How to Eat Seven Small Meals a Day

Eating several small meals a day can help curb hunger and actually encourage weight loss. If you combine the proper food selections and portion sizes, you can greatly improve your health. Limiting your consumption to three or less large meals per day may actually trick your body's cells into believing you are starving, thus they hold onto fat instead of using stored fuel. Eat seven small meals a day to have less hunger, better health and increased variety in your diet.

Things You'll Need

• Menu
• Lean protein
• Complex carbohydrates
• Healthy unsaturated fats
• Fruits
• Vegetables

Instructions

1. Prepare a daily or weekly menu of meal plans. This will help you stick to your regimen and will allow you to balance each meal with the appropriate amounts of protein, fiber, unsaturated fats and other nutrients.

2. Combine lean protein and complex carbohydrates for your first meal of the day. Protein will help curb hunger, and the carbohydrates will help maintain energy. Adding protein or healthy fat to complex carbohydrates slows down the digestion process and will help your body retain a greater amount of nutrients.

3. Space your meals 2 1/2 to 3 hours apart. This will ensure you are continually feeding your body, which will speed up your metabolism and prevent long periods of hunger.

4. Maintain variety by including different food selections at each meal. This will help to ensure you are receiving adequate amounts of nutrients as well as keeping you from getting bored with your meals.

5. Try to include a minimum of one fruit or vegetable with each meal. Even if it is half an orange or a few stalks of broccoli, the vitamins and minerals are essential to good health.

6. Add a small amount of healthy unsaturated fat to meals that contain fruits or vegetables. The fat will help body more easily absorb nutrients. Olive oil is a sound choice for a healthy fat. You can drizzle it over steamed carrots or leafy greens to get the most from your diet.

7. Maintain the same daily calorie intake as you consumed while eating three meals a day. Portion sizes for each small meal should be considerably smaller than the average three-meal-a-day size.

Tips & Warnings

• Fish, nuts and lean meat are great choices for protein portions.

References

• Mens Health: Lose weight with 6 meals a day
• Real Age: 6 meal diversity deal

Resources

• Example meal menu