So twelve years ago in my first go-around with low-carbing, the wisdom of the day said we should be eating ~6 smaller meals throughout the day instead the 3 regular meals.

The logic was that this should prevent big blood sugar spikes, big insulin surges, and the subsequent crashes which would cause hunger and more eating with bad choices for food. You should never skip breakfast because this was the most important meal of the day and it would cause you to be ravenously hungry later and make poor food choices.

I see that today the new (ancient?) wisdom is to eat fewer meals with longer fasts between them. The logic is that this would keep blood sugar and insulin levels lower and stable for longer stretches, even though there might be big surges when you do eat larger meals. Dr. Jason Fung says that even though your meal to break the fast might be larger, you usually end up eating fewer calories this way overall than the grazing method.

It seems to me that the logic and goal of both methods is the same (i.e. keep blood sugar and insulin lower and stable, leading to increased metabolism and lower caloric intake), but the approaches are completely opposite of one another. I don't think they can both be true, and I'm leaning towards IF being more successful than the grazing approach.

I'd like to know your thoughts on this. How could we have gotten it so wrong if IF is indeed the better way?

Government dogma. Think about where you heard the 5-6 meals + snacks a day. USDA, AHA, ADA - and the rest of the alphabet soup. Even DANDR (2002) has snacks intermingled within 3 meals. And three meals three shmeals. I stick to one or two a day, and had been for years before I recently changed to LC, but before LC I'd get hungry and snack every now and then. Still lost weight albeit very very slowly, and then there was the visceral fat - which I've been working on steadily with LC + IF. TOFI (thin outside fat inside) is what I was.

I think they both can be true, depending on your goals. My thoughts are based on my personal experiences rather than deciding which conflicting study or expert to believe. When I first started eating low carb, including snacks between meals really helped me stay on course. As I lost more weight, my appetite went down, and I needed less food to stay on course. I did try IF for a couple months, and it did help me eliminate evening snacking, but I am not sure if that was a physical change caused by IF, or just a mental change caused by taking snacking off the table. I didn't see any benefit from it, as far as additional weight loss, increased energy, mental clarity, etc. as proponents claim, but I do think it could be a useful tool for some people. I guess what I am saying is that like most things, you need to consider the situation, rather than looking at IF vs 6 meals as isolated events. At the end of the day, what you eat is probably the more important factor.

Grazing is for cattle. Tried the 6 small meals-a-day. Didn't work for me. Now I am only really hungry enough for one, or two.

Now they are saying "eight servings of fruits and vegetables a day and three servings of dairy" how can anyone do that?

The "6 small meals" advice was always directed at people eating the SAD - not LCers. It's an attempt at controlling the inevitable blood sugar roller-coaster.

Dr Atkins encouraged snacking initially, IIRC. It's certainly fine when you're white-knuckling this new WOE and your body is trying to adapt to a new fuel source. Once you're a more seasoned LCer, though, you should quit snacking most of the time, IMO.

A good, fatty, satisfying LC meal devoid of foods that trigger cravings should keep you satisfied for hours. A lady here named Lisa (CNMLisa?) said it best: if you're hungry, eat a meal. If you're not hungry enough for a meal, it's cravings.

That's not to say I think there's never a time for snacking. Sometimes, your schedule isn't what you'd like it to be, maybe you need something with which to take a medication, maybe you want a hot drink to stay warm outside in winter, maybe there's a social gathering, etc. But IMO, it's important to note the changes that (hopefully) happen to your BG and appetite once you're used to eating LC.

My $0.02 CAD.

Six meals a day isn't even a good idea on a high carb diet. For a lot of people, that's basically the equivalent of six glucose tolerance tests a day. Not good if you're failing the tests. There are studies showing that carrying this to an extreme--as high as 17 meals a day--does improve blood glucose and decrease insulin requirements (the constant suppression of free fatty acids results in increased insulin sensitivity).

I find a smaller number of meals more satiating than the same food distributed over more meals. But I've never tried 17 low carb meals. I did try hourly meals years ago after reading something about it (I think it was in the Zone). It was a weird way to live, but it didn't seem to increase my appetite the way 4 vs 2 meals does now.

17 meals a day, why not just have an IV drip connected to you, lol.

Do we have any knowledge of the meal timing and frequency of paleo man? (I'm assuming it's all speculation though.)

But what about the more paleolithic tribes around the world before european colonization, what were their eating schedules like before contact?

I've always wondered who has time to eat 6 meals a day? With the satiation from LC'ing, it just wouldn't work, it would be like force feeding. For me, it's 3 meals, or 2 meals and a snack in between. I always have to start with breakfast though. I had tried IF a couple of times, trying to hold out till noon to eat my first meal and I just can't do it. In fact, those times I did try it, my weight crept up slightly. My husband and one of my sons are people who naturally do that, but me and my other son always eat breakfast within 90 minutes of waking up.

Best answer in this classic Dr Fung post.
https://idmprogram.com/perils-snack...-obesity-xiii/#

Read the links within it too, the BBC 2 series Men who Made Us Fat is now on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?li...FF7F55960DFD56E

Follow the money, look at the list of corporate sponsors for the AHA, ADA, etc. When the Tobacco companies were finally caught out, they bought snack food companies.

And related to this...Dr Mark Hyman has a new Podcast, two episodes, one with Michael Moss author of Sugar, Salt, Fat.

As funny as this sounds, this literally applies to me:

I suffer from a chronic illness called “I’m only hungry when I start putting FOOD in my mouth!” syndrome!

So I only eat one time a day (dinner) and it works like a charm. It's not like I gave up 2 meals when I re-started back in 2013. I hadn't been a breakfast eater since around mid-school...

A new blog post today from Jason Fung on this very topic:

The Critical Importance of Meal Timing for Weight Loss

I have no self control when it comes to food. It owns me. But I can out wit it.

When I start low carbing, again, many meals a day is a must. Usually 3 m eals and a couple snacks. Via food choices, and eventually skipping breakfast because not hungry, I move to two meals that are lowcarb. And eventually evening snack disappears.

I have to trick my body into 2 lc meals a day, but it all starts with grazing on allowable LC foods.

Hey I've had a similar experience. I started low-carbing again about a month ago and at first I felt like I couldn't skip a meal and needed many snacks to make it throughout the day, but I stuck to the allowable foods. Now by the end of the month I'm feeling like I don't need the snacks anymore, nor 3 full square meals. I'm down to 1 or 2 full meals plus a snack per day, all keto-friendly foods.

I'm also finding that I have more time without all the mealing and snacking.

Jason Fung: "It is now acceptable that we eat in the car. We can eat in the movie theatre. We can eat in front of the TV. We can eat in front of the computer. We can eat while walking. We can eat while talking. We can eat in a box. We can eat with a fox. We can eat in a house. We can eat with a mouse. I could go on, but then I’d have to pay royalties to Dr. Seuss."

Man I love this guy!