As in meals per day. I met with a trainer at my gym who set me up with a workout. While he admits to not being a nutritionist, we talked a lot about food and eating. He said he eats 5 or 6 smaller meals a day vs. 3 meals a day. He did not specifically make a recommendation of eating 3 vs. 6 meals a day but was just explaining to me what works for him. There was some explanation as to why he eats that way and from what I gathered was that there is less hunger throughout the day and he mentioned something about the heart-rate that I didn't quite catch or understand.

I decided to give smaller, more frequent meals a day a try. I have to say-it really works well for me. I am much less hungry throughout the day, I don't snack or pick at foods, and I seem to be eating less calories a day.

I was visiting my sister the other day who saw a nutritionist. Her nutritionist said that it is best to eat 3 meals a day and no snacks. She told her that if she is eating enough of, and the right kinds of foods, there is no reason to be hungry or eat snacks throughout the day.

Just wondering what how you all eat throughout the day. Have you tried the smaller 5 or 6 meal a day thing? Do you prefer 3 meals?

I think a lot of this is also personal preference and what works for each of us. For me to stick with 3 meals per day with no snacks will for sure lead to overeating and over-snacking. I just know how I am. Mentally there is too much time between meals and if I get the slightest bit hungry in between I will either wait too long until I'm ravenous and then overeat or stress over not eating anything until my next planned meal in 2 or 3 more hours.

When did eating get so darn complicated, LOL?!!

Jill

Denise-I think you may be right, that it doesn't matter if it is 3 or 6 in terms of calories and what you are eating. Like you mentioned-if you eat an early breakfast and aren't at work you will have a second breakfast a bit later. Or if you are working you eat the amount of food you'd have at two breakfasts into one. So that will keep you more satisfied. Personally I seem to do better eating smaller meals more frequently. What I have to remember at dinner time is that it needs to be a small meal, not a regular sized dinner. My eating also is scheduled around my day. Some days it is just not practical for me to eat 6 meals a day. But I seem to control my hunger so much better with 6 smaller meals. Some of it is mental, and some is physical.

Jill

quote:

Originally posted by Sheri in Reho:
...and being eaten by dinos, sabre-toothed tigers and such.

Yeah... food is more complicated if you are the food.

quote:

Originally posted by GoingSkiing:
For like one million years, eating was complicated by the ever present danger of a lack of food.

...and being eaten by dinos, sabre-toothed tigers and such.

PS...

Some/most mornings I eat a slice of toast and coffee at 8am and then have milk and oatmeal at 10:30am.

Last week, I had to be at the jr high at 10:30am or 11am and ate my breakfast "All at once" at 8am.

I didn't notice any difference what so ever.

But I don't "pick" between meals. I just don't. Never have. Doesn't occur to me to open the pantry and pick at random food thru the day.

I also read in the "End of Overeating" Book that expectations are HUGE. The fact that your trainer told you that you won't be hungry eating this way is a HUGE factor.

quote:

Originally posted by jillybean:
When did eating get so darn complicated, LOL?!!

LOLOL!

It probably always has been.

For like one million years, eating was complicated by the ever present danger of a lack of food.

In the past 2 generations... it is complicated by too much food, and the ability to go to the store and buy an unlimited amount of calories.

Every culture has rituals and "rules" about eating.

In the past 20 or 30 years... we've seen the "rules" change... and it is complicated. My parents and grandparents had different "food rules" than I have. EVERY person they knew and associated with had pretty much the same "rules".

The fact that we are even ASKING and ANSWERING "How many times or meals do you eat a day?" is a measure of how complicated things are. Nobody asked each other that question 50 years ago.

Not saying that we shouldn't ask it... but things ARE complicated right now. We literally don't know how many times a day we should eat. And scientists study the number of times people eat a day. And they come to conclusions about "the best" number of times to eat a day or how many times a person "should" eat a day. How weird is that?

I think that it is mostly cultural.

I've read in "The End of Overeating", until recently, the French didn't snack. It just didn't occur to them as a nation. It was culturally unacceptable to eat between meals. Restaurants closed down in the afternoons between lunch and dinner. It was culturally unacceptable to walk down the street eating. It was culturally unacceptable to eat while working or while in a classroom. And as a population, their weight stayed pretty stable.

Over the past few years... the French have adopted America's "It is ok to eat anytime. It is ok to eat anywhere" mentality. And the French are gaining weight.

Mostly, I don't think that eating 3 meals or 6 meals matters all THAT much. I've done both, and I didn't really notice much difference. As other's have pointed out, my 3 vs. 6 meal preference is mostly based on my schedule.

I ate 3 meals a day and no snacks when I worked in an office but, a) I was sedentary most of the day and b) it was 1984-1990 and in the offices I worked in... it was not acceptable to eat while working. There was no "rule" about not eating while working... we just didn't do it. It never occurred to me that I might need a snack or to bring one from home. No one else stopped work at 3pm for a snack.

I would think that the only down side to the 6 meals a day is that there are "stretch receptors" in our stomachs and we need a certain volume of food to feel "full". If a person is eating very small meals all day... they MIGHT be physically hungry, even after eating... but it probable depends on a gazzilion factors like:

WHAT a person eats for a snack. Some foods are going to leave a person "full" for x hours, and some foods are going to leave a person "hungry" and needing and wanting more food. For example, potato chips would make for a poor snack choice.

A person's schedule and the times of day that they are physically (or culturally) able to get food and eat food. Many jobs... people can't eat at certain times of day, because it simply isn‘t done or food is not available. And on some schedules or locations, food is available all day long.

A person's coworkers... and what THEIR expectations are. Mindless Eating studies show that who we are around and who we eat with is a big factor in when and how much we eat.

