Ok first post for me, first time on here, but this question has drove me crazy for months now and I need to know what the majority truly does do. For me, years ago while following a crazy low fat diet, eating 5-6 "mini" meals ..basically tuna mixed with mustard or water and a sweet potatoe or rice, I was starving, waiting every minute on my next meal. I became infertile, lost most of my muscles that I was trying so hard to build, then later became hypothyroid and 100lbs over weight and miserable. I then sought out a natural doctor in my area, who put me basically on a paelo/neanderthin type diet, I became pregnant, lost weight and all...
His belief though is 3 meals a day, and if I get hungry in between to eat, but to remember if I'm hungry a few hours after eating,then I didn't eat enough the first meal..this to my body building friends at the gym is so tabooo. They're so stuck on the 5-6mini meals and say I shouldn't eat any more then 4oz of meat per meal...at the most! Honestly, I eat 8-12oz on some days, depending on the meat..chicken is easy to get 10-12oz for me in one sitting, again keep in mind that I eat just those 3 meals a day. I'm at a stage with myself that yes, I'm happy I'm no longer 225lbs, but I also want to look just that bit more hotter, and be more self confident in shorts..etc or in front of my hubby..so would splitting my meals into smaller portions be the route with my cardio and weights? I just find even with doing this, I feel hungry all the time and think about food so much, where now, I can feel full and love it, and go hours without thinking about food or when I have to eat again..does this make sense? What does everyone else do, and what's working for you? Please let me know, so far all the bodybuilding sites say 5-6meals..yet a few other's are touting cals in versus cals out at the end of the day, how ever you take them in..sorry this is so long. Thanks

Hi Butterfly, I have also read its healthiest for humans to eat 5 to 6 small meals a day. Its been clinically proven that mice fed many small meals a day live longer than those that eat 2 to 3 gaimungous meals even though the daily calorie total is the same.
Sounds like you have discovered that low carb curbs the appetite big time. Oh yeah, I rarely get hungry after breakfast: 2 eggs cooked in butter and sided with two heaping table spoons of full fat sour cream. This lasts me to well into the after noon. Being in menopause I do not need as much food as you (I take it you are still young).
I myself will eat 2 to 3 meals a day, at around 400 to 600 cals each, easy to do because of the fat and meat being calorie dense. I need to keep at no higher than 1200 cals a day (again, menopause), at 20 grams carbs (Optimal Diet) and I have a steady daily exercize program which is really toning up my whole body. My ratio is I need to be about 65 Kilos so I eat 65 grams protein each day, 20 grams carbs, and 195 grams fat.IF and I say IF I KEEP diligently to this, I really do see the fat slowly slip away. I read that I SHOULD divide my meals into 5 to 6 small ones but I'm not very disciplined for this.
Diets like The Optimal Diet, Atkins, or Schwartbein advocate 3 meals and 2 to 3 snacks. For ME, for example, that would mean:

B: 300
Sn.: 100
L: 300
Sn.:100
D: 300
Sn.: 100

So, for you as a young person, if you can get into the small meal routine according to all the scientific literature you would do yourself a huge favor health wise and its supposed to be way easier to maintain weight that way.

Good luck and welcome to Active LC!

i normally eat 4, every 4 hours approx

Why are you listening to other people instead of just listening to your body? Your body has already told you that it prefers "a paelo/neanderthin type diet" and about 3 meals per day so just carry on doing that.
If you want to lose a little more weight, just cut down the portion sizes a little more.
Remember that there were plenty of slim people about before the low fat and 6 meal a day thing started.

My trainer has researched this 6 mini meals thing and says the only reason to do it is for the exta metabolism burn which is something measly like 45 cals on average. Also much easier to overeat, and imho, totally not worth all the palaver of having to prepare meals constantly and always thinking about food which I don't think is healthy. I eat two meals a day consisting of protein and veg, with the addition of a plain baked potato in my evening meal.. 2-3 proper meals a day I think is the best thing- and already you seem to be feeling the benefit. Remember, the idea of snacking was invented by food manufacturers. Do what feels right for your body!!!

Only 1, I IF.

