Eating 6 Meals Per Day - The 5 & 1 Plan

I'm sure you've heard by now that eating 6 small meals per day is a healthy way to live. There have surely been some criticisms if you don't actually keep them small. If you would eat a 700 calorie breakfast, lunch and dinner and then add in three 100-200 calorie snacks, you would be consuming a fairly large amount of calories during the day.

However, if you truly eat small meals rather than 3 medium size and 3 small, you could still get the appropriate number of calories per day without feeling hungry. Hunger can happen when you go a long time without a meal. When you skip meals or wait 6-8 hours in between meals, you can end up binging because of hunger. How many of us have had those days where we hardly ate anything for breakfast or lunch then ended up with a 3,000+ calorie meal for dinner cause we were "starving"? I'm pretty sure we have all been there at some point. And some people do that on a regular basis. 

Guess what? Your body burns calories throughout the day to run your organs and get you moving. It needs fuel throughout the day to keep that process going smoothly. Eating 6 small meals a day can keep you from getting hungry and binging and it will also keep your metabolism kicking. If the body is digesting food every 2-3 hours, it is working a lot more frequently and burning more calories. 

Many of you looking at this blog may be wondering what Take Shape For Life's 5 & 1 plan is all about. This plan consists of eating 5 balanced, healthy meal replacements and 1 "lean and green" meal consisting of lean protein and vegetables. Each of the meal replacements has been designed to have the right protein/carb balance and also be interechangable. Want cereal or oatmeal for lunch? That's OK! How about having a delicious brownie or cookie for breakfast. Yes, that's perfectly fine too! The lean and green meals are designed to be low calorie, low carb and low glycemic. All the meals on this blog are within the lean and green meal guidelines and are delicious. I have tried each one and can definitely recommend all of them. 

Are you still not sure about this eating 6 meals a day thing? What about the ease of doing this or how it all works? Here is a nifty chart that I found that explains a typical day on the 5 & 1 plan:

That doesn't look too hard, does it? Take Shape for Life has made this program about as easy as it could possibly be. If you think you'll forget to eat, after a few days of doing this, your body will most likely let you know that it's hungry and time. If it is still not letting you know, sometimes it's easy to just set an alarm on your phone. 

The meals are also so easy to make or you can get the "on-the-go" meals such as the bars, pretzels or shakes. I have found a nice balance between having the on-the-go, hearty meals and soft bakes. Have I mentioned that the soft bake brownies are amazing? Yum! It really depends on what your typical day is like. Do you have access to a microwave or would on-the-go meals be easier while you're at work? The good news is that you only have to cook for yourself a maximum of one time per day. If you're like me, I make meals with 2-3 days of leftovers, so I only end up having to cook around 3 times per week.

If you have any questions about the meals or would like to take a look at the selection, feel free to contact me at dreambelievecommit@gmail.com or you can go to my website at www.dreambelievecommit.tsfl.com and look under the SHOP tab the "Shop Now". On the left side, you can look under "Weight-Loss Meals". There is a great selection of many different types of foods. Like Brownies.