My only two "must" meals are breakfast and dinner. Sometimes I like a lot of grazing, other days I get busy doing things and wait until it's an actual "meal".
In what way do smaller meals more often tend to work better for you? Is it a mental thing? Or a scale thing?
It's sounds like it could be a little stressful for you to force yourself to eat so often. Don't stress On the days that you feel you can space things out evenly, do so. On the days you just want to have three meals, then do that. We already have so many other things to worry about, that as long as you're getting in your calories with the types of foods you want, you can always work on meal timing along the way when you can.
I eat when I want.... usually two larger meal and a few heavier snacks. I don't like to graze b/c it doesn't fill me and I like to feel FULL. I usually don't eat until 1 or 2 pm b/c I'm not hungry until then.
A sample day for me would be rice and shrimp at 2pm, a quesadilla or Lean Cuisine at 6pm, at 10pm a small meal or a few snacks of beef jerky and sunflower seeds, or popcorn. Coffee is thrown in there somewhere. I don't eat a lot of different foods, I tend to stick with what I really enjoy and can plan out.
I always eat breakfast which clocks in around 300 calories (usually a homemade smoothie with protein powder or oatmeal with cottage cheese mixed in... yes, crazy sounding, I know) Then I typically will have a coffee mid-morning, sometimes with 2% milk, sometimes not. I'll eat my planned lunch, neighborhood of 250-350 calories. Snack between 3-4 pm of about 150-200 calories. Dinner, around 6 or 7pm, same calories as lunch. Usually no post-dinner snack, unless I feel like a sugar free popsicle or fudge bar.
I remember when I first started dieting ... and reading that you have to eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism stoked. Fortunately I found out this was not even remotely accurate.
Now I eat big meals and one snack.
I also intermittent fast so I haven't eaten breakfast for about 18 months.
My diet is calorie counting (with cycling, currently going for a weekly average of 1450 a day), with no other set in stone restrictions other than avoiding full sugar soda, trans fats and hydrogenated fats.
I usually only have two meals a day with some snacks. Sometimes a third meal but it'll usually just be a very low calorie salad or bowl of steamed veggies. I usually have a breakfast that has a protein shake or Carnation Instant Breakfast with some fruit or yogurt (sometimes I'll have some eggs instead, or fiber one pancakes with sugar free syrup), then a large late lunch/early dinner that varies greatly. That's not ideal according to some, but it has worked for me in the past, and I need to be able to have something close to a regular meal with my husband (ie - a meal that's more than 250-400 calories). Then I save some calories for a couple pieces of fruit or low calorie snacks in the evening if I get hungry again.
Having more meals than that a day makes me obsess about food, and makes me feel like my life resolves around eating. I don't like it.
I can never be bothered with preparing food, so I eat some fruit for breakfast, lots of green tea and 2 protein shakes throughout the day and then a big dinner, I try and make it low carb but I generally will have whatever I fancy, I lose about 4 pounds a week doing this when I stick to it and it suits me fine!
And i also agree with cortandcooper, anymore than this and I become obsessive about food and when my next meal is coming!
Last edited by Blondie160; 08-04-2011 at 03:38 AM.
I eat about 5 times a day, three meals with a snack between. My breakfast is pretty moderate, just a protein smoothie (with fruit, honey, and milk). Snacks are small like a few baked tortilla chips with salsa. Lunch and dinner are about the same size, I get a protein with veggies, complex carb, fruit, and healthy fats and milk. Im bad about not eating all day then having a large dinner at night. That's bad for my metabolism. Plus if I drink water with each meal and during and after a workout then I can majestic sure I get enough
Week days I usually have 3 meals, one snack. Weekends are more variable. I sometimes skip breakfast on the weekends and end up with 2 meals and no snacks or 2 meals and a zillion snacks. I'm about a unstructured as they come, so you might not want to follow my lead.
I eat three "big" meals a day, 8 a.m., sometimes between noon and 1 p.m., and 5p.m. - 6 p.m. (though 8:30 p.m. last night because I was late getting home from the gym).
I'm not one for little meals and pecking at food all day. I like to be full and I also like to limit my interactions with food. All that snacking and constant eating is a slippery slop to binge town for me.
Ditto, thinking about the fact that I have to eat every 3 hours is exhausting. I find I work better eating 3 satisfying meals a day, with lots of veggies!
I eat three meals and three snacks. I'm eating every few hours, and this always works for me. When I started to see my nutritionist, I thought I would throw up from the sheer amount she wanted me to eat for my meals/snacks. I decided that I would follow her advice on eating six times a day, but I wouldn't eat as much since it made me uncomfortably full.
It depends on the day. I tend to eat when I'm hungry. This typically means 2-3 meals and 2-3 snacks. Some days 2 meals and 2 snacks, some days 3 meals and 1 snack, etc. Some days just 3 meals. I rarely eat 5-6 times per day, mostly because I am just too lazy to spend that much time in the kitchen.
I would like to have more structure in my diet, as I tend to like having a regular "schedule." But again, laziness is pretty much the reason I eat the way I do.
I eat lunch and dinner, and everything else is variable. Sometimes I eat a small breakfast (usually 150-160 calories) but now that I'm unemployed I don't eat breakfast much as I don't need the energy as soon as I wake up and I'd rather save the calories for later. There is a fair bit of snacking, depending on how big lunch and dinner are. Always a snack at the end of the day (either I can make myself a healthy sweet snack (fruit, yogurt, etc) or I'll binge on whatever sweets I can find).
Even though I'm a calorie counter, I use a lot of the principles of intuitiive eating, and I can estimate calories without tracking everything pretty well. I try to listen to my body's cues and not just eat on a schedule, even if that means one day I eat 3 square meals and 2 snacks and the next I'm eating 1000 calories in a few hours.
I keep an army of food items in my kitchen that has 10-200 calories per piece.
So I usually eat two meals (lunch-dinner) with 500 calories and 700 calories of snacks as many times as I want.
My snacks though are of the healthier type. I have quit crisps, soda, cookies and candy and have never looked back.
I keep apples, boiled eggs, bananas, pickles, real joghurt, home made rice pudding, honey, cheese sliced in portions and stuff like that in storage and have so much choice.
On the days that you feel you can space things out evenly, do so. On the days you just want to have three meals, then do that. We already have so many other things to worry about, that as long as you're getting in your calories with the types of foods you want, you can always work on meal timing along the way when you can.
