6 small meals a day...

[chubbybunny29]

I have done South Beach in the past, which focuses on making sure that the carbs you eat are better carbs, and avoiding refined sugars. I'm implementing some of those principles with WW.

You may want to check out the South Beach boards here for ideas for recipes with those high quality carbs. A lot of the SB folks do a SB/WW combo to maximize their weight loss and health.

[kaplods]

From what I understand of the research, eating one 2000 calorie meal does burn fewer calories than eating the same 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, because eating and digestion increases metabolism (for about an hour, if I'm remembering correctly), but the difference is so small that it's not going to be noticeable. At most it could yield an extra pound or two per year - not enough to justify eating more frequently unless you prefer it, or are doing so for a reason you do find makes an observable difference.


One thing to remember is that just eating more often can backfire, because many people who switch to more frequent meals, actually end up eating more calories, which of course (at the very least) would negate any advantage that eating more frequently might have provided.

So while it may be technically true that you can burn a few extra calories by breaking up your daily calorie allotment into smaller meals, theres no significant advantage in doing so. It makes more sense to put your energy into changes that will yield more tangible results.

The grazing argument is like may of the other "true myths" of weight loss. By true myths - I mean arguments that while technically (or possibly) true, do not yield significant enough results to justify changeing behavior that you're happy with.

Another of these is the "true myth" that ice water contains negative calories, therefore you should drink water as cold as you can tolerate, and you should drink as much as you possibly can.

It's true that ice water produces a calorie deficit. Unfortunately it's such a minute deficit that you couldn't drink enough to make a noticeable difference on the scale. It would be almost impossible to lose even a pound a year from ice water (especially since some studies have found that eating and drinking cold foods and beverages actually increase hunger).