Three square meals a day is all you need. Well not if you want to control portions, improve digestion and increase weight loss. Eating smaller meals 5-6 times throughout the day is a far more efficient system of eating and is much better suited to the human digestive system. Waiting until your desire for food is peaking often leads to poor food choices, over-eating and fast eating. Thoroughly chewing your food is essential to digestion and also allows time for the brain to receive signals of fullness from the stomach. When you are “starving” for food, your cravings will tend toward quickly available sources of fat and sugar, rather than allowing you the clarity to choose food wisely based on nutritional value.
Eating every 2-3 hours will maintain healthy blood sugar levels, which in turn keeps your metabolic rate steady, while helping the body to burn more calories throughout the day. This also keeps you from feeling dramatic levels of hunger which in turn allows you to make better choices of food and food quantity. There is significant research to back-up eating smaller meals more often, which shows groups eating 2-3 meals and 4-6 meals with nearly identical calories, fat content, protein and carbohydrate content. The frequent eaters lose more weight through diet and exercise, while also reducing weight gain during sedentary time periods.