Individual physical biology. We all process pain differently and we all probably process or perceive "hunger" differently.

Some of it is mental or emotional and some people have internalized that "Hunger is not an emergency" thing. Others get very anxious when hungry.

Cultural expectations around hunger. In France, they expected to eat lunch and not be hungry until dinner. Thus their expectations were met. I expect to be hungry at 3pm and need a snack... and often my expectations are met.

There must be more variables... but I can't think of them.

When I was working full-time, my day was quite structured. I ate breakfast at work (cereal, yogurt, etc.) around 7:30-8 a.m., ate a mid-morning snack (usually fruit) around 10-10:30 a.m., my brought-from-home lunch around 1 p.m., a mid-afternoon snack around 3:30-4:30 p.m. (a little pb, another piece of fruit, etc.), dinner about 6:45-7 p.m. (due to a long workday) and then a snack around 8 p.m.

Now that I'm retired, things are more loosey goosey. I still have my 3 meals--b'fast about 8-8:30, lunch about 1:00-1:30, dinner about 5:30-6:30 and an after-dinner snack, but I rarely remember to have the mid-am and pm snacks. I eat my fruit on my cereal most mornings and maybe eat another piece later in the day and maybe not.

What I will say about the eating-every-2-or-3-hours concept is that, as has been said, it keeps your blood sugars stable (vs. peaking and dipping) and it keeps you from ever getting super hungry. And since I know that I get in trouble when I get ravenous, I try to keep myself from going there. I fail more now that I'm retired, because I don't have the structure of the office to keep me on schedule.

The stable blood sugars thing was a huge issue for me when I was working full time. I worked a 10 1/2-hour day and had a very busy and stressful job, including a staff to manage. I have MAJOR trouble with carb coma and used to fall asleep at my desk quite regularly around 2-3 pm. With stable blood sugars, that is MUCH less likely to happen.

other than breakfast, even my main meals are pretty small. probably 350 calories.
i am still hungry after breakfast--i think becuase i workout in the morning and most of those calories are already burned. so i do a small snack--usually yogurt--about 90 minutes after breakfast. then another snack right before lunch--usually cheese or some soy sausage or fruit, or some combination thereof.

Ideally 4-5 small meals would work for me but I often end up running on empty in the evening after only 3 meals, or find myself grabbing a coffee "and something" before going home to cook dinner. I need to eat every 3-4 hours.

There was a study done several years ago, by a university. (I think it was The University of Texas-Austin.) They had two groups of people eat the exact same foods. One group ate their food in 3 meals, the others at 5-6 mini-meals.

At the end of the study the group with the mini-meals had lower cholesterol and there were other things along those lines, but at the time I was most concerned about cholesterol levels so that's what I remember. It seems as though the mini-meals concept is healthier, but as others have said, it doesn't always work for my schedule.

Dawn

quote:

Her nutritionist said that it is best to eat 3 meals a day and no snacks.

From the The American Dietetic Association:

"Snack smart. Choose snacks by the calories and nutrients they provide. Include snacks as part of your daily calorie allowance and limit portions to one serving. Plan for nutritious snacks to prevent between-meal hunger. Keep portable, healthy snacks in your desk, backpack or car."

http://www.eatright.org/ada/fi...a_Healthy_Weight.pdf

I do 3 meals plus 1 or 2 snacks per day. I generally have a fruit snack mid morning.
I need to eat every 3-4 hours. The exception for me is in the evening. I can easily eat dinner around 5 and feel fine until breakfast the next morning.

Adding-
The biggest factor for me in terms of weight loss and maintenance is sticking to my plan and not picking up a few pretzels or extra bites of leftovers. Eating more frequently helps me avoid grabbing off plan foods.

I generally do 3 meals and one snack. I eat breakfasat at 7:30, lunch around noon, snack around 4 and dinner at 7 pm. If I wasn't waiting for dh to eat dinner, my natural tendancy would be to skip snack and have dinner at 5 as I go to bed early.

The key thing for me is to not go more than 4 hours without eating because they I tend to get over hungry and eat more than I should.

There's lots and lots in the nutrition literature about eating smaller more frequent meals but schedule wise it doesn't work for me either.

i do 5-6 small meals a day. the only problem is planning. sometimes, i am stuck in court for 6 hours so no way i can continue my usual eating practices. on those days, i feel my blood sugar drop like crazy and i start shaking. not good. but otherwise, if i can plan, it works well for me.

I eat 3 meals per day, and 1 (sometimes 2) snacks. This is mostly due to my schedule. I eat breakfast around 7:30, because of school, and if I can't get lunch until 1 or so, I'll eat a small snack around 11. On days when I can get lunch at 11:30 or noon, I'll eat my snack around 3. These just seem to be the times when I get hungry. I eat dinner around 5:30 most nights.

The biggest hurdle was just getting to the right foods and proportions. My normal day is around 1450 calories, with most of my carby calories at breakfast & lunch. More often than not, I'll eat a few bites of something before I go to bed, just to avoid going to bed really hungry (which then keeps me up and makes me even hungrier the longer I'm still awake.

I think lots of people do the 6 meals a day. I have heard that it helps keep your blood sugar levels on an even keel and avoids extreme highs and lows.
Dena tried that for a while a few years ago and liked it but she can't do that now due to her work schedule. She has no time during the mid morning or mid afternoon for a snack, much less a small meal.
She starts work at 8am and has lunch at either 12 or 1 and then gets off at 5:30. She is with the kids constantly before lunch and after and even has to call for "assistance" and wait for someone to relieve her, just to go to the restroom.
If your lifestyle and work schedule allows it, I think 6 meals a day is a good idea. Of course, they need to be smaller meals than you would eat on the 3 times a day plan