It's OK, now EAT!

When we were growing up, we were taught to eat three well-balanced meals a day. If you were like me, it went something like this:

Breakfast: a bowl of cereal

Lunch: PB&J, apple, and milk from the cafeteria

Dinner: the meal Mom made plus another bowl of cereal, plus some toast with butter and sugar, plus some graham crackers, plus a Jello-Pop (remember those?), and usually I just kept on going with simple carbohydrates until I fell into bed.

It has now been found that it is better to eat 5-6 meals a day. What?!? You say, I’m trying to lose this weight for crying in the night and now you are telling me eat more?

Yes.

From Personal Training pics

The trick is eating 5-6 small meals a day. It is not a Thanksgiving feast every meal, mind you, think SMALL. Eating frequently will keep your blood sugar regulated and not allow you to get crazy hungry to the point where you’d eat your own hand if nothing else it is offered ASAP! You keep that blood sugar even and get off the binge, starve, binge, starve, pattern which has done none of us any favors.

Eating 5-6 meals a day allows your energy levels to stay up so you can get through that next meeting, the next feeding, the next cleaning of that gnarly bathroom, the next drop off at soccer, etc.

Eating 5-6 meals a day will keep that metabolism (your calorie burner) revved up and working all day long. This equals more calories burned! When you skip a meal or snack, you send your body back to those stone ages and your body thinks, “Oh! Oh! Oh! I remember this! Turn on starvation mode!”. Your body proceeds to hang onto every last calorie, effectively shutting down your metabolism. When I hear someone proudly announce that they haven’t eaten all day in an effort to lose weight, I just shake my head. They just effectively turned off the calorie burner that day.

Let’s M.C. Hammer this thing and break it down with some examples:

Five meals for the 1,400 calorie gal who is exercising and trying to lose weight:

Breakfast: 300

Mid-Morning Snack: 250

Lunch: 300

Mid-Afternoon Snack: 250

Dinner: 300

Five meals for the 1,200 calorie gal who is not exercising and trying to lose weight:

Breakfast: 300

Mid-Morning Snack: 150

Lunch: 300

Mid-Afternoon Snack: 150

Dinner: 300

Five meals for the 1,900 calorie gal who is exercising and NOT trying to lose weight:

Breakfast: 400

Mid-Morning Snack: 350

Lunch: 400

Mid-Afternoon Snack: 350

Dinner: 400

Of course, this is not gospel. You can play with the numbers; tweak them here and there for your own intents and purposes.

The point here is clear, friends: EAT 5-6 MEALS A DAY.