Is it better to eat 6 small meals or three normal sized meals throughout the day? Why?
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M$8 Answers
For anyone who finds it difficult to give up their favorite foods a keen method of putting your passions to work for you is to change from "x" number of meals per day at your usual quantities to eating half as much (of the same foods) at each sitting but doing that twice as often.
This will result in you loosing weight. It's like magic but it's actually just physiology. We burn calories by eating and digesting food, the trick is to break down how much the body has to work on at each sitting.
So if I normally eat a steak, mashed potato, peas and a large drink I should eat half that steak, half the potato and as many fewer peas - even half the drink (drinking with a meal interferes with digestion anyway but that's a different subject) then eat the other half at least 2 hours later.
If we wait too long between meals (the feast and famine routine) our bodies go into starvation mode and store more fat. If I wait too long, I get "hunger headaches" that risk becoming migraines. Not fun. Like only drinking water once a day. Our bodies are machines, without proper maintenance we risk damaging it unnecessarily.
If we eat fake sugars our bodies still react to the stimulation as sugar but without having anything to break down there is nothing gained by it. Depriving our bodies nutrition is rarely the answer but since each person is different, you should always consult a dietician first and let your Doctor know what you are up to.
If you can't brush and floss after every meal, have some toothpicks on hand. Get out the visible things, stimulate the gum line and swish away any residue. The extra stimulation of the saliva glands (without adding more food/soda/coffee/tea/milk to the mix) helps tremendously to prevent problems in the future.
So to be more direct, it's better to eat 6 half sized meals if you're trying to lose weight. It's better to eat regular amounts at regular intervals if you're maintaining. Eat large breakfasts and small, easy to digest dinners for a less troubled nights sleep and waking up more refreshed. Avoid eating only one meal a day unless you're trying to store fat and play jungle gym with your insulin levels.
Other tips? Milk is for cows, as adults there are other methods to gain the perceived benefits that milk provides. Ask a dietician for some examples. Whether or not you drink milk, you should have your Vitamin D levels checked every now and then.
Giving up anything with caffeine, tannin (teas), alcohol (even wine) will also improve your health. If you feel that these substances give you specific benefits that outweigh the damage, consider finding another (healthier) source for those benefits. I could smoke to improve my short term memory but the lung cancer isn't a fair trade for that one benefit in my experience.
Don't take your health for granted either. Everyone's body is different but general guidelines (such as this answer) are a good place to start. Whenever considering any changes to your health, consult your Doctor and get regular checkups. The ability to look in the mirror and assess your health is about as accurate as looking at a side of beef and determining it's fit for human consumption. (Although don't tell the Government that, that's actually how they test for Grade A beef if I recall.)
When in doubt, eat the best food available to your region. So it follows that as you travel or the seasons change, what is "best" will necessarily be different also. Do your best, enjoy variety, don't torture yourself. Bon appetit!
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M$There is currently a heated debate going on in the medical community about whether or not there really is an advantage to eating 6 times a day. While many argue that eating smaller meals more frequently sends signals to your body that you do not need to store fat and thus may increase your metabolism, the opposition argues that 3 meals a day is enough of a frequency to accomplish this.
What IS clear is that there is a lack of sufficient studies showing that 6 meals a day do anything to increase metabolism.
As far as your mood goes, it tends to be affected more by WHAT you eat than how often you eat. If you eat lots of snack foods with empty calories, you'll typically feel fatigued throughout the day. If you eat food with lots of sugar, you'll be setting yourself up for a sugar crash, which can make anyone irritable.
With regards to blood sugar, it will not greatly vary based on frequency of meals unless you have been diagnosed with hypoglycemia. In that case, your blood sugar tends to be low and it would be to your benefit to eat meals more frequently to avoid medical complications.
I am a med student
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Six full meals wouldn't be good but there is evidence that eating half as much twice as often results in weight loss. I'm living proof of it, so are others. See link for more input on the method:
http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100261977
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-quote-
So what does the world's oldest man eat? The answer is not much, at least not too much.
Walter Breuning, who turned 113 on Monday, eats just two meals a day and has done so for the past 35 years.
"I think you should push back from the table when you're still hungry," Breuning said.
At 5 foot 8, ("I shrunk a little," he admitted) and 125 pounds, Breuning limits himself to a big breakfast and lunch every day and no supper.
"I have weighed the same for about 35 years," Breuning said. "Well, that's the way it should be."
-end of quote-
I calculate his BMI to be 19.
