Eat All Day Long...

When most of us hear a slogan like this one, we start jumping up and down for joy! This really is the case...Eat all day (6 meals) long to increase your metabolism and lose weight. Here is the why for eating 6 mini-meals a day: (click to read entire article)

Increase Your Metabolism

Eating 6 meals a day will boost your metabolism, helping you to burn more calories all day long. In fact, by eating super-clean, high protein foods at each of your six meals, you will find that your metabolism goes into overdrive, becoming extremely efficient at burning off calories.

Burn Calories with the Thermic Effect of Food

Frequent eating revs up your metabolism due to the thermic effect of food. This is because the breakdown and absorption of food itself requires a substantial number of calories. This is known as the thermic effect of food. Foods have a thermic effect ranging from 3% to 30%. Protein foods create a thermic effect of up to 30%. This means that 30% of the calories from foods like turkey, tuna, and salmon are burned simply by digesting them. Complex and fibrous carbohydrates burn about 20% of their calories through digestion. This includes broccoli, spinach, corn, green beans, etc. On the other end of the spectrum are fats and refined carbohydrates. They have an extremeley low thermic effect of about 3%. This is one of the reasons that dietary fat is stored so easily as body fat. As you can see, what you eat matters even more than how much you eat.

Maintain Peak Energy Levels

You will feel 10x better by eating smaller, more frequent meals. Your energy level will soar and your hunger cravings will be destroyed. This is because eating 5 to 6 meals per day helps maintain a balanced blood sugar level, preventing hunger attacks. This is in direct contrast to the calorie depriving diets that send your blood sugar levels into havoc, with too many peaks and valleys.

Build Muscle

You will also find it easier to build and maintain muscle. The more muscle you develop, the faster your metabolism becomes. Frequent meals help promote muscle growth by regulating insulin levels and providing a steady flow of amino acids into the muscle cells. By eating approximately every three hours you are constantly delivering a steady output of insulin, which is necessary for muscle growth and glycogen storage. Insulin plays a major role in transporting glucose and amino acids into the muscle cells where they can then be used for recovery and muscle growth. Are you starting to see the many benefits of eating 6 meals a day? Frequent meals also allow for more efficient use of vitamins and minerals. Your body simply becomes much more effective at processing these vital nutrients. To reap the full benefit of this lifestyle, be sure that you eat on a consistent schedule. This requires a bit of meal planning, but it is certainly worth it. It is very important to get your body into the habit of knowing when it will be supplied with nutrients. This way, your body won't fall into dreaded hunger attacks and cravings. Instead, it will always know that a steady flow of nutrients will soon to be supplied.

The key is to center your diet around lean protein, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats. By eating 5 to 6 small meals per day, you will increase your energy levels, accelerate muscle growth, and speed up your metabolism without storing fat. In fact, frequent eating will actually allow you to eat up to 50% more calories without storing an ounce of it as fat. To really burn the fat, you will need to combine this healthy eating plan with cardio work and strength training. Using these 3 techniques, you can turn your body into a fat-burning machine.

To start living this way, I have planned my meals out for the day. I basically know what and when I am going to eat. My snacks will be 100-200 calories (depending on how hard I exercised) and and meals will be 300- 400 calories.

I hope this helps! Praying for each one of you today!