Eat less more often - 6 meals a day?

LEH

Apologies if this is posted elsewhere, but I'm new to this and can't find any other relevant threads on this...

I've heard that one of the best ways to lose weight is to eat six smaller meals a day... how exactly does this work? As in how small are the portions realistically, would a sandwich be too much for one the meals, and how do you fit meat into the smaller meals? Very interested in it but also very confused... please point me in the right direction!

hunnymonster

eating small amount regularly keeps your metabolism working almost all the time which is a better way to use fuel than stoking the fire infrequently. To work out howw to do it, the first thing you need to do is figure out how many calories you need in a day (the nutrition stickies in fitness show this). Reduce this amount by 10-15% if you want to lose weight and divide by 6 to get what you should eat with each meal. Try to include a source of protein with each meal. Your "dinner" will feel very small at first but you'll soon adjust.

rubadub

Good points above. I also found that it will shrink your stomach, it is never overly full so never stretched, this then leads to you being full easier. This then snowballs (for me anyway), I got full on less easier so was able to eat less with ease. Since my meals were never far away I found resisting snacking far easier, I was also less likely to go hungry or get belly rumbling because my last meal was only a while ago.

You really need a digital scales to work out your portion sizes correctly. When you are aware of the calorific content of foods you usually tend to eat better, bread was the first thing cut out for me.

EileenG

The easiest practical way to do this is to split each normal meal into two meals. So if you usually have a bowl of cereal and an apple for breakfast, have the cereal at breakfast and the apple midmorning. If lunch is a sandwich and a latte, drink the latte in the afternoon. If dinner is soup and a meat/veg plate, keep the soup for supper.

In theory, eating smaller more frequent meals keeps your blood glucose level, so you don't have peaks and troughs of energy and exhaustion. You are also supposed to generate more energy from more frequent meals. Personally, I doubt this, as the thermic effect of a big meal is better than a small one, so it all balances out.

However, knowing you have a meal or snack coming up soon often makes it easier to stick to your diet. If you are never starving, you are less likely to binge on chocolate. (Hmm, not sure what it would take to stop me eating chocolate.....)

To get the most of out of lots of small meals, try to make them the best quality possible. Try to put a quality protein, a healthy fat and a green vegetable into each meal.

Piste

Say if you have a stir-fry for dinner make the usual portion and eat half at your normal dinner time and then the other half a few ours later.


If you have a regular sandwich- two slices of brad wih a fillnig, cut in half. Eat half the sandwich at normal lunch time and then half a fw hours later.

LEH

Thanks for the advice guys... makes more sense now in practical terms.

Hopefully soon I'll be posting like everyone else in the food/weight loss forums with some positive results! I like the idea of being able to eat often as it will eliminate the grazing throughout the middle of the day.

One last thing, is there any truth to the idea of not eating after six o'clock, or is that an old wives tale?

EileenG

Old Wives tale. Calories are calories, and extending your night time fast for even longer by not eating for hours before bed totally defeats the point of eating small frequent meals.

However, what a lot of people are guilty of is constant snacking all evening as they sit watching tv. I'm typing this in the sitting room right now so the fridge can't tempt me! Some people find that having a cut-off point makes it easier to avoid this, but make it a reasonable stop time. 6pm is before dinner for most of us.