2. And some snacks, the meals are honestly easier to control; eggs and a pile of bacon; steak, butter, pile of green veggies. etc. Its the little bits that were getting me in the most trouble anyway. Candy, ice cream, cookies sugar, sugar, sugar; I'm trying to recast snacks towards small amounts of dried fruit or nuts, and keep an eye on total carbs.

I did try, briefly, the 5+ meal thing, but it just doesn't work for me. I end up either starving or nauseous all day.

Your bodybuilding friends are eating high carb, low fat diets. They're on an insulin rollercoaster that makes them eat every few hours.

That's part of the beauty of low carb. Your body experiences hunger appropriately. Enjoy it!

Seems to me a very long time ago humas ate only when they hunted and killed an herbivore and then gorged and ate and when gone , they went hungry until the next sucessful hunting trip. I do think they ate hrbatious plants and such thoug. I'm being abit silly here to make a point. gorge starve was our origins.

Eat meat. Eat fatty meat. Grains did not get added until a few thousand years ago -- so I don't mind skipping the grains.

I'm intersted in losing weight , so if I eat only twice a day, I"m good with that; then there are other days I eat many times and graze all day.

I suspect the research on mice was NOT a low carb diet and having seen the grain based food nugest that the research mice eat, I have real questions about the relavance between gorging several times a day and lifespan. IMO the insulin dump in the mice could be the cause of the shortened life of the mice; if you eat low carb and eat until full BUT NOT GORGED the insulin release is significantly reduced. AND it is my understanding that the main reason for a LC diet overall is to prevent the high fast rise in blood glucose which results in a fast high release of insulin.

THis is my opinion of all the information that I have read so far.

I vary my meals. Some days I'll have brunch and then just pick here and there, some days, I just pick all day without meals and other days, I may have two meals and dont pick. I rarely eat before midday, altho if I didnt eat the night before then I'll have a breakfast but no luch and again pick and snack on cheese, a handful of nuts, a chicken leg, a salami and cheese "sandwhich", a celery stick dunked in philli...............

I guess I only eat when I'm hungry

Jo xxx

I totally listen to my stomach. If it's going crazy - I eat. Otherwise, not hungry! However a novice might easily confuse a fake hunger with real hunger and eat more. It comes with experience

Good Luck and Stay Healthy!

was just thinking about this while re-devoting myself back to my eating program.
i've been eating 2 meals a day for about 7 yrs now....
i only eat when hungry......

3 meals work for me. I have a light volume of work along the lines of Sisson's Primal Fitness, so I don't have to eat extra either of protein (for rebuilding) or of carbs (for the glucose-demanding exercise).

I think it really depends:

How much volume of training do you do
Does your body get "stuck on fill" with large meals
Does your body switch nicely from sugar-burning to fat-burning between meals.

Volume of training: Some bodybuilding people do SO MUCH work every day that they are the equivalent of physical laborers, and need a lot of food. Like how growing teenage boys (who put on 30 pounds of lean mass in a year) can have dinner after school, and then dinner, and then dinner after dinner. In that case, some bodies metabolize a lot of food better in more meals, rather than one or 2 GIANT meals to support that volume of work load.

Does your body get "stuck on fill" - this is me. If I have too large of meals, even LC meals, I am convinced my body stores away the extra as energe and then DOESN'T LET IT OUT easily. Whereas if I have 25g of protein per meal, no problem. But I do NOT do high volume training so 3 meals of 25 grams is more than enough protein.

Switching from sugar-burning to fat burning - every time we eat, insulin rises somewhat to help metabolize protein and carbs (fat does not raise insulin). During this period, sugar-burning pathways are dominant. After 3-3.5 hours, if everything is working and the meal was not too insulin-raising, insulin goes down after a medium meal, and you can switch to fat burning.
Now, bodybuilders can be in sugar-burning from eating every 3 hours, because they are doing so much sugar-burning exercise, and they eat so precisely to fuel the work (not overeating).
But if you are having longer intervals between meals - can your body switch over to the fat burning pathways? If not, you would have a fuel crash at the 3 hour mark and feel hungry.
(I did that when transitioning from sugar-burning)

sorry mistaken reply

Twice a day.

4 eggs and 4 to 6 slices of bacon (or sausage) for breakfast, and 1 pound of protein for dinner, sometimes with veggies.