Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Small Meals Every Three Hours

Hello, Readers!

Most of us grew up on the concept of consuming three square meals daily, aiming to avoid snacking between meals. However, the grazing technique of eating smaller meals every three to four hours throughout the day has many benefits over the more typical routine. Some benefits include:

- Curbing your appetite by limiting hunger, therefore limiting your binge-eating brought on by bigger cravings

- Supplying you with a readily-available energy source throughout the day

- Minimizing healthy lean tissue (muscle) loss that is sometimes brought on by long periods without adequate caloric intake

- Aiding in the stabilizing of blood sugar

- Likely to reduce cortisol levels

The key is to go to three meals daily without increasing your total intake of calories. If your goal is to reduce your body fat, then you will probably want to decrease your total calories as you switch to this food plan. On the other hand, if you aim to maintain your body weight without reducing body fat, then you should keep your total caloric intake at the same value that it is currently, while splitting up those total calories into more (and smaller) meals.