Popular opinion suggests that if you are seriously looking to lose weight, that
you should consume six meals a day. Why six? What magic number does six represent
that you could not get with say, four or five?
Six meals per day lends itself to eating roughly every 3 waking hours. Most people are up
for approximately 15 hours each day. Eating every three hours would equate to about
six meals each day. Go ahead and figure it out. If you are up at 6:30am and tuck into bed at
10:30pm, then you will have been awake for 16 hours.
If you eat your first meal at 7am then every three hours from that point on, you will
come to six meals at 10pm.
Ok, so you see eating every three hours equates to six meals a day, but why every
three hours? Good question! Let's give you some basic understanding on how
the human body works.
Whenever you consume food, your body reacts in a multitude of ways. Your blood sugar
elevates, hormones are released, etc. We will focus on your blood sugar as that is a major
reason why we want to eat every three hours.
You see, when you eat a balanced meal containing carbohydrates, proteins and fats,
your blood sugar levels elevate. As a result, you then produce a hormone responsible
for transporting that blood sugar to muscles and your liver. This hormone is called
insulin and is the major player in nutrient transport. Some say it is the most
powerful of all hormones when looking to lose fat and gain lean muscle.
If blood sugar drops and stays low for prolonged periods of time, your body equates this
"down time" as a time of famine. Because of this "famine" period, your body will try to
elevate blood sugar by breaking down muscle tissue to use as fuel. This is not a desired
affect as the loss in muscle tissue results in a lowering of resting metabolism.
A favorable way to keep blood sugar and the hormone insulin under control is through
the proper frequency of meals. Meal timing is a very powerful way to raise metabolic
processes favorable to those seeking fat loss.
Let's walk through an example of meal frequency based on the amount of calories
already being consumed.
Let us say we are consuming 1800 calories on a daily basis. Normally we eat three
times per day. So each meal is roughly 600 calories. Now let us take those same calories
and spread them out over six meals per day. We come up with 300 calories per meal.
We are now consuming the same amount of calories over a wider time frame, so our
body is able to manage the processing of those calories more efficiently. Because we are
taking in calories more frequently, but in smaller doses, our body processes these calories
faster and becomes accustomed to receiving these frequent "feedings".
Frequent eating programs your body to immediately process those foods and expects the
next meal to come soon. This has a prominent effect on your resting metabolic rate (RMR).
Simply by increasing frequency, you are able to boost your RMR which has been shown to
be responsible for roughly 60-70% of your daily caloric expenditure.
So remember to plan ahead and get your six meals a day diet into your overall program.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Gelder
you should consume six meals a day. Why six? What magic number does six represent
that you could not get with say, four or five?
Six meals per day lends itself to eating roughly every 3 waking hours. Most people are up
for approximately 15 hours each day. Eating every three hours would equate to about
six meals each day. Go ahead and figure it out. If you are up at 6:30am and tuck into bed at
10:30pm, then you will have been awake for 16 hours.
If you eat your first meal at 7am then every three hours from that point on, you will
come to six meals at 10pm.
Ok, so you see eating every three hours equates to six meals a day, but why every
three hours? Good question! Let's give you some basic understanding on how
the human body works.
Whenever you consume food, your body reacts in a multitude of ways. Your blood sugar
elevates, hormones are released, etc. We will focus on your blood sugar as that is a major
reason why we want to eat every three hours.
You see, when you eat a balanced meal containing carbohydrates, proteins and fats,
your blood sugar levels elevate. As a result, you then produce a hormone responsible
for transporting that blood sugar to muscles and your liver. This hormone is called
insulin and is the major player in nutrient transport. Some say it is the most
powerful of all hormones when looking to lose fat and gain lean muscle.
If blood sugar drops and stays low for prolonged periods of time, your body equates this
"down time" as a time of famine. Because of this "famine" period, your body will try to
elevate blood sugar by breaking down muscle tissue to use as fuel. This is not a desired
affect as the loss in muscle tissue results in a lowering of resting metabolism.
A favorable way to keep blood sugar and the hormone insulin under control is through
the proper frequency of meals. Meal timing is a very powerful way to raise metabolic
processes favorable to those seeking fat loss.
Let's walk through an example of meal frequency based on the amount of calories
already being consumed.
Let us say we are consuming 1800 calories on a daily basis. Normally we eat three
times per day. So each meal is roughly 600 calories. Now let us take those same calories
and spread them out over six meals per day. We come up with 300 calories per meal.
We are now consuming the same amount of calories over a wider time frame, so our
body is able to manage the processing of those calories more efficiently. Because we are
taking in calories more frequently, but in smaller doses, our body processes these calories
faster and becomes accustomed to receiving these frequent "feedings".
Frequent eating programs your body to immediately process those foods and expects the
next meal to come soon. This has a prominent effect on your resting metabolic rate (RMR).
Simply by increasing frequency, you are able to boost your RMR which has been shown to
be responsible for roughly 60-70% of your daily caloric expenditure.
So remember to plan ahead and get your six meals a day diet into your overall program.