5-6 Small Meals vs. 3 Meals

natyasa
natyasa Posts: 22 Member
edited September 20 in Food and Nutrition
This may be a dumb question and sorry if it's been asked here before....

Is there a difference in weight loss if we still eat the same calories per day, but spread them out throughout the day, instead of eating them in 400-500 calorie bulks per meal?

I just feel less inclined to snack if say, i have half my breakfast at 7am, eat the rest around 10am, have half a sandwich at noon, the other half around 3pm, a light dinner around 6pm. I usually don't eat anything after 6pm, and if i get hungry, it's fruit of some sort.

What do you think?

Replies

  • parrotlover
    parrotlover Posts: 143 Member
    Like you said I think it helps reduce the chances of snacking or eating things your don't want to because you aren't starving!
  • miasuperstar
    miasuperstar Posts: 112
    having several small meals a day is a very good way to not let yourself get hungry. .its often recommended over 3 big meals but i don't know what it does to the metabolism, i just know it helps me a lot also
  • Shannon023
    Shannon023 Posts: 14,529 Member
    Eating every few hours keeps your metabolism burning. :smile: I eat small amounts every few hours too.
  • Lose26LbsByXgiving
    Lose26LbsByXgiving Posts: 82
    i'm not an expert. My input is...
    5-6 meals will keep your metabolism high and also keep the insulin stable.
    Also less chance to over eat because you never go real hungry.

    Eat protein will keep you full and at the same time burn more calorie since it takes 30% calorie to digest meat.
    i tried to eat 6 meals a day but it's incovenient during the weekdays. now i just make sure i eat at least every 4 hours. on the days i stay home 5-6 meals,.. 2,3 oz of meat each time.



    ______
    i will lose additional 22 lbs by xgiving (10 weeks).
  • igmom
    igmom Posts: 90
    I absolutely agree with everything already said here. I follow the "several small meals" plan during the week, but stray back to the traditional three larger meals on the weekend. That works very well for me.
  • msarro
    msarro Posts: 2,748 Member
    5-6 meals will keep your metabolism high and also keep the insulin stable.

    Very important point here. The less often you eat, the more you will most likely eat at a single time. The more you eat at a time, the more your blood sugar will spike. If your blood sugar starts to spike, your body releases insulin. Insulin takes the excess blood sugar and stores it directly as body fat so that you don't go into a diabetic coma and die. For us, most importantly it means that you are less likely to store excess body fat if you eat frequent small meals.
  • havingitall
    havingitall Posts: 3,728 Member
    My nutritionist told me to eat 5 - 6 times a day. She even recommended an evening snack of 100 -200 calories.

    I find that when I just do the 3 a day I am hungry at meal times and don't make the best of choices.
  • amicklin
    amicklin Posts: 452
    I am hypoglycemic, so knew I should be working with 5-6 small meals a day but never really stuck to it. Once I really started to be consistent with it, my blood sugar issues have really decreased as well as my weight.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories