Being in the midst of the Big Meal Challenge has brought up a lot of questions of some people about meal timing. I thought we could take today to set the record straight on just how many times a day you should be eating and how we evolved to thinking of multiple meals as the only given option.

If you go back, way back into the history of man they guided by a very simple eating style which was “Food, OMG food, eat it!” Hmmm, I guess that isn’t so different after all. However, the huge difference was their cry for food was out of extreme hunger and to survive longer in life and movement. Our cry is at the smell of the decked out long lines of trays filled with chicken wings, pizza, and warm brownies topped with ice cream. This is no longer America I am speaking about, this is any developed and economic flourishing country. If we desire we can eat all day long, from wake to sleep, food is there for the taking and all we have to do is control our dietary habit of how much of it we eat.

At a point researchers, based on mostly EPI based studies, and a few various controlled studies, decided that people who ate multiple meals a day were in better health condition than those who, claimed, to eat 1-2 times a day a skipped breakfast. Let us now take a peak into how the science that governs our lives works…

*insert dream waving lines*

Doc with survey: So how many times a day do you eat?
Fat person who is unhealthy: Usually just eat dinner, sometimes a snack during the day.
Doc with survey: So you don’t normally consume breakfast?
Fat person who is unhealthy: No, I am not usually hungry.

Let’s note for a moment that the reason, usually, those who are largely overweight aren’t hungry in the morning is because they were going to town the night before.

Doc with survey: So how many times a day do you eat?
Skinny person with recycled tree print purse: Few times a day I pick foods from my garden, maybe I will have a light breakfast with some fruit or nuts. A night a larger meal with some wine.
Doc with survey: Well aren’t you the perfect human, did you know we hate you all?
Skinny person with recycled tree print bag: Yes, yes I do. I think you need some B12 for that.

Now it may appear that I am severely “type casting” but that is the point. If you think that your dietary guidelines came out of something a lot more deeper and prolific than that, then think again. The majority of you are eating based upon nothing more than a magazine quiz at a doctors office that you always lie on.

The truth is that meal timing is a very personal and individual based thing. Some say it could be heritage based. For example, if you have heritage of a more coast residing great grandpa then you might be, by genetics, more accustom to eating multiple meals as it was more readily available to you. Those living by the shore where fishing and imports flourished had more varieties and frequency of foods. However, if you were deep inland, it is not as if there were grocery stores all around. It could be days before the next kill, bread press, or delivery of the few foods that could travel came through, particularly in the winter time. For you it wasn’t even just one meal a day, it could be a one meal every three.

This isn’t to say that this was recommended but, the Greeks were certainly doing well in the power dominating category, however others proclaimed the classic phrase of “Hunger is the best sauce.” Fast forward again and our revolutions are televised and they are supported in hand with “Chester Chettah.” Someone had to save us, enter in diet and fitness authors of the 80’s. Not until the 80’s did a harsh look come in to the basis of meal timing. Sure it was in the underground before then but at the peak of bodybuilding, gyms for fun, and jazzercize people started looking at the cherry picked benefits of multiple meals in a day. People started noticing that the bellies were growing and their had to be a reason. The answer, and still seems to be today, was Sugar. Sugar highs, sugar lows, and sugar woes. What was the solution given to a nation of growing bellies and sugar crashes?

Eat more, and more often.

To be truthful this concept isn’t all bad, nor is it all good. As always with any dietary strategy nothing is ever that cut and dry nor does it fit with everyone. The problem is that we, as a people, don’t like the following words…

Maybe
Depends
Possibly
Likely
Unclear
Without Certainty
Could Be

We as a people need leadership and answers that are absolutes. We like black and white as it gives us a comfort and a place to rest our worries. The truth is that when it comes to meal timing there is only one absolute to how often we should eat.

Grab a snack to hold you over for tomorrow where you are going to find out…

• What meal frequency eating type you are.
• How many meals you should be having in a day/week.
• What time of day is best to eat for you.
• The tell-tale signs of when what you are doing is wrong.
• How to best test the theories that have set the course of healthy eating as we know it.