do you eat a small number of evenly spaced calories throughout the day?

save most of your calories for one meal?

eat more early in the day?

eat more at night?

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in general, i eat most of my calories by noon and then am sooooooo hungry the rest of the day til i break down at 11pm and have a snack.

i am trying to eat smaller meals throughout the day so i can be more balanced with my calories.

how about you?

I balance things, with a slightly larger evening meal. I do NOT like to set myself up by creating a hungry time.

People get hungry at different times of the day and its important to schedule your meals/ food when you are typically hungry.

What works for me is a breakfast at work usually around 9:30am. That is almost always a bowl of oatmeal (1.5 servings, about 225 calories). I eat lunch then about two hours later! That is at 11:30am and I usually get a turkey or lean meat deli sub. Most often this is in the 500 - 700 calorie range. Dinner is also something usually in the 700 calorie range and that is at 6:30 or 7pm.

I'm hungry usually early in the day and I'm fine until I get hungry in the early evening. After I eat at 6:30 I'm fine for the rest of the day.

For me, small meals keep me hungry. I do much better on just 3 meals a day with no snacks. Everyone is different though and you have to experiment with what works for you.

I sometimes eat breakfast, sometimes don't make the time for it. I eat a lunch, a small snack in the afternoon and then a larger meal for dinner that keeps me until the next morning.

Meant to say: that I agree with Matt about scheduling your meals around your hungry times. I'm generally not hungry in the morning which is why I don't always eat breakfast. I start to get hungry in the late morning or early afternoon and if I don't have a fairly significant dinner I will be hungry in the evening.

9am oatmeal and fruit
1 pm lunch - salad, 1/2 turkey sandwich
3pmish - snack of yogurt and sometimes fruit
7p dinner - in the 500cal range and mostly veggies so it is a LOT of food
if I have calories left to spend, I'll have popcorn or some almond butter and an apple for desert around 9pm

I am very flexible about when I eat with only a couple areas of guidance..

- I feel better if I put something, even small, in my tummy within the 1st hour I am awake.
- I feel better and my tummy is WAY flatter if I do not eat more than 1/4 - 1/3 of my calories after 6pm and try not to eat anything after 9pm
- Eat enough protein, spaced somewhat evenly keeps me energized and not so snacky

I eat when I'm hungry, that's all there is to it.

If I'm starving in the morning I eat a big breakfast. If I'm not hungry at lunch I grab some string cheese and call it good until dinner. Etc. Some days I'm not hungry at all until 7pm so I grab a couple small snacks during the day and save my calories for a big dinner. Might not be the best way to do things but it works for me . I refuse to starve and I refuse to force myself to eat something if I don't want to!

I always eat breakfast.
I usually eat lunch.
I always eat dinner but try to make it lighter than lunch.
I always build about 150 cals into the evening for 1 of my 2 favourite snacks: either 100g set plain yogurt sprinkled with 10g flaxseed/ground nuts mix, 1tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp cocoa powder; or coffee made with a cup of lactofree longlife.
I sometimes skip the snack but always make sure I've got the calories and the fixings.

I usually distribute my calories like this for weekdays:

Breakfast (7:30-8:30am): 200-250 cal
Lunch (11:30-12:00pm): 400-700 cal
Snack (optional): 100-200 cal
Dinner (6:00-7:00): 400- 700 cal

During the weekends I usually skip breakfast and sleep in.

I eat when I feel that I am hungry. Typically, my calories are light in the morning, and more in the evening. My lunch calories are more then breakfast, but less then dinner. My dinner usually has the most calories from my day. I don't really eat snack in between each meal.

It depends on the day I have. If I'm up at 6am, I have a smaller breakfast (300 cals max). Then I start eating lunch when I get home around 11:30- I might have a piece of fruit then, then have a salad at 12:15 and some shrimp and sweet potatoes closer to one. Snack around fourish, dinner between 7 and 7:30. I try to eat on the lower end of my points range if I know I'm going to be up late so I can have a snack too.

What works for you totally depends on how your body functions. But I thought I'd share mine since it seems different than what others have already said.

I always eat a large breakfast that consists of a lot of protein, a little fruit, and maybe a grain carb - steel cut oats, sprouted grain English muffin, sprouted grain cinnamon toast. I eat between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. This meal is about 600/700.

Lunch is a medium-sized meal of protein, vegetables, and fruit. This meal is about 500/600 calories, eaten at around 1 p.m.

Dinner is small, about 300/400 calories, and consists of a protein and a vegetable. I eat this meal at about 6 p.m. I'm not very hungry in the evening, and I figure I don't need energy to sleep, so why would I eat a large meal?

At my best, I eat several meals of equal caloric value throughout the day ending with an early dinner.

Another method I like is front loading my calories. My problem with this is that I am generally fine during the day and do not feel the hunger necessary for front loading. Afternoons are my problem and if I have front loaded my calories I run the risk of over indulging in the afternoon. So then for fear of that I end up backloading, which is bad.

Therefore, the best thing for my own life is to eat several meals of equal caloric value.

I'm less hungry in the morning, more in the late afternoon/early evening.

Breakfast is usually a fiber bar (120-140 calories) around 9 am, give or take.

Small snack around 11:30. Piece of fruit, yogurt, about 100-110 calories.

Lunch at 1:30. Try to keep it under 300 calories.

Snack at 4. A little more than more snack, usually around 175 calories. Cheese stick and popcorn, cheese stick and fruit.

Dinner is at 6 and I'll have about 500 calories. Then, I'll have a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich for 140 before 7, and then I'm done for the night.

I eat around 300 calories for each meal (breakfast includes my morning coffee) and the rest is snacks - mostly evening snacks, because that's when I'm most likely to be hungry. I've found that if I eat those calories earlier in the day, I still get hungry in the evening and then I over eat - or I wake up hungry in the middle of the night.