I believe it is Body for Life that stresses eating small meals/snacks every few hours instead of 3 larger meals a day.
Anyway, I wanted to see what seems to work for others.
I had good luck with the small amounts every 2 hours. I lost 12 pounds eating whatever I wanted, and minimal exercise. However, I gained it all back when I stopped eating that way.
I'm trying it again, but also limiting my calories and walking. Hopefully it will come off and stay off this time.
Body for Life is just one of the many out there that recommends grazing. Two main things is that it fights hunger and supposedly keeps your metabolism in control throughout the day.
It certainly does work, to an extent, in keeping hunger at bay.
I prefer to eat this way, since I'm hungry all the time! Plus, it helps me deal with cravings/not feel deprived. I try to eat 200 cal at breakfast, less than 400 each at lunch and dinner, with 2-3 100 calorie snacks, totaling 12-1400 calories a day.
BUT, if you prefer to eat decent sized meals, this might not be right for you. Whatever you do to lose weight has to be something you can maintain (with slightly higher calories) once you stop losing, otherwise you may gain back some of the weight.
I graze throughout the day and save a couple hundred extra calories (usually totalling 500) for dinner. I like grazing too, I'm hungry all the time. And that way I get to eat a lot more of a variety of things.
I like eating a small breakfast (150-300 cals) and post-breakfast snack (60-150 cals); a medium lunch (200-500); then a big dinner (not necessarily big as in quantity, but calories too); and a small after dinner snack (100-200 cals).
I'm basically the same as Wormwooddoll, except the later I get up, the less likely I am to have a midmorning snack. Lately though, it;s been more like...
small breakfast (200 cals), medium lunch (500 cals), small snack (150 cals), huge dinner (1000 cals), and SOMETIMES small snack (150 cals).
Yeah... I eat about 2000 cals a day though.
I'm hungry all the time too, so that's why the every 2 hours thing works for me. But after I finish my "meal" I am counting down the time to the next one.
What kills me is my DH will do this too, but eat Snickers bars for most of his daytime meals, and he loses weight like crazy. Yep, you read that right. Snickers bars. I hate men sometimes, lol. If I ate 4 Snickers bars a day, I'd be 2x's as big as I am now.
What kills me is my DH will do this too, but eat Snickers bars for most of his daytime meals, and he loses weight like crazy. Yep, you read that right. Snickers bars. I hate men sometimes, lol. If I ate 4 Snickers bars a day, I'd be 2x's as big as I am now.
A few months ago (maybe a few days ago!) I would have read that and said "lucky!" but now it made me nauseous and headachey just thinking about eating 4 Snickers bars a day. How's that for an unexpected NSV? Maybe some day even the thought of 1 or 2 a day will disgust me, lol!
My plan is kinda similar to megwini's. My breakfast, morning snack, afternoon snack, and dessert/evening snack are ~100 cals each, lunch is ~300 cals, and dinner is ~700 cals (for a total of 1400 per day). Maybe I would lose faster if I were to spread my calories out more instead of eating half of them at dinner, but this is what I like to do.
I know what you mean Mayness. I've lost most of my sweet tooth. I haven't touched the ice cream in the freezer for a few weeks. It just pisses me off that I have to eat grilled chicken and rabbit food to lose weight, and DH can eat candy bars and lose more.
On a side note, the idea of spreading out the calories evenly is to keep your metabolism burning at a constant rate, and in theory burn more over the course of the day.
I think it really just comes down to calories in vs. calories out.
I'm a grazer. Between 9 am and 4pm I have to be eating something because I'm usually hungry, but then after 4 I'm kinda like....meh...food. It just depends on *what* I'm eating if I lose weight. I'll have oatmeal/coffee between 7:30 and 9. Then fruit before "lunch" - then some sort of lunch followed by pudding and LOTS of cut vegetables.
But, I know people who have to eat on a more structured schedule (9 am, 1pm, 6pm and THAT'S IT) and that works for them too. I think it just depends on your personal preference.
i love my meals too much to have such small ones. normally i will eat only three larger meals during the day, breakfast being the smallest and dinner being the largest. maybe if i have the calories and had a small breakfast/lunch i will have a midmorning/midafternoon snack, but usually its just three regular meals for me.
Small meals vs. Regular meals
