Why To Eat So Many Times

You have heard us all say that you should be eating 5-6 meals a day, about every 2 ½ - 3 hours. You understand eating 3 meals a day, especially when your stomach starts to growl. But you may still be asking why 5-6 meals.

Go back to when we talked about metabolism. That is our calorie burning machine. Breakfast jump starts it. So if you wait till lunch to eat again, which is probably 4-5 hours later you could slow or turn off the machine. The idea is to keep your metabolism turned on high the entire day so you can maximize the amount of calories you burn throughout the day. The way to be sure that your metabolism is on is to eat about every three hours. When you have a combination of foods like protein, starchy carbs and fibrous carbs your body breaks them down at different rates. So for an example your body started to break down that broccoli and baked potato you had the other day. Then it started in on the steak. Each bit will give you energy. With that energy we are able to work, play, think and workout. Typically you get enough energy for about three hours (starting to see the pattern?). Then you may start to get hungry again. When your body says it is hungry, it’s really saying you need energy if you want to continue with your day productively.

Bonus calorie burner: If you only eat three meals a day your body only needs to break down the food you ate three times. If you eat 5-6 times your body needs to break down that food 5-6 times a day. Every time your body has to go through this process it burns calories. I know when you hear “eat 5-6 meals a day”, you think you will be eating all day, so how could you possibly be losing any weight. But with this little plan you are actually maximizing your ability to burn calories.