Besides being blessed with good genes, I attribute his longevity to his eating frequency of two meals a day and maintaining his weight at a healthy level without variation over the years. By eating two meals a day, his bloodstream would be clear of artery clogging lipids for most of the day, as they tend to rise after meals. The sugar levels would also be lower, reducing stress on the pancreas. There is even some evidence that eating every other day, otherwise known as intermittent fasting has beneficial effects similar to calorie restriction Humans may have evolved under such conditions, as only in recent history has food been so readily available 24 hours a day. Think of your blood stream like an actual stream you see in the wild. Healthy streams run clear most of the time (except after storms). They get choked by algae and weeds when subjected to constant fertilizer (plant food) runoff.
duenhsiyen
I just asked the additional related question "What are the secrets to longevity":
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/what-are-the-secrets-to-longevity
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M$I suffer with reactive hypoglycemia so as well as not eating refined carbs, dried fruit or sugar of any kind, I find that currently I have to eat 6 times a day (every 3 hours - last meal being 30 mins prior to going to bed).
I have known people who have told me (so I only have their word for it) that they always only eat once a day and they are fine with that, but it is not generally recommended.
Some people swear by fasting on a regular basis - but if you want to keep your blood sugar level and your metabolism strong as it can be - regular meals are what is generally recommended.
What does tend to happen when people skip meals is that they then overcompensate and eat too much the next meal or crave high carb foods and eat them when if they had eaten more regularly and kept their blood sugar at a more even level, they might have been able to eat a more nutritious meal.
I recently changed over to a raw food diet (vegan), and I am loving how it is making me feel now - but in the beginning when I was transitioning to raw my body seemed to be expelling a lot of toxins and I wasn't feeling that great. I am glad I perservered now though. Hoping to get more energy and lose more weight as time goes by too.
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M$Read More Health Related Articles;
http://www.harneedi.com/index.php/articles/6-healthcare-articles
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M$
I don't think there really is a "right" answer to this question. For people who have a hard time controlling portion sizes, eating 6 small meals a day presents extra opportunities to err and eat extra, unintended calories.
Dr. Fuhrman, author of "Eat to Live" and founder of the ANDI index*, bases his nutrition theories on a huge nutritional study called The China Study (which was the subject of another book by a Dr. Campbell - The China Study is a great read). He theorizes that it's best to eat only 3 meals a day, to eat very few calories - preferably at or below your basal metabolic rate - to increase longevity.
Then you read something else, like "UltraMetabolism" or any of the other Ultra books by Dr. Mark Hyman and he theorizes that it's best to fuel the body's machine more frequently, but with three meals and a couple of snack that are each nutritionally balanced and calorie controlled. Or my mom's favorite, "The Flat Belly Diet", advocates eating exactly 4 four-hundred calorie meals per day, which each contain one MUFA (mono-unsaturated fatty acid) and include no sugar or processed foods.
There are several facts that nearly all of the most respected nutrition gurus of our day agree on (including Dr. Fuhrman and Dr. Hyman):
1) Maximize fruit and vegetable intake, choosing from a variety of colors and preferably choosing higher fiber fruits over higher sugar fruits (i.e., choosing berries and stone fruits over grapes and melons more of the time)
2) Avoid all processed foods. If it has a label, you probably shouldn't eat it, particularly if your grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food.
3) Eat only whole grains - meaning hulled barley, quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat grouts - the less processed, the better.
4) Avoid sugar and anything containing sugar or sugar's relatives and friends (high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, agave nectar, molasses, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, etc...) and, even worse, artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, etc...)
5) Choose organics, particularly for meats and a certain selection of fruits and vegetables identified as being the most laden with pesticide residues.
6) Choose local when possible, as local foods have spend less time picked and, therefore, have maintained higher amounts of phytochemicals
7) Exercise
There are plenty of other opinions that they disagree on - how much and what kinds of fats should people eat, how often should people eat, should people eat ANY meat or all be vegans, how evil exactly are dairy and gluten containing foods, and many other topics.
Thus, in my opinion, there isn't a "right" answer to your question available at this time. I personally prefer the 3 meals + 1-2 snacks approach. Basically, I eat when I'm hungry and because of how I design my meals and when I workout, I can usually predict when I will be hungry. I try to follow the 7 rules above nearly all of the time.
* The ANDI is used to indicate the relative nutritient content per calorie of foods and is used throughout Whole Foods stores to guide people to more nutritious food choices
@ariashley - an answer worthy of it's own post.
Another reason to buy locally is captured under the idea that certain foods can help us build up our immunities to local pollutants or other health problems. A case in point is maize grinding. I dimly recall the discovery that the stones used in the process of grinding the grain actually contributed needed minerals to the diet. Interesting.
This meal scheme might be helpful to keep the appetite under control, since you would not need any in between meals snacks.
One big meal a day would be quite a mistake, it's not enough for a healthy adult plus it wouldn't help you loose any weight either because your body will think that it has to hold on to fat deposits.
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M$No sites just knowledge from reading and living, and trying to be healthy
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