3 Meals A Day

Question: Do cats need 3 meals a day? My cat eats in the morning and at night only. During the day, they are outside until I get home. Is that healthy?

Answer: Two meals a day is perfectly fine. I would be more worried about them being outside, to be honest with you. But I would only feed three meals a day if it were still a kitten.

Question: As long as I eat 2-3 meals a day and lay down and go to sleep, I will be always overweight, is that true? What should do about that? Should I not eat 2 to 3 meals a day? Should I only eat one meal a day and exercise (a small meal) That's what people do on when they're fasting. Somehow I feel eating 2 to 3 a day is a bad idea because I gain weight, and I don't stay active timewise. The best for me to exercise is in the morning or afternoon and I do want to try to lose weight but not gain muscle.

Answer: Weight loss is a simple equasion. If you burn more calories than you consume, than you will lose weight. The hard part is eating the right food and exercising.

Question: Is eating 3 meals a day (500cals each) too much for a 95 pound 5foot tall female? I do 30minutes of cardio and 30minutes of strength training 3 days a week.

Answer: no actually u might have to eat a bit more... eat as much as you want to as long as you keep doin exercize... alot of it.

Question: Does it matter if you eat one large meal a day or 3 meals a day? For instance. If i eat one large meal a day instead of 3 smaller ones, does it really matter? Wouldnt i be getting the same amount of nutrition?

Answer: You may be getting the same amount of nutrition but yes, it does matter for a number of reasons the least of all being that if you only eat once a day, you will have a tendency to over eat when you do eat because your body will be so hungry. Also, your body will think that you are starving it and therefore it will convert almost everything into fat for future lean times, ie you will gain weight. Your blood sugar will, and can, drop to dangerously low levels. You are actually better off eating 5-6 small meals per day as opposed to 3 larger ones. SAC

Question: what is the difference between eating several small meals/day and 3 larger ones? Is the only difference the ef some people say you should just eat like 5-6 small meals instead of 3 larger ones, but being in college I really do not have the money, time, or capacity to eat like that, let alone find something healthy that is cheap( I challenge ANYONE to do that), and I am sure it is the same with people who have jobs. So I was just wondering what the difference is between eating several small meals/day as opposed to 3 larger ones. Some people say it is just so that you will not feel hungry and/or snack between meals, but I personally think I do a pretty good job of making it from 1 of the 3 meals to the next without feeling too hungry and I rarely snack. So is the only real reason to have several small meals/day instead of 3 large ones to keep from feeling hungry and/or snacking, or does it also effect your metabolism? Is your metabolism negatively impacted by eating 3 larger meals as opposed to several smaller ones? Or is it more of a matter of what you eat than how often? Or is it both?

Answer: Yes, it has to do with metabolism. By breaking up what you would normally eat in three meals to five or six smaller meals, your body gets used to receiving energy more frequently and tends to use said energy more effectively (I don't know exactly why that occurs, but we learned about the general concept in health psych). Everyone is different though, and if you do well to have three meals a day, I'd stick with what works for you. As far as eating heathfully as a college student, it can be done. Frozen fruit and vegetables are just as good as raw, and they're cheaper. I'm vegan, so I'm not sure about cheaper ways to buy meat and dairy, but if you are a carbs person, staples like brown rice and whole wheat bread aren't that expensive, especially if you opt for the store brand. I usually stock up