Hi,
More questions re 5 plus meals. Apologies if they've been asked already, I had a quick look through the forum, but missed the info if it was there...

When changing from the traditional 3 square meals a day to 5 and above should you build up to it and allow your body time to adjust, or jump straight in? Particularly if you are aiming for the 7-8 meals mark. Or does it not really matter?

Should you expect to gain weight when you begin?

Should you restrict how much you eat at each meal, you know... don't go above a certain amount of kg at each sitting?

Thanks


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Linafae

Hi there,
you won't gain weight if you keep your calories the same and spread them out over your meals. So if you were eating 3 500 calorie meals you could switch to 5 300 calorie meals. It will take time for your body to adjust and you'll likely feel full at first. Your body will become accustomed to eating more often though.

Let me know if I can help!

Sarah

And to add to that... if you need to increase calories as well as the amount of meals... I would do it slowly. So if you're eating 1800 calories now and need to get to 2200 per day... I would increase it by 200 calories per day for a week or so and then go to the final 200 calorie increase.

So 1800 -> 2000 for a week or so.

Then 200 -> 2200

Just be sure it's an increase of healthy, clean foods.

Thanks Lynn.

I was wondering whether you should gradually increase your intake - and how you should do it. It seemed to me that shoveling all this food into your body - that it wasn't used to dealing with - would just confuse your system rather than help it. Thanks for clarifying.


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Linafae

You'll also probably lose weight, rather than gain, if you keep calories the same, but spread them out over more meals.

more meals increases the metabolism and you end up burning a little more per day. more importantly, it keeps your energy levels up, and blood sugar stable.

Excellent points, malkore.

You're welcome, Linafae

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