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| How Many Meals Should You Be Eating? |
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Trina writes, "Some may say 3 meals a day and others may say 6 small meals is the key to weight loss and speeding up your metabolism. But what is the truth?"
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The notion behind eating smaller, more frequent meals is simple: spreading out one's daily calories over six meals stimulates the metabolism, keeping it going at a faster pace and thereby burning more calories.
Some studies have found modest health benefits to eating smaller meals, but often the research involved extremes, like comparing the effects of two or three large daily meals with those of a dozen or more snacks. Six meals, according to some weight-loss books and fad diets, is a more realistic approach.
Interesting results were found in a recent research study done by the British Journal of Nutrition. Groups of overweight men and women were randomly assigned to very strict low-calorie diets and followed for eight weeks. Each subject consumed the same number of calories per day, but one group took in three meals a day and the other six. Both groups lost significant and equivalent amounts of weight. There was no difference between them in fat loss, appetite control or measurements of hormones that signal hunger and satiety. Other studies have had similar results.
So whether you should eat three times a day or six, there's no hard and fast rule. I am a grazer, and I enjoy eating frequent smaller meals. Some of my clients like to eat larger meals. Both approaches can work. In the end, the quality and quantity of your calories is what counts, not how often you dine.
Resource: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985
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Posted on Aug 08, 2011 08:39am.
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