“Studies show people who eat 4-5 meals or snacks per day are better able to control their appetite and weight.” Eating very little during the day or nothing at all, and then overeating at night is one of the most common eating patterns seen in this country and this behavior is associated with obesity and heart diseases. You may not feel hungry all day and then feel starved during the evening and overeat. The next morning you may not feel hungry because you may still feel full from what you ate the previous night. Overeating at night may become a vicious cycle, resulting in no weight loss or even in weight
gain. Also, not eating all day may turn off the body’s signal of physiological hunger (feeling hungry when not eating for more that 4-5 hours). It is almost impossible to control food portion size at night, when you have not eaten all day and the urge to eat is high. If you don’t eat during the day, you will be less likely to have enough energy for exercise in the evening because you may feel fatigue and tired and less likely to exercise and more likely to overeat.
Eat small frequent meals during the day:
Have three meals and one snack a day within a minimum of 4 hour apart or 5 to 6 small meals/day within 2 to 3 hours apart. Do not stay more than 5 hours without a planned meal or snack. Have half of your calories for the day before the evening (4pm). Keep your calorie goal for the day spread between your 3 or 5 meals a day. Example of a 1,500 Calorie Diet:
3 meals – 1 snack within 3 to 4 hours apart:
9:00am 12:00 3:00pm 7:00pm
breakfast lunch snack dinner
300 cal. 400 cal. 300 cal. 500 cal.
8:00am 12:00 4:00pm 8:00pm
breakfast lunch dinner snack
400cal. 400cal. 400cal. 300cal.
3 meals/day within 5 hours apart:
8:00am 1:00pm 6:00pm
breakfast lunch dinner
400 cal. 600 cal. 500 cal.
5 small meals/day within 3 hours apart:
8:00am 11:00am 2:00pm 5:00pm 8:00pm
Breakfast lunch snack dinner snack
300 cal. 400 cal. 200 cal. 400 cal. 200 cal.
I totally agree with this article! in my personal experience before i got to nutririon class, for me was not part of my daily routing to eat in the morning. like my teacher says i used to eat oxigen and go to work. but in the middle of the day sometimes is to bussy and i am not able to eat my lunch at 12oclock. around 12:30pm i used to start to feel nausea and tired. so i not recomend to nobody to step out of home without to eat something. Do not skip meal.
I agree that breakfast is very important, as well as what one eats for breakfast! i used to skip it, but then couple hours later id crave for anything as long as its food, which made me do some unhealthy choices. The big reason behind it was the fact that breakfast makes me really sleepy, and i thought i found the solution by simply not having any. However,, after a while, i started to gain weight and very quickly, because i’d just munch on anything, and AFTERWORDS have launch and dinner….once i started having breakfast, it got much easier to control m y appetite and not overeat in general…therefore, i learned to wake up early enough to make myself something tasty and healthy for breakfast!
This is very interesting! I never thought that eating 3 small meals and 2 snacks in day with three hours apart can help me lose weight. I usually don’t eat breakfast just a cup of coffee. I would just eat lunch and dinner and always wondered how come I didn’t loose any weight. Now I understand why. I am going to try eating this way and see how it works..
I feel this scheduling for eating is good but challenging. so far I see 2 of the scheduled meal plans i would be interested in. If this can help me from overeating I can try it.
This is very helpful because i`m always at work in the AM and i dont have any time to eat breakfast but now i will try to do everything i cant to try to have it, so i wont miss a meal
I SEE THAT EATING BREAKFAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY, AND THE MOST HELPFUL ONE TO. PROVIDING THE MOST ENERGY WHEN NEEDED. I HAVE LOST 10LBS ALREADY AND IM FEELING GOOD.
Hello! I’m trying to change my eating habit, but sometimes I’m too busy and only can take breakfast and dinner.
I used to weight 130 lbs. Two years ago I started working overnights. I would eat a meal around 3 am and then eat again when I got home at around 9am and right after go to sleep. I followed the rhythm for about a year, do you know how much I weight now? 195 lbs! This is why I strongly believe that skipping meals results in weigh gain. I also learned that the lack of exercise contributes to those extra pounds sticking in!
Dayana Gonzalez’s post was created at 8PM, NOT 1AM. It seems the site’s clock is off by 5 hours.
This is Dayana Gonzalez (formerly Dayana Carralero-Rojas).
It is certainly true that skipping a meal can bring on negative consequences. I used to have an enjoyable breakfast and skip lunch waiting until dinner time to eat again. For me, instead of just wanting my dinner, I would first crave for sweets and would sit on the couch with my wonderful chocolate chip cookies. Not only did I want my sweets, but I also wanted Pringles, which are salty. Overall, I guess for not eating for so long throughout the day, I would crave for junk food. I would feel satisifed then have a lesser portion of my nutritious dinner.
Now I have my three meals per day, and one, maybe two snacks. What is funny is that even though I am eating more, I have managed to maintain my weight, but most importantly the junk food is practically non-existent in my diet. This is great for my overall health present and future since most if not all junk foods are mostly sugars and salts, which both are detrimental for our health and can lead to diseases.
try it nathaniel you’ll find you have more energy cause your fueling your body with what it needs to function.
I gained 40 pounds eating carelessly, I never ate breakfast because I was to busy and on the go for breakfast. Now that I take the time to eat my three meals a day I’ve lost 3 pounds in 2 weeks. I never realized the amount of calories I was taking in untill I started reading labels and learning about what food does for the body and the limits on what we intake.
Hola. Well this answers my problem of why i never eat breakfast but lunch and dinner. I will try and change this continuing cycle, because almost all of the time whenever i come home from a work i feel very hungry and not eating breakfast is bad idea, i will try and change the habit of my eating and see how things turn out.