How many times a day should a newborn eat and what should he be fed? What determines how many times a day a newborn baby should eat? Is it true or myth that you need to eat small meals often?

In order to find out how many times a day you need to eat, you need to understand why you need to eat exactly that many times, what your lifestyle is and what you want to get in the end. But usually they tell us, eat 5-7 times a day and everything will be fine. They also say that you need to eat less and more often, they also say that you need to eat before you want to eat and as often as possible, otherwise if you get hungry, it will be a real disaster, you will eat an elephant and get fat.
Unfortunately, most people will never know how many times and in what portions they actually need to eat. Because no one wants to understand this issue. Everyone wants to open a pink magazine and read something like, “eat 7 times a day and everything will be fine, because this is the main secret of someone very slim.”
Many people also like to turn to professional athletes for advice. However, the fact is that professional athletes have a completely different lifestyle, which is very different from the lifestyle of the average person. Therefore, if you are not the person whose lifestyle is the same as that of prof. athlete, then his nutritional advice will not be useful to you.
If you continue to persistently follow these tips, then don’t be surprised by their uselessness.
But nevertheless, it seems to everyone that if a person has dedicated his life to sports and lives on a strict diet for many years, then his experience is the best and will suit everyone.
Now imagine a person who came to a car dealership with a name something like “Premium Ultra-Super Star” and said, “Give me the car with the biggest wheels.”
The difference between a professional and someone who mows under him is that the professional chooses exactly what he needs. And the one who looks like a professional chooses what the professional has already chosen, no matter how much he needs it.

How many times a day should you eat

If you work at a construction site, in a mine, or simply work physically hard, or spend a lot of nerves and move around a lot, then you need to eat 3-5 times a day. These could be sales representatives and managers who do not sit in the office, but constantly run around and negotiate with someone, digging the ground with their noses, in a figurative sense.
As for 6-7 times, this is only suitable for the military, tourists, climbers, and law enforcement officers. And only at a time when they work hard.

Why do you need to eat so often?

If you work hard physically, then you are familiar with the feeling of hunger, because you experience it regularly and this is very good. You need to eat small meals more often, because if you just fill your belly to capacity, you will sleep through the rest of the day or feel very sluggish. Therefore, in order to feel more energetic and for the day to go well, you need to eat more often, but not overeat. You need to eat in such portions that after 15 minutes you can easily get to work. For hard workers, it is also important to combine foods correctly so that the day goes easier and digestion works as efficiently as possible.

As for those who need to eat 6-7 times a day, then in this mode any food eaten in a chaotic combination will be digested, but it will also not be superfluous to increase the efficiency of digestion by correctly combining foods. This will add strength and energy, which will also not hurt you.

Also remember that you need to eat food as hot or warm as possible, this increases the efficiency of digestion. Once a day you need to eat porridge and learn to drink water.
I myself usually eat 2 times a day, sometimes 3 and that’s enough for me.
And if you are seriously thinking about proper nutrition, then below I have attached useful additional materials for you.
The fact is that the number of meals is far from the most important aspect of proper nutrition. Just like the amount of water you drink per day. You can drink half a liter of water a day and everything will be fine, you can drink 5 liters of water with the same lifestyle and everything will be fine.
You can eat 2 times a day and everything will be fine, you can wedge at least 10 meals into any lifestyle and everything will be just as good.
It is important how the overall process of training and nutrition will be organized.
Proper nutrition should be optimized and adapted to your lifestyle.
The steering wheel in a car can be on the left, or on the right. If it is on the right, this does not mean that the car was made by idiots who do not know the basics, and therefore the manufacturer of this car is an idiot.
Just like wheel diameter is not a key parameter in determining the efficiency of a car.
There are many stereotypes in “armchair expertise”; we won’t go through all of them now.
Remember that solving problems must be approached constructively and with an understanding of the situation. If you don’t understand how it works and don’t know what to do, then contact someone who understands and knows what to do.
If you have already contacted us and the problem has been solved, then this article and the materials below will help you better understand why you need to do it, what you are already doing and what other correct solutions exist.
Millions of people have been reading articles and books on nutrition for decades in pursuit of the next magical secret to solving a problem in 3 days, and each time they wonder why the advice didn’t work this time. And only a few people think of turning to a specialist and resolving the issue slowly in a couple of months.
I want you to understand that reading articles and magazines very rarely solves problems with nutrition and excess weight.
Below are materials that will help you better understand why and how many times a day you should eat, how to combine foods, why, why, and so on.

