Internet Research

Question: Is 3 meals a day sufficient for your body?

In terms of being physically healthy I found most sites suggest eating 5 -6 small meals throughtout the day (one every couple of hours) to keep an active metabolism, eat fewer calories in general and burn more calories faster. It prevents from having huge meals that will end up taking your metabolism quite some time to break down. By eating more but smaller meals, your metabolism will have the time and energy to burn down calories, etc.

"You shouldn't wait until you are hungry to eat. The point is to prevent hunger. Three meals is actually two meals less than you should be eating. You should eat about five meals a day. Now, I am not talking about a full plate of spaghetti or something, but small meals every few hours. Doing this will keep your metablic rate up and you won't feel drained or crabby by the end of the day. PS Make it something wholesome and you won't gain weight."

Source 1

"In a recent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition editorial, a team of nutrition researchers concluded that whether you are practicing the 'three' or 'six' meal daily dietary pattern, weight loss ultimately comes down to 'how much energy (or calories) is consumed as opposed to how often or how regularly one eats.'

So given the tried-and-true equation for weight maintenance: Calories 'in' = Calories 'out,' what this really boils down to is whether eating five or six small meals a day truly helps us to:

Burn more total calories at the end of the day
Eat fewer total calories at the end of the day"

Source 2

"Most fitness conscious people already understand the importance of meal frequency, but they figure they can "get by" with three "square" meals. The more often you eat the more efficient your body will be at utilizing the foods your put in it."

Source 3

"Individual metabolism seems to be the key in determining how many meals a day to eat. However, if you eat only two to three meals a day you are probably not making your metabolism work as hard as it is supposed to. You may feel tired with a loss of energy and wind up turning toward snacks, which may not be as carefully chosen as an actual meal. With five to six meals a day, you have more opportunities to plan to eat correctly as opposed to snacking on junk food."

Source 4

"Eating less does not guarantee weight loss. Eating more often keeps your ‘energy balance‘ more level. Energy balance is the relationship between the calories you are burning and the calories you are eating. The leanest people are those whose energy balance stays within a surplus/deficit range of about 300 – 500 calories. Eating more often will achieve this level, so eat 3 smaller meals with 3 good snacks in between. You also maintain a fuller stomach and this wards off the hungries and reduces the possibility of you grabbing something inappropriate to satisfy the hunger pangs."

Source 5