The evidence suggests that the mini-meal philosophy may be able to help you improve your health in the following ways.
Table of Contents
It controls your weight.
Here is one of the worst eating mistakes you could ever make: You skip breakfast, except for coffee. Lunch is yogurt salad and a diet soda. By dinner time, you are starving! Additionally, you feel that it is fine to eat a little more. Before you know it, you have polished off a whole pizza and a box of donuts. It is a fat and calorie counter disaster.
It is far easier to manage your appetite by eating small, frequent mini-meals so you never get too hungry. Studies show that most people that skip breakfast make up for those calories they missed in the morning later in the day. They also tend to weigh more.
It cuts cholesterol.
There have been experiments with people eating six or more mini-meals a day, as compared with three square meals. They have consistently found that the nibblers’ cholesterol levels are lower. In one of these experiments, the mini-meals have resulted in an 8 percent decrease in cholesterol and a potential 16 percent reduction in heart attack risk.
It helps avoid triggering a heart attack
When you eat a meal your heart works harder to pump extra blood to your stomach and intestines. How much harder it works depends on how many calories you have had.
In one study, after a 240 calorie meal of cornflakes and skim milk, women’s hearts pumped an extra 84 quarts of blood during the next two hours. After a 720 calorie meal, their hearts pumped an extra 258 quarts of blood. That is like putting your heart through a digestive stress test.
It optimizes energy and mental power
When more than four hours pass between meals, blood sugar drops low enough to let fatigue set in. Some studies show that people that skip lunch and people who eat “super-sized” lunches, do worse at mental challenges such as math problems.
It prevents heart burn.
The bigger the meal, the more likely that some of it may spurt back from your stomach back into your esophagus. When it’s there, it causes discomfort. Eating smaller meals is the standard medical advice for heartburn suffers.
There are even more benefits to eating smaller meals multiple times a day then listed above. Give it a try. By doing so you will loss weight but also feel better.