Healthy instant porridges -

Hello, my dear readers! I wrote this article inspired by an interesting video. In it, a nutritionist tells you how best to eat and how often. So, where is the truth - eat small portions 5-6 times a day. Or eat only 3 times (breakfast, lunch, dinner), but in a big way :) Let's figure out together how often you need to eat.

Nutritionists say that there is no clear answer to this question. For most people, the optimal ratio of meals is, of course, 5-6 meals a day. This approach implies:

• 2-3 full meals (I mean the first, second and even a small dessert for lunch)
• 2-3 snacks (this could be a salad, a handful of nuts, sour milk).

But there are 20-30% of people for whom this amount of nutrition is not suitable. These are people prone to overeating and food addiction.

Some people are unable to bring themselves to eat a limited and distributed amount of food per day. For them, every meal is torture and a struggle with themselves. Perhaps you are familiar with such thoughts - “ I know that I need to eat less to lose weight (so that the sore doesn’t pop up again). But I can't stop. I'll take a small piece. I promise to eat only it... and then no, no».

But they are unable to stop. It is not for nothing that there is a harsh but fair term “food as a drug”. For such people, every meal is accompanied by a painful struggle to stop on time. It is this category of people who benefit from eating 3 times a day..

Which category do you belong to?

Only the person himself can answer this question perfectly. You need to carefully analyze your diet and psycho-emotional state during the day. And evaluate how related they are to food. If your mood largely depends on the number of meals. And once you sit down at the table, it’s impossible to resist eating more and more. Most likely, food addiction makes itself felt.

Food addiction is the compulsive consumption of food not to satisfy hunger, but to improve mood, leading to health problems

To figure out which category you belong to, do an experiment for a week:

1. measure your weight daily - this should become a habit;
2. experiment - eat 3 times one day (naturally, the food intake will be larger in volume and calorie content). And the next day try a 6-meal diet.

And watch your condition. Then you yourself will be able to answer which acceptable diet is right for you.

Yes, in the modern world, sometimes it is impossible to follow the rules of eating at the same time. There's no need to feel guilty that I didn't eat right today. It's better to learn to be flexible. And treats life situations with understanding.

« Yes, I was busy today. Today I ate something tasty and healthy for my body 3 times. Tomorrow my day will not be so busy and I will be able to return to my normal diet" Calm yourself down. If you start blaming yourself, you will do more harm to your body.

What breaks should you take between meals?

For most people, fasting for more than 3-4 hours is undoubtedly harmful and leads to an eating disorder. After this, you can easily break down and mindlessly eat everything, increasing your daily caloric intake significantly.

A fasting break - a break between meals - should not be longer than 6 hours

But, if you eat 3 times a day and this diet suits you, and the scales show an adequate figure, then this is your diet. And then this hungry pause is of secondary importance. Because 3 meals a day, as I wrote above, are suitable for a small number of people. For whom 5-6 meals a day are not suitable, because at each meal they eat as much as they can fit in :)

If you have had a snack with fast carbohydrates, for example, chocolate or some kind of dessert. Then fast carbohydrates will lead to hunger in 20-30 minutes. This is a simple physiological mechanism. After consuming fast carbohydrates, sugar enters the bloodstream as quickly as possible. Accordingly, the pancreas is forced to release insulin in large quantities. It allows you to remove glucose from the blood and send it to the right places (muscles, liver, etc.).

But, on the other hand, the rapid release of insulin leads to the fact that glucose begins to sharply leave the blood. And many people call the absence of glucose in the blood with one understandable and terrible word “zhor”. That is why if the snack consists of only one chocolate bar, sweets, sweet dried fruits, which are 100% glucose, there is a high risk that you will worsen your hunger. And literally after 20-30 minutes you will want to munch on something else.

