The Benefits of a 6 Meal Diet Schedule

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Ladies/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | (0) Comments

Most people are on the standard “3 square meals per day” plan. But research has shown that eating 6 small meals spaced about 2-3 hours apart is much better for dieting and and general health. There are several reasons- When you eat 6 small meals, you never really get ravenously hungry and so you tend to eat less. This is important for portion control. It also has the benefit of allowing your stomach to shrink so you feel full sooner. This won’t happen instantly, but it will happen over time. A third benefit is that your blood sugar tends to stay more constant throughout the day with out huge spikes and valleys and so your metabolism is generally faster and you just feel better. This really works, so give it a try. But, you have to be deliberate in your meal planning- especially if you have a job that doesn’t allow for this easily. So, you might need to take a small cooler with you that has your food so you aren’t tempted to eat out of the candy bar machine! Eating out- especially fast food is a killer. Keep it to no more than once a week- or never. If you have to eat fast food, look for Subway, Chic-fil-a or something in that genre.
Here are some suggestions for what these 6 small meals should look like.

Breakfast- Bowl of instant oatmeal made with lowfat milk. Coffee, tea or other low calorie drink. Alternately, 3 eggs with only 1 yolk and a piece of whole grain toast with fruit jelly like Orange marmalade or apple butter.

Mid-morning- 1/2 whole wheat or plain bagel with natural peanut butter. Coffee, tea or other low calorie drink.

Lunch- Sliced turkey, chicken or even ham on whole grain bread with tomato, lettuce or whatever you like. If you can’t skip the mayo, use the reduced calorie stuff. The zero-calorie mayo tastes so bad I won’t even try to get you to eat it… Add an apple, peach or some other small piece of fruit and water, tea of coffee. You can also add things like baby peeled carrots since they are very low in calories and are great for nutrients.

Mid-afternoon- Another piece of fruit is a good snack along with some crackers or pretzels. There are so many fruits available that you can have a constantly varied selection all week. All the snack stuff comes in the 100 calorie packs now, so they are easy to bring with you- just don’t eat a bunch of them. Only bring as many as you should have that day.

Dinner- Eat a “normal dinner”, but alway start with salad with a low calorie dressing. Most people never realize how many calories are in salad dressing and so they consume a ridiculous amount of calories just in salad dressings. Salad will fill you up some before the main course so you won’t eat as much. Lean meat, steamed vegetables and some sort of carbs like rice or pasta should round out your dinner.

Evening- You don’t have to eat this meal if you don’t want to or aren’t hungry. But instead of eating a bag of chips or cookies while you watch TV, try eating a small amount of meat left over from dinner with some vegetable type snacks like baby carrots, celery or a handful of nuts (almonds, walnuts and pecans are the most beneficial). This will keep you from going to bed hungry, and help you to sleep better- and sleep is really important for dieting and physical training.