Do we have to eat 3 meals a day?
Somewhere in the transition from caveman to modern human, we lost our ability to listen to our bodies and eat when we need energy. Instead we listen to General Mills and other food companies who tell us to eat breakfast, lunch and diner at 8AM, noon and 6PM (roughly).
Our thinking is flawed. Eating is a simple biochemical process. We eat because our bodies tell us we need energy. True hunger is a result of an energy shortage. I use the term true hunger in terms of eating enough food to supply our bodies energy needs, and no more.
The problem with eating at set times during the day is that we often eat according to what time of the day it is and not when our bodies are telling us to eat.
The myth of 3 meals a day (and 6 meals).
Apparently every single person on earth is supposed to be hungry enough to eat in the morning, afternoon and at night. Considering that our bodies all operate differently, this makes little sense.
What makes a lot of sense is why we continue to follow in our parents footsteps and eat the same foods at the same times as they did. Humans are habitual creatures. Eating is no exception. For 18 years most people are fed the same foods at roughly the same times. This is why the habit of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner has handcuffed the world.
Breakfast
The belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a perfect example. I'm sure that I may be burned at the stake by all of the soccer moms out there for saying this, but oh well.
The benefits of eating a "healthy" breakfast are greatly exaggerated by one select group of people. Breakfast food companies. And why wouldn't they?
These companies have a product to sell you and if evidence (no matter how small or inaccurate) says that eating breakfast is beneficial, then they should promote the hell out of it. But their aim is at the uneducated consumer and because you are reading this blog you are not one of those people.
Our bodies are amazing. They tell us when we should go to bed, have sex and when to eat food.
It is a rather simple process. If our bodies need energy it will signal a nerve that tells the brain that it wants food. This feeling of hunger is felt in our stomachs, where a nerve is connected and our food inevitably ends up..
When we need energy we eat. Simple. Our bodies have no concept of what time of day it is.
If you are hungry, eat. If you are not, then don't. It's not rocket science.
I stopped eating my meals at a planned time every day. I now eat when I am hungry. In the process of doing this I realized, by no conscious effort, that I rarely eat breakfast anymore. I do drink a cup of coffee in the morning and that may have an affect on my hunger levels. This is not to say that I never eat breakfast. There are some days when I am hungry and other days when I am not.
By simply listening to my body, I fallen into a routine of eating twice a day. And because I eat foods that have little or no carbs and a lot of protein and fat, I never snack. I am seriously full for a minimum of 6-7 hours. It is awesome.
Some days I eat at 10 or 11 in the morning and other days I'm not hungry till 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
Other eating plans are also available.
The eat six meals a day plan is an example of one. The selling point for this kind of eating system is that eating 6 small meals, every 2-3 hours, will lead to less calories consumed and eventually weight loss.
I personally know individuals who have used this system and lost lots of weight. Unfortunately eating 6 meals a day has very little to do with why weight is lost. The kinds of calories and the amounts of calories consumed play vital roles.
Lets say I ate the same amount of food per day, yet I ate it in six small portions rather than three larger ones, and granted that the amounts would not cause weight gain, it would not matter when I ate. I would be consuming the same kinds and amounts of calories either way.
Do not feel bad for not eating a meal. I often hear that "skipping meals is worse for your health than actually eating." Really? I disagree. Granted that if a meal is skipped because of lack of hunger, this makes complete sense.
If hunger is not present, then there is a reason behind the madness. Whether it be an illness, injury or stress the body is saying that it does not want to go through the very energy intensive process of digesting food.
Again, do not fight it! If you are not hungry it is for a reason, let your bodies voice be heard.
A few other thoughts
Now I must say that if we consistently give our bodies more food that it needs, it will inevitably grow accustomed to receiving food in large amounts and at certain times. Which is why breaking this habit is so difficult.
How do you know that you are giving your body to much of a certain food or food in general? Love handles, man boobs, and double chins would be a good indicator.
Also, I would like to touch on the subject of metabolism increase that results from eating.
One common argument that many people who support eating breakfast use is that eating boosts our metabolism. Which is true. However, the benefits of this are not as dramatic as you may think.
For example, if we were to eat dinner at 6 PM and not eat anything until 8AM our bodies would go through a 14 hour fast. 14 hours is a very long time to go without food. Often overlooked is the fact that 7-9 hours of that 14 are actually spent sleeping. When we sleep, our bodies go into hibernation mode, if you will, and burn very little calories.
Think about it, the only things that our bodies need to do are actions in which we have no control. Heartbeat, breathing, snoring, ext. Our bodies do not exert any physical effort once so ever while we lay in our beds. (Unless you sleep walk. Then I guess that counts.)
Realistically, the amount of metabolism increase that results from simply eating is not significant enough to have any affect on weight loss. There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat. We burn 500 calories by running for an hour. How much of an impact could eating honestly have?
Don't forget that human beings survived on earth for 1.94 million years before civilizations were even created. I'm pretty certain food was eaten when they were hungry. Cavemen didn't have Rolex's to check the time.
We sleep when we are tired, we pee when our bladders are full, why not eat when we are truly hungry?
If you have tried the 6 meals a day system or any other food eating system please let us know how it went by leaving a comment!
In the words of Oscar Wilde "Everything popular is wrong."
-Ryan
PS: If you are looking for an "easy" way to break your habitual eating cycle, try fasting. Fasting puts us in tune with our natural hunger system. We become more aware of when and what we eat and most importantly why we eat. If you would like to learn more about fasting, check out the following articles.
3 reasons why we shouldn't eat food
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February 4th, 2010 - 17:11
Banks I hope you don’t hold promoting breakfast against the breakfast food companies though because the are very smart and are just doing the best they can to bring home the bacon. It also makes sense for our first meal of the day to be so important though because it is usually the end of our longest period of food for about 14 hours hence the name “breaking the fast”. You do make a good point though that if you stick to too strict of an eating schedule then your body will eventually automatically tell you its hungry at those times whether you are or not. We aren’t slaves to this though but lets face it we keep our bodies awake on very weird schedules too though
February 4th, 2010 - 17:54
Moose,
Come on man, do you really think I would hold that against the food companies? Shit, they are just trying to make as much money as possible. I am just pointing out facts.
Also, you are correct in the name of breakfast meaning “breaking the fast”. However, like I point out in the article, that 14 hour fast is not as demanding of a fast as if that same fast were transferred to when we are awake and moving. Hunger would come much more quickly as we are moving and using more energy. I am not condoning the eating of breakfast. I am simply advocating eating when your hungry and not eating because of the numbers on the clock.
If you are hungry in the morning, eat. If you are not, then do not force yourself to eat just to justify the belief in the supposed health benefits of eating breakfast.
Well put about sleep. We do keep ourselves on weird schedules. I point out in the article Sleep: Becoming an early bird and embracing the nap that sleep should not be subject to a strict schedule. It should vary on a daily basis, much like when and how many times we eat per day. Each day is different, embrace it.
Thanks for reading and commenting Moose
-Ryan
February 5th, 2010 - 15:13
What if Im hungry like 6 times a day??
February 5th, 2010 - 16:23
Patty,
I feel bad for your wallet and your colon!
All kidding aside, you are probably eating foods that are not very energy dense. These foods could include: fruit, vegetables, bread, spaghetti, rice, soup, sugary snacks, granola bars, pop tarts, pretty much anything that has a wrapper or is contains white flour. Eat foods that have more fat and protein. Although protein and carbs both have only 4 calories per gram, fat has 9 per gram. More energy that takes more time to digest, hence why you will feel full longer.
Whole meats, eggs, butter, oil, ranch dressing, mayonnaise, egg salad
. Do not fear fats, they are not as bad we make them out to be. Those who support not eating fats are simply un-informed about the bio-chemistry of the human body. And for those that put their personal health in the hands of the American Heart Association and the FDA, I would recommend rethinking your positions.
