Should You Eat Five Meals A Day?

You’ve probably heard that you should eat five meals a day, either because it helps you lose weight, because it boosts your metabolism, or because you need to eat every three hours so as not to feel hungry.

But is that true?

We will answer this exciting question in this article.

How many meals should one eat a day?

The fact that you have to eat five meals a day is not entirely true as  it depends on each person, their hunger, routine, work, schedules and physical activity, among other factors.

If you force yourself to eat a snack in the morning and afternoon, this can lead to eating foods that you should not, such as sweets, juices, sodas, chips, sausages, sweet dairy products… Many times people choose these snacks in instead of healthier alternatives.

The quality of meals is therefore more important than the quantity. It is better to eat three healthy meals a day rather than five unhealthy meals.

So which meals are the most important? Is it bad to skip breakfast? No meal is more important than others. It also does not matter if you do not eat breakfast because you are not hungry, or if you eat breakfast at noon instead of seven in the morning.

Does eating five meals a day increase your metabolism?

The idea comes from the fact that when you eat, you spend energy on digesting and breaking down the foods into all their components. This is what is called the thermal effect of food.

It turns out, however, that the calories you spend on digestion are more or less proportional to the amount of food you eat and the type of macronutrients.

This means that if you follow a diet of 2000 kcal a day, then it does not matter whether you eat three or five meals, since the thermal effect will be the same.

The Journal of Nutrition  published a study in which the authors concluded that there is no solid scientific evidence that says increasing the frequency of meals can promote weight loss.

What if you fast?

It is important to eat when you are hungry. This is because you have a hunger and satiety mechanism, which is controlled by the hormones, ghrelin and leptin. It is also important to ensure that children eat.

Healthy adults without special circumstances, such as athletes or pregnant women, can walk for hours without eating, even an entire day. If you fast for several hours and the glucose in your blood is used, the body uses liver and muscle glucogen.

When these reserves are depleted,  the body activates gluconeogenesis: the production of glucose from proteolysis and lipolysis  (destruction of muscle and adipose tissue), creating ketone bodies that are excreted through urine.

Occasional fasting can actually be a good remedy for weight loss for some individuals. This fast consists of 16 hours without food, which more or less means skipping breakfast. However, it is recommended  that you do so under professional advice.

When is it appropriate to eat five meals a day?

• To control anxiety and hunger. If you eat five meals a day, you are less likely to get hungry. You can better control the size of the meals. If you skip a meal, you may feel hungry and snack all the time, which means you will eat more food than you should.

• If you suffer from certain diseases,  such as diabetes, to prevent hypoglycemia and maintain a constant blood sugar level.
• If you are an athlete  who needs to eat large amounts of food. It’s easier to do it over five meals rather than three. This makes it easier to control the optimal time to consume food.

Conclusion

It is preferable to create a routine for meals. If you are used to eating five meals a day, it will be difficult for you to eat three meals, and vice versa. Each case is therefore different.

The most important thing is to eat healthy and filling foods. If you eat healthy foods, the number of meals you eat a day will not matter that much.