This will not lead to anything good. And, especially if you are losing weight, then fast carbohydrates (sweets, etc.) should always be consumed after a full, varied meal. Where there are vegetables, fruits, side dishes, meat or fish.

Serving sizes

The average person's daily caloric intake ranges from 1500 to 3000 kcal. They need to be obtained from meat, grains, vegetables and fruits. Portions can be voluminous, but low in calories.

Eating involves the well-known plate rule: 25% meat, 25% side dish and 50% vegetables and fruits

There are many principles of nutrition - the “palm” rule or no more than 200 grams at a time, and so on. Some people are starting to follow them. The main thing to remember is that any rule must meet the most important criterion: “ Complied with for the rest of my life and was as less restrictive as possible" Therefore, do not try to set strict prohibitions and restrictions for yourself. You will not be able to comply with all of them always and will definitely “break down”. Learn to feel and be flexible in creating your diet.

Is it harmful to eat once a day?

Throughout human evolution, our digestive tract is not adapted to a single meal. Yes, there are many examples in nature where such nutrition is acceptable. But this definitely does not apply to humans.

Therefore, remember, eating once a day will bring you health problems. The mechanism in our body will work according to the principle “where it is thin, it breaks.” For some it is overweight, for others it is indigestion, gastrointestinal diseases, cardiovascular diseases and many others. It's guaranteed. Therefore, you need to eat regularly.

Remember, our body is given to us once. Refuel it regularly

It is often written on the Internet that in prehistoric times it was not possible to adhere to such a fractional food system. So they killed the mammoth and ate their fill. And then they sat on the branches and waited for the next hunt. This is the famous obesity gene theory. Which says that people, starting from the primitive communal system, survived those who had a tendency to store energy. Because food was quite rare. And in fact, they spanked the mammoth once, it had to be eaten, put aside. Because it’s unknown whether you’ll be lucky enough to find a mammoth next time... or whether they’ve already eaten them all :)
But recently, another authoritative theory has emerged, which arose during the study of the life of the Australian aborigines. They still lead a primitive communal lifestyle. According to it, throughout human history, people who do not have the obesity gene have survived. And they do not have a tendency to store energy in the form of fat deposits. In prehistoric times, people with greater weight moved worse and were unable to escape from predators. Simply, they were gobbled up first.

But we will not discuss the issue of calorie content in this article; we will only talk about the frequency of meals.

We constantly hear the very common advice to eat as often as possible and are accustomed to perceive it as an optional wish. But in fact, losing weight without following this rule will be much more difficult.

To explain the reasons, it is necessary to delve a little deeper into the processes that occur in our body.

In most popular articles, the authors limit themselves to a list of tips, avoiding descriptions of biochemical processes.
But without understanding what is happening in your body, it is extremely difficult to follow any recommendations for a long time.

A person is a thinking creature, and if he doesn’t see the meaning in something, he stops engaging in nonsense. Therefore, let’s delve into the details of the processes occurring in our body.

How do you think the body understands that it needs to eat? Why do you begin to feel hungry within an hour after eating certain foods, but after eating other foods you feel full for 5 or even 6 hours?

Let's start from the very beginning.

Normal cell functioning
nervous system,
muscles,
brain
is possible only if the influx of glucose to them meets their energy needs.
This is achieved when a person contains an average of 1 g (0.8-1.2 g) of glucose per liter of blood.

But blood is not a storehouse of substances, but a carrier of them in very limited quantities.
Glucose reserves in the circulating blood are sufficient to nourish tissues for 3-5 minutes. Since periodic meals do not provide a constant and uniform flow of glucose from the intestines into the blood, We have a “glucose storage facility.”

The stored form of glucose is glycogen.
These reserves are stored in the liver and replenish the loss of glucose from the blood in quantities equivalent to its consumption by tissues.
Glycogen synthesis and consumption are constant functions of the liver.

