300-500 calories, right? Well that can't compete with the 500-1000 calorie fast food or restaurant meals that exist. I realized this with my BF. I thought he was never hungry, ate so little. No, he just ate BIG HEAVY meals that kept him full for hours. My calorie controlled portions could never compete.

    This is so true. I know that the reason I'm so fixated on food is because I constantly plan my meals in my head. I'm doing the TDEE mrthod, so sometimes my plan changes throughout the day, so I constantly have adjust it, log it, delete it, log again. I often cook certain things ahead so I'm pre-weighing things, deviding it into portions etc. I also like to not have exact same meals every day, which makes planning even more complecated! Plus since I'm in a deficit I think it's natural to feel hungry and subconsciously seek food all the time, hence the fixation on it.

    And then yeah, I agree we tend to have much smaller meals - which might the quite satisfying - but they can't hold us for as long as a 1000 meal does.
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
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    On a quiet Iittle exercise day just the standard 3 meals. On an insane walk for 6 hours kind of day it will be every couple of hours. On less insane exercise days it will be somewhere inbetween.
  • fatcity66
    fatcity66 Posts: 1,544 Member
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    I tend to get more hungry the more active I am.
    If I don't work out, I might get a few hunger pangs in between meals, but nothing I can't ignore.
    On a day I work out, though, I can feel famished after more than 4 hours without eating!
    Working out definitely helps me lose weight, but it sucks that it increases my appetite so much.
    I don't know if anyone else has had the same experience...
  • dale050467
    dale050467 Posts: 38 Member
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    3x/day

    7a
    1130a
    5p
  • shadowfax_c11
    shadowfax_c11 Posts: 1,942 Member
    edited June 2017
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    On work days I generally eat 6 times.
    6 am breakfast
    9-10 am mid morning snack- Hard boiled egg
    12-1 Lunch
    3-4pm sack
    4-6pm Dinner
    8-10pm snack

    On off days usually 2-3 lighter meals and a snack or two depending on what my day is going to be.

    My energy needs on work days are significantly higher than on my off days, although off days usually also include some hard physical work.
  • Derf_Smeggle
    Derf_Smeggle Posts: 611 Member
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    We can see that everyone manages quite differently with their scheduled times to eat. I actually changed my diary to six 3 hour blocks of time in a day. I try to eat a little bit in 5 to 6 of those blocks of time. Yesterday was a bit wonky for me with a 3 hour bike ride and 2 hours of Aikido, but my diary is open for viewing.
  • midlomel1971
    midlomel1971 Posts: 1,283 Member
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    breakfast at 6
    small snack of protein at 10
    lunch at noon
    afternoon snack at 3 (carrots and pretzels usually)
    dinner 6:30ish
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,222 Member
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    I eat 4 times a day - breakfast and the other 3 in the second half of the day - lunch, dinner and before bed meal. I never snack.
  • Juggernautpint
    Juggernautpint Posts: 70 Member
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    It is always better to have smaller more frequent meals.

    Insulin spikes inhibit your ability to burn fat whereas if you keep your body in a state of even-flow by smaller more frequent meals, you are actually helping your body metabolize body fat more efficiently.

    7512597.png
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Juggernautpint wrote: »
    It is always better to have smaller more frequent meals.

    Insulin spikes inhibit your ability to burn fat whereas if you keep your body in a state of even-flow by smaller more frequent meals, you are actually helping your body metabolize body fat more efficiently.

    7512597.png

    yah no. Otherwise IF wouldn't work as well as it does for those who choose to do it.
  • okohjacinda
    okohjacinda Posts: 329 Member
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    Everytime I try to eat breakfast I gain weight and seem more hungry than if I just do lunch and dinner and maybe 2 snacks one after lunch and another before bed.

    So I guess I am kind of doing intermittent fasting because I try not to eat until after 12 and have my last snack before midnight. So I give myself a 12 hr window but only really eat 3 or 4 times a day. 2 meals and 2 snacks. Sometimes only 1 snack if I am not that hungry.

    This seems to always work for me when I try to lose weight and am successful. I know we are supposed to eat breakfast and I do like eating breakfast sometimes but when I do...I am snackish the rest of the day. I don't know why. I'm just weird.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Juggernautpint wrote: »
    It is always better to have smaller more frequent meals.

    Insulin spikes inhibit your ability to burn fat whereas if you keep your body in a state of even-flow by smaller more frequent meals, you are actually helping your body metabolize body fat more efficiently.

    7512597.png

    Not me. I do best with three larger meals per day. And there are many people who have great success with things like IF.

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