30 years ago we declared war on fat and cholesterol because heart disease was killing Americans at an alarming rate. Lets fast forward to the present. As a nation we have decreased our amount of fat intake by roughly 10% and what is the number one killer of all Americans today? Heart disease. Food for thought.
Oscar Wilde’s quote “Everything popular is wrong” can be attributed to every aspect of life. Think about it.
Sorry I went off on a rant there, but I figured you would find the information useful. Thanks again for commenting Pat
-Ryan
February 8th, 2010 - 22:50
Hi Ry!
I really like this article because I rarely ever eat breakfast. Breakfast food is my absolute favorite! BUT. I’m either not up early enough for breakfast, or I’m in a hurry or I’m just not hungry. So. I was talking to Rei (my roomie) about this article and she has some Q’s that I don’t have answers to. And this is one Q she has.. So you say that breakfast isn’t that important but what about our brains being boosted and such. Because there’s tests and stuff that say students remember better and take tests better and such if they have breakfast. I kinda disagree at a point but I don’t exactly know so I need your input buddy
Thanks Ry!
February 9th, 2010 - 15:44
Ky,
Tell Reidon (I think that’s how her name is spelled) thank you for the thought provoking question.
“Because there’s tests and stuff that say students remember better and take tests better and such if they have breakfast.”
There have been some studies done that do support the eating of breakfast as a way to boost mental performance and memory. However these studies are far from conclusive. The majority of these studies have been done on children in school. The only way that scientists can actually track if students ate breakfast or not was if they participated in the school breakfast program. The study is here.
Students were found to more attentive, score better in math and were late and tardy to class less often than kids who did not eat breakfast. A lot of generalizations can be made about the data, but the most compelling would be to note that maybe the kids who ate breakfast were actually more attentive students than those that did not eat the school breakfast.
Also, think about what most of America eats for breakfast. Sugar laced cereals, pop tarts, yogurt that is also filled with sugar, I could go on and on. Bagels with cream cheese. The cream cheese is good but most bagels are made of enriched flour, which is comparable to eating pre-digested food. Insulin levels spike and the carbs are turned into fat. The same can be said for waffles and pancakes. Granola bars also contain heavy amounts of sugar as well as flavored coffee creamers.
If faced with the decision to eat a breakfast that contains tons of sugar or simple carbs or not eat breakfast I would vote for not eating. Sugar is the devil no matter what time of the day it is eaten.
I recommend taking an in depth look at when and why you (or your roommate) eat. And observe whether eating in the morning actually does increase you mental performance. If it does then great, if not then do not force yourself to eat in the name of being healthy, that is quite possibly one of the worst things you could possibly do.
Thanks again for the great question! I hope I gave you some ammo to fight with!
-Ryan
June 6th, 2010 - 19:43
Hey Ryan! I just want to say thank you for writing this article. I have been overweight and out of shape for many years now. I have tried to listen to countless people, read tons of books, done research on the internet about what to eat, when to eat, ect. And I was never comfortable with eating breakfast to begin with. But one day I started thinking – WHO came up with the 3 meals a day (or 6) anyhow? Who made that the golden rule? I have lost almost 30 pounds in 5 months by doing pretty much what your article talks about. I eat when I’m hungry. I try and eat more natural/organic foods. I have become more active. And I feel so much better! I used to have a lot of stomach issues and decided to try to pin point what foods were causing it. Upon doing my own experiments, I found that my stomach could not tolerate things like beef, pork, soda and milk. I have felt SO much better since I cut those foods from my diet all together. I have felt all around better than I have in years and I think all I had to do was to start listening to my body. I used to really enjoy the certain foods that I have eliminated from diet, but since I feel so much better, I find that I don’t miss those foods at all anymore. I eat when I’m hungry and when I am, I try and make better choices about what I am putting in my body. The weight is slowly coming off, but whatever I am doing is working and I feel so good because of it. It was just good to hear someone else say it. Thank You, Jaime