How many meals a day should someone eat?

Intermittent fasting diet is the kind of diet that help people lose weight. When a person intermittently fasts, they'll have one or two meals a day. For example, they will start fasting after eating breakfast and lunch until the following day's breakfast or lunch. There are three-points that people have to focus when they use intermittent fasting diet. First, the diet must consider a nutritional balance - the point of the diet is to maintain good health while losing eight. Second, people cannot binge eat after the fast has broken. Lastly, people should avoid high intensity activities in the fasting day. Intermittent fasting diet can help people to decrease the risk of getting cardiovascular disease, and helps if you're diabetic by regulating insulin levels.

Gluten-free diet is another diet that requires people to avoid any gluten. Gluten is an elastic protein constituent of dough made from wheat flour. A gluten-free diet is ONLY appropriate for people who have diagnosed celiac disease or are allergic to gluten.

Paleo-diet is a diet based on eating vegetables, fruits, meats, and nut. Also, it requires people to avoid processed food, dairy products, grains, and processed ingredients. People who choose the paleo diet consider modern diets harmful, as they lead to things like obesity. They prefer strictly natural ingredients in their foods.

The first time I heard that was in 2010! A friend of mine, who is now a physiotherapists, said that eating 6 meals a day regulates insulin levels, leading to weight loss. Intermittent fasting can add a lot of stress to one's body, especially those who work physically demanding jobs.

"Eat like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a peasant at dinner"

(Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides. 1135-1404)

I have been told an intermittent diet doesn't reduce calories. It simply pushes it into a shorter window to more completely deplete glucose stores.

Post Merge: 2 years ago

My emphasis is not on fasting but quantity of meal periods to plan for. I am assuming a healthy and complete diet. Nothing special or temporary for weight loss goals.

It definitely limits the total number of calories you take in per day, that I don't agree with.


If your aim isn't weight loss, the answer to your question depends on a variety of factors, namely, height, weight, age, gender and activity level. Experts recommend eating three balanced meals (350 to 600 calories each) and one to three snacks per day (between 150 and 200 calories each), but again these numbers vary depending on those factors I mentioned.

Generally:

3 meals and 3 snacks seems like a lot of work. A person would never be hungry. I think it’s important that people do feel hungry everyday. There is nothing that indicates that a simple 2 meals isn't better? Many people skip breakfast to get the benefit of early exercise while still fasted. Is anything wrong with just lunch and dinner?

Then isn't that the same as intermittent fasting? The feeling of hunger is a stress response to an empty stomach; hunger lead to things like hypoglycemia > dizziness > and in turn the possibility of something bad happening. I think hunger should be minimized in any diet. One way to curb hunger is by eating a diet high in fiber. North Americans don't get enough fiber in their modern diets, so it is something to consider if you plan on having two meals a day.

What I am referring to doesn't reduce number of calories. Just compresses eating into less time. People who eat one meal a day after they've trained their body for that pattern say they don't miss more meals, and their arteries tend to be cleaner. I'm just wondering why something more like that shouldn't be the standard? In the past the idea of snacks was frowned upon. If a person can't go 4 hours without stuffing their face again do humans deserve to live?

Training your mind to ignore food cues requires discipline. Food science shows that just by looking at food, areas in the appetitive brain network become active. Given that we are bombarded with food ads everywhere we go, it's hard to ignore. Food scientists argue that there is a combination of heightened responsiveness to incentives and relatively immature impulse control in adolescence, leading to increased impulsiveness and reward-seeking behavior. This is why younger people like munching on snacks while they work or study. From the article linked below, it states:


Perhaps this is why adults are more suited to take on this method of eating (i.e. 2 meals a day versus 3) compared to every other age group. From my experience raising two children, most kids can't go a few hours without a snack, because they're constantly burning calories and are literally hungry. And children are most annoying when they're hungry, they can't go five minutes without reminding you. And the science also confirms this. A recent meta-analysis showed that children most consistently activate areas of the appetitive brain network in response to visual food cues, similar to adults.

I just remember a dietician once had me plan meals and snacks and it was too much paperwork. Lol. Perhaps the young under eat each meal a bit also. Maybe they are less anxious about finding food again as adults could be. No logical reason why 2 meals for 30yr olds and up?

I guess that is a personal decision. It's impossible to determine if one diet scheme involving 2 meals is superior to another involving 3 (and vice versa); in other words, scientifically that cannot be determined. If 2 means per day help you live healthier, then there's no reason not to continue with it.