Lose Weight by Eating More Often

Recently, my wife and I were asked who ate more. My wife responded that I ate more. I said to her, “no I don’t”. She said to me, “Yes, you do, you are always hungry.”

I realized that she equated the amount of times I ate in a day as my being always hungry. What she didn’t realize is my eating often is intentional. Eating often can be a key to losing weight and keeping it off, if you do it right.

I eat usually 5 times a day, sometimes more. Some call this type of eating grazing. I have learned that this is an effective way not only to lose weight, but also to maintain your weight.

Why should you eat more often?

There are actually several reasons why eating more than three meals a day is good for you.

First is the fact that, as long as you are not eating too many sugary carbs, it can help stabilize your blood sugar. Your blood sugar levels fluctuate throughout the day. If you eat something with a high sugar content it will spike your sugar levels.

The opposite is true if you go an extended period without eating, your blood sugar level drops.

If you eat something sensible every two or three hours though, your blood sugar levels will stay at a moderate range throughout the day.

That brings me to the second reason I eat more than three times a day, which is more consistent energy. Blood sugar is your immediately available source of energy which the body uses first. If you go several hours between meals or skip meals you may notice a lack of energy, that is because you have a low blood sugar level and have less energy available.

The third reason to eat more than three meals a day is it increases your metabolism. Consuming calories actually burns calories. It takes energy to convert your food into energy. By eating multiple times a day you will actually burn more calories than you would if you only ate a couple times.

On a sidebar, it has also been proven that eating spicy calories burns even more calories than non-spicy food. If your stomach and mouth can handle spicy food then enjoy the extra calorie burn.

The fourth reason to eat more often is because it decreases hunger. One of the biggest issues when it comes to trying to lose weight is hunger. To lose weight you have to cut calories. Cutting calories will make you hungry because you are not eating as much as you are use to eating.

By eating more often you staves off that hunger by eating every couple hours, which keeps your stomach satisfied.

How often should you eat in a day

Cutting calories means smaller meals. When you have three smaller meals than you are use to and have to wait four to six hours until the next meal, about two to three hours in, you’re going to be craving food. By the time you get to the next meal you might be so hungry that you eat a little extra and blow your diet.

It’s better to make each meal a little smaller and have a snack between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner, it doesn’t have to be a full meal, just enough to be satisfied for a couple hours.

This is what I do, I have breakfast, lunch and dinner just like everyone else, but I purposefully have a snack between breakfast and lunch and another between lunch and dinner.

I try to avoid eating after dinner. That is the time you do want to go a little hungry. You don’t need the energy to sleep. Eating before bed is a waste of calories because you are not using calories in your sleep like you do when you are awake.

So eat five meals a day. Then stop eating after dinner. See if that doesn’t help your efforts in losing weight.

How much should you eat per meal?

A sensible calorie deficient diet is the only way anyone really loses weight. No matter what fad diet someone may try, when everything is considered, no matter what you eat or don’t eat, a person loses weight because they ate less calories than their body needed.

My daily calorie needs is around 1900 calories a day. I try to stay under that daily. To give you a sample of how I break up my calories during a day here is the calories for the last three day.

Wednesday

Breakfast 380

Morning snack 279

Lunch 446

Afternoon snack 258

Dinner 266

Thursday

Breakfast 305

Morning snack 96

Lunch 428

Afternoon snack 290

Dinner 420

Friday

Breakfast 240

Morning snack 290

Lunch 377

Afternoon snack 228

Dinner 438

As you can see the meals are very moderate, but sustainable. The snacks are also enough to be filling and hold me over until the next meal.

When I speak of snacks, don’t assume I’m eating donuts and Twinkies. Try to eat healthy snacks, but don’t go overboard with the carrot sticks and rice cakes unless you really like them.

Because I’m on the go I will have things like hard boiled eggs, cheese sticks, cheese or peanut butter crackers as well as protein shakes with 2% milk which I find very filling.

Just learn to spread out the amount you are eating throughout the day so that you can stick with your goals to become the new you.

Have a blessed and wonderful day.