Why 6 meals are better than 3

Three squares a day. That’s what most of us grew up with and that’s what society tends to be geared toward. Most of us have eating patterns that involve skipping breakfast, eating a big lunch, and rushing home to huge dinner. In between? Snack, snack, snack.

Some people are very in tune with their bodies’ hunger and full signals. They know when they should eat, what their body needs and when they should stop shoveling it in.

I am not one of those people. I totally stink at stopping when I am full and have been a lifetime member of the Clean Plate Club. The Big Fat Overfull Plate. Switching to six mini meals per day really helped me to get my eating under control. Oh, and it stopped me from feeling like a total slug after every meal.

Learning about how to effectively feed your body every few hours can stabilize your blood sugar and keep your metabolism revved up. And that keeps your body at its maximum fat-burning capacity every day. It also eliminates that feeling we get five hours after lunch that we will just DIE if we don’t eat a whole pig RIGHT NOW.

When you will eat these six meals, and what they will consist of, will vary based on your own body AND your schedule. I’ve mentioned before that I have some trouble with getting a mini meal in during the afternoon because eating at your desk is a big “no no” where I work – so sometimes the general “rules” of 6 mini meals need to be tweaked to accommodate those kinds of things. Or sometimes you just have to learn how to hide your food.

For example, most experts on this subject say to eat as soon as you wake up. For me, that’s just not going to happen. My first meal happens about two hours AFTER my coffee, and then I go every couple of hours from there.

So because I am generally less hungry in the morning, constantly hungry in the afternoon, and rarely hungry in the evening, my six meals, during the week, typically look something like this:

9:00 am – Oatmeal, or yogurt mixed with ½ cup of Fiber One cereal
11:00 am – truthfully, this is usually just a banana to hold me over until lunch
12:00 pm – Huge salad with chicken, lettuce, spinach and at least two other vegetables
2:00 pm – Varies, but generally fruit and yogurt
3:30 pm – A sandwich! You can shove lots of good stuff into a low carb, whole grain tortilla.
6:00 pm – Meat, poultry or fish, a whole grain, lots of cooked vegetables

(I’m not going to lie to you – these days, my meals on the weekend are a lot less regimented. A lot. It’s something I’m working on.)

There are a lot of different factors that might make your six meals look different than mine. People who weigh more and people who work out more will probably eat a totally different configuration, but the goal is the same: To consume the same number of calories you would by eating three meals a day, but spreading them out over six.

If you were to Google “Six meals a day” you would find lots of advice on how to “correctly” distribute your meals. Mine may not be exactly correct, but it’s what works for me. The important thing is to ensure you get a good mix of protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats, while also working in at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables.

Yes, six meals a day requires a little planning. But only in the beginning. It starts to get easier as you go along and figure out what YOUR body needs. The increased energy and steady blood sugar will make it all worth it. Really.