Most people think that you need to eat three meals a day, but really, you need to eat whatever calorie intake you want in order to gain, sustain, or lose weight. Some people that want to lose weight will break up their meals to six small ones a day, to balance out sugar crashes and such.
For this article you will get some tips on why you need to eat your three main meals a day, whether you break them up more than that or not, and better ideas for snacking in between meals. If you like grazing throughout the day, it pays to know what’s better for your health.
Snacks
As far as snacks go, leave the candy bars and potato chips for the kids and unhealthy eaters. Instead, opt for fruits, vegetables, and other healthy snacks. If you aren’t sure what’s healthy, read the ingredients!
Want something crunchy, have some celery or carrots. Prefer something for a sweet tooth, have some berries. If you need chips, eat some air popped popcorn, with sea salt and skip the butter! Or, have a good protein or nutrition bar to keep you going.
Breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, for many reasons, but when it comes to weight loss and eating healthy, the idea is that breakfast is the one meal you’ll eat that you can easily burn all the calories from throughout the day.
You still want to pick your meal wisely and make sure that you are getting all the nutrients you need to get through a busy and tiring morning. That means that you need to get plenty of protein, along with some fruits and vegetables. This is a good time to get your carbs too, so you can use them up through the morning.
Lunch
Lunch should be your smallest meal of the day, but you should plan it wisely. Avoid sugary snacks at lunch, even power bars. They can cause you to get into kind of a slump when the sugar’s effects wear off.
Skip breads too. Instead, have a nice power packed salad or wrap, with lots of vegetables and some white meat. For an extra boost of energy, add some nuts and fruit to your salad.
Dinner
Always make sure that one-third to a half of your dinner plate is filled with vegetables. You could also have a grain, and make sure to stick with lean meats. An ideal dinner could be a marinated chicken breast with steamed broccoli and carrots, and some brown or wild rice.
You want to opt for the vegetables and lighter meats and such since it’s toward the end of the day and you aren’t going to be working off all of those calories like you do breakfast.