What does this have to do with losing weight?
Everything is very simple!
When blood glucose levels drop below normal, we feel hungry.
and when the blood glucose level increases above normal - excess is removed from the blood and stored in glycogen and/or fat.

Everyone knows that in order to lose weight and stay slim, you should not eat too much sweet, fatty or starchy foods. Sweet buns, cakes and chips are the main enemies of a good figure! Therefore, some foods should be eaten as little as possible, or even abandoned altogether.

First of all, sugar, sauces, alcoholic drinks, semi-finished products and sausages should be excluded from the diet. At the same time, there are a number of products that are not only not harmful for those losing weight, but also allow you to lose extra pounds.

What products are these? Let's look at several healthy eating options that can help you lose weight without effort. This includes light but nutritious meals that leave you feeling full without causing weight gain.

What foods to eat to lose weight?

Cabbage - all types

You can eat any cabbage: white cabbage, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage and broccoli, in almost unlimited quantities. This product contains a large amount of vitamins and acids, and very few calories. Plus, cabbage is an inexpensive and tasty vegetable that can be eaten raw or cooked in a variety of ways.

Salad

Leaf lettuce is another good friend for dieters. It goes well with meat dishes and helps digest protein. If you replace the side dish with lettuce at least every once in a while, this will greatly help you in the fight against extra pounds.

Vegetables without starch

As for vegetables, it is undesirable to consume a lot of legumes, potatoes and corn. All other vegetables: eggplant, zucchini, sweet peppers, onions can be consumed as much as you want. You should not eat too much beets, pumpkins and carrots, as these vegetables are very sweet.

Lean meat

Lean varieties include turkey, chicken, beef, rabbit, and lean fish. But it is not recommended for lamb and pork to eat, since it contains, in addition to animal protein, a lot of fat. The same applies to sausages, sausages and minced meat products. You can cook meat in any way (except frying) and eat it with herbs and vegetables.

Porridge and whole grain bread

Fermented milk products (low fat)

Beverages

Green tea is considered a good fat-burning drink. It is included in almost every diet, as it activates the body’s metabolism and helps you lose weight much faster. Naturally, you need to drink green tea without sugar.

You can also drink decoctions of various herbs: chamomile, mint, ginger tea. As for juices, you should be careful with them. Juices from tetra packs contain a lot of sugar and preservatives, so they do not contribute to weight loss.

Fruits

Fruits should also not be consumed in large quantities because of the same sugar. But if you want to treat yourself to something tasty, cottage cheese or yogurt with fruit will be a good replacement for cake or chocolate. This way you will satisfy your need for delicacies and diversify your Lenten menu.

How many calories to eat to lose weight?

The answer is different for each person, and you will find out if you enter your height, age, gender and desired weight into the calorie calculator. Any person will lose weight on a diet of 1000-1200 calories per day quite quickly, you can take this figure into account.

How many times a day should you eat to lose weight?

Meals for those who are planning to lose weight should consist of a full breakfast, lunch and light dinner, as well as several snacks between meals. During the diet, try to drink more clean water to make it easier for the body to remove unnecessary substances.

And remember, in order to lose weight, you don’t need to go hungry all day. On the contrary, you need to eat often (5-6 times a day), just in small portions and only “correct” and healthy foods.

Good day.

We continue to search for grains of truth in a sea of ​​conflicting information related to proper nutrition and weight loss. And such a question as the number of meals per day and portion size has still not received a clear and unambiguous answer. Personally, it seems to me that it all depends on what principles of nutrition you adhere to when losing weight.

For example, it requires a radically different schedule and size compared to . Because their goal is the same - weight loss, but their approach is completely different. For Dukan, the decrease in total calorie content occurs due to an increase in proteins in the diet, and for Protasov, due to an increase in vegetables (fiber) in the diet.

So, I’ll try to sort out popular ideas about meal times and the amount of food, depending on which system they came from, so that you have an understanding of what will be more effective with your chosen method of losing weight.

What portions and how many grams should you eat?

In most cases, when it comes to losing weight, the basic rules boil down to reducing portions, switching to fractional meals, separate meals, not eating after six, prohibiting drinking liquids during meals, avoiding starchy foods and sweets. Did you name everything? Or do you still know some common rules that guarantee you weight loss in the shortest possible time? However, such rules change over time. Remember, three meals a day was once considered the norm. And today they recommend five, and sometimes seven. Try to figure out how it is better here. I'll try.

If you are too lazy to read and are only interested in the conclusion, then I will not be original and will say right away: everything, as always, depends on the characteristics of your body. It works differently for everyone. It depends on age and lifestyle and, of course, gender. It is impossible to give one universal recipe that will work well for everyone. This is why diets exist.

A diet is an attempt to create an equally effective way to lose weight for everyone. And since we are all different, we have to take the smallest amount of food as a starting point, with which absolutely anyone is guaranteed to be able to lose weight. Not even overweight.

So let's take statements like these and try to look at them from a common sense perspective.

How many times a day should you eat

As children, we were told that the optimal amount was three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today's recommendations from nutritionists are completely different - you need to eat in equal portions, dividing them into 5-7 meals. The point here is that if you throw food into your stomach often and little by little, then the process of digestion and assimilation will proceed evenly, and not abruptly, as if you ate the same amount of food in one sitting. This is usually called fractional nutrition. How justified is this?

Different foods take different times to digest. Let’s say you started eating not 3 times a day, but 6. It turns out that the break between meals was two hours. It doesn’t matter what kind of food you eat - any food requires at least 4 hours to be digested and absorbed. Therefore, there will be no such effect that by each next meal, all the food eaten before has been completely absorbed and the body is ready to accept and digest the next portion. And there is no such thing that smaller portions are better and faster absorbed. Any amount of food will be in the digestive system exactly as long as it is needed for digestion. The only way this can help is by getting rid of the heaviness in your stomach if you really overeat. Then breaking your lunch into two parts will make it easier on your stomach.

But this, anyway, in no way relates to losing weight. If you continue to eat the same food and the same amount of it, on which you gain weight, then spreading it over the clock will not give any result.

And if you understand that it’s a matter of the amount of food and not the number of lunches and reduce the portions, then there will be no heaviness in the stomach.

As a result: frequent meals without reducing portions do not work as a way to lose weight.

What size should the portions be?

Oh, there are so many recommendations regarding this issue that it makes your head spin. “The portion should be the size of your palm,” “no more than 150 grams of food at a time,” and others.

But in fact, the important thing is not what size your plate is, but what lies on it. I have already said more than once that carbohydrates are the most “dangerous” in terms of weight gain. I don’t want to talk now about “fast” and “slow” carbohydrates and glycemic indices - about all this popular but unnecessary information. I'm talking about the property of carbohydrates, when they enter the body in excess, to be stored in the form of subcutaneous fat.

Therefore, for example, when you eat mashed potatoes with a fried chicken leg, the danger is not the fat in which the meat was cooked, but the potatoes. After all, fat is a very important element for our body - cell walls are built from it, and it makes hair healthier and nails stronger. Therefore, the fat will go to work. But if there are enough carbohydrate reserves in the body, then carbohydrates from potatoes will accumulate in the form of fat.

When to Limit Portions

To limit the intake of carbohydrates into the body, low-carbohydrate diets are usually used. This is a way of eating in which carbohydrates are either completely removed from one of the meals, or left in each, but its amount is significantly reduced. Standard advice about giving up bread, buns, pastries and sweets is essentially one of the options for a low-carb diet, because these products are just carbohydrate bombs.

And it is precisely in the case when there are carbohydrates in every meal that it is necessary to control the portion size.

If you decide to lose weight using the “eat less” method, then no wise advice on controlling portion size “by eye” can help you. Only scrupulous calorie counting can guarantee results. And this is very, very difficult.

For example, you ate one apple. Its calorie content is 52 kcal/100 grams. How many grams was your apple? And how many of these calories in an apple are represented by fiber, which is not digestible and whose calorie content does not need to be taken into account? You consumed from 30 to 70 kcal. You don't have a more precise answer. And then you ate a baked apple. Its calorie content is 46 kcal/100 grams. The difference seems to be minimal and not significant. But the baked apple loses liquid and if previously it was a 100 gram apple with 52 kcal, now it weighs 2 times less and its calorie content is 23 kcal. Do you feel how this calculation is starting to irritate?

Serving size for weight loss

That is why, when on a diet that involves counting calories, it is recommended to make a minimum list of the simplest foods and stick to it throughout the diet in order to clearly know how many calories you consume.

Let's say for your diet you chose buckwheat, chicken, tomatoes, eggs.

This means that for the next 2-3 months (or however long you are going to follow the diet), you will only eat these foods and only in one form. If you decide to boil eggs, you won’t be able to fry them for variety. Because fried eggs will have more calories than boiled ones (due to fat). The same goes for chicken and other foods. Only one type of cooking - no deviations. Because your goal on a low-calorie diet is to find out how many calories you need to consume per day to start losing weight.

In the future, you will have to eat a certain amount of selected foods throughout the week, and at the end of it, look at where the scale arrow has moved. If there is an increase or has not changed, then you need to reduce the portion size (for example, you ate 300 grams of chicken per day, but now you will need to cut it down to 200). And, of course, all products must be weighed and calories calculated. At some point, the weight will begin to decrease - this will mean that you have found the amount of calories that you need in order to start losing weight. You will stick to it exactly until progress stops. And he will stop. After all, the smaller you become, the fewer calories your body needs.

But this is, in fact, a rather large topic, let me better write a separate article on it so that I can cover all the nuances.

As a result, I will say for now: controlling the portion size only makes sense when you clearly understand why you are doing it. There's no point in reducing your serving size of pasta if you'll be eating dumplings for lunch tomorrow. This is useless because there is no starting point from which to count the calories you need.

What time should you eat when losing weight?

With time there is usually only one problem - dinner time. With breakfast and lunch, everything is more or less clear and depends on the work schedule. Breakfast is before work; there is a special time for lunch. But people have difficulties with dinner.

In some systems, it is not recommended to eat after 6 pm, in others, no later than 2-3 hours before bedtime.

Personally, the second option is much closer to me. Because if I work until 5 pm, how am I supposed to have dinner before six? In the car on the way home? Or on the bus? And if I go to bed at one in the morning, how can I last 5 hours without eating?

But, as in all previous points, the main point in all this will not be so much time as the choice of products. If you decide not to eat after six, then you will subconsciously try to eat thoroughly so as not to go to bed at 12 at night with a sucking stomach. As a result, you will fill your stomach and walk around all evening with a feeling of heaviness in it.

You shouldn't eat right before bed either. It is necessary to give time for the stomach to digest the maximum amount of food and send it for further processing. Usually this just takes 2-3 hours.

But going to bed hungry is also not a good idea. You will toss and turn for a long time, drink water to stave off your hunger, and then go to the toilet. Agree, not the best way to spend the night.

Do you see how many nuances there are? And I haven’t told you about the choice of products yet.

What to eat before bed

Although this is easier:

• if you are on a low-calorie diet, then you need to immediately allocate the amount of calories per glass of kefir 30 minutes before bedtime (kefir “slips through” quickly, the stomach does not take long to digest it)
• if you are on a low-carb diet, then it is better to eat cheese or boiled eggs (you can without the yolk) a couple of hours before going to bed. The quantity should be such that you simply reduce the feeling of hunger, and not overeat. You can’t say more precisely here, because our bodies are too different to prescribe one specific portion)
• if your diet is vegetable, then you can eat a couple of fresh cucumbers or carrots an hour before bed. It’s not necessary before, because vegetables are also digested quite quickly.

Well, I think I noted the main points. While I was writing this article, thoughts came to write articles about a low-calorie diet with a detailed description of the choice of products and about the importance of water in losing weight. So, stop by one of these days, I’ll write a couple more useful articles.

And that's all I have for today. Thank you for your attention.