Weight-Loss 5-6 small meals..
- Thread starter Olgie
- Start date
Weight-Loss
bgdave4
New member
Small meals means you take you daily caloric target and cut that up into 6 meals instead of 3. A "meal" for me can be something as simple as a bananna and some rice cakes. The point is to eat enough to last you about 3 hours before you need more food. At least, that's what I've read and tried to follow.
Hi Olgie,
Eating 5-6 small meals a day is a very sound and potentially successful strategy for healthy weight loss.
Your body handles smaller amounts of food better than big meals and is more likely to use the energy contained in the food, rather than store it as fat.
Also, eating small amounts every 3 hours keeps your metabolism fired up and helps prevent your body slipping from fat burning to fat storing mode during long gaps between meals.
You also burn energy when you eat - the thermic effect of feeding (TEF) - so you'll burn a percentage of the calories in each meal simply by eating, digesting, assimilating...
Certain foods require more energy to digest, protein for instance than others -say carbs, which are easy to breakdown. As such, try to ensure you include some protein in every meal.
Regular meals also help to balance your blood sugar levels and help to prevent cravings and overeating.
As the others have said, take your daily calorie allowance and divide by 5 or
6. For example, 1,500 calories a day equals 5 x 300 calorie meals. However, each meal doesn't have to be exactly the same number of calories.
I would suggest, using the same 1,500 cals example, breakfast, lunch and dinner at say 400 calories each, with a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack of 150 calories.
This may work better for you simply because you're likely to have more time to sit down and eat at regular mealtimes than during a morning or afternoon break.
If you can eat 5 or 6 similar size meals, then great, but don't worry too much if you can't. A banana and a low fat, sugar free yoghurt as a mid-morning snack is fine.
Hope this helps,
Kind regards,
Marcus
Eating 5-6 small meals a day is a very sound and potentially successful strategy for healthy weight loss.
Your body handles smaller amounts of food better than big meals and is more likely to use the energy contained in the food, rather than store it as fat.
Also, eating small amounts every 3 hours keeps your metabolism fired up and helps prevent your body slipping from fat burning to fat storing mode during long gaps between meals.
You also burn energy when you eat - the thermic effect of feeding (TEF) - so you'll burn a percentage of the calories in each meal simply by eating, digesting, assimilating...
Certain foods require more energy to digest, protein for instance than others -say carbs, which are easy to breakdown. As such, try to ensure you include some protein in every meal.
Regular meals also help to balance your blood sugar levels and help to prevent cravings and overeating.
As the others have said, take your daily calorie allowance and divide by 5 or
6. For example, 1,500 calories a day equals 5 x 300 calorie meals. However, each meal doesn't have to be exactly the same number of calories.
I would suggest, using the same 1,500 cals example, breakfast, lunch and dinner at say 400 calories each, with a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack of 150 calories.
This may work better for you simply because you're likely to have more time to sit down and eat at regular mealtimes than during a morning or afternoon break.
If you can eat 5 or 6 similar size meals, then great, but don't worry too much if you can't. A banana and a low fat, sugar free yoghurt as a mid-morning snack is fine.
Hope this helps,
Kind regards,
Marcus
I have recently researched and written a small article on a negative calorie diet where you can burn calories by eating foods that use more calories to process than they actually provide
Quite a good topic to look into!
Hi, I have a question...
I have been doing the 5-6 meals a day plan for some months now and only need to lose the last 6 pounds and would like to know how close I can get to my calorie target per meal of 300? What I mean is, I can never eat dead on 300 and never dare to exceed that amount, the meals I eat go somewhere around 260-290 calories at the most.
So how close should I at least get to 300?
Thanks.
I have been doing the 5-6 meals a day plan for some months now and only need to lose the last 6 pounds and would like to know how close I can get to my calorie target per meal of 300? What I mean is, I can never eat dead on 300 and never dare to exceed that amount, the meals I eat go somewhere around 260-290 calories at the most.
So how close should I at least get to 300?
Thanks.
ToothlessFerret
New member
That is really up to you! You are the person in control of your diet, nobody else! Don't take numbers too seriously - is your level of activity exactly the same each day? Do you sleep exactly the same time every night? If you want to maintain the weightloss, then you need to give yourself a little flexability. You should aim to lose around 2 pounds each week. Much more than this on a regular basis, and you might be cutting too hard. Cut too hard and you lose as much weight from your non-fat mass as you lose from the fat.
Hi, thanks for the advice, I go to bed the same time every night but my activity level varies from day to day because I never plan each out.
I used to lose weight really fast but it's now slowed down but then I guess it would being that I'm nearing my weight target.
I used to lose weight really fast but it's now slowed down but then I guess it would being that I'm nearing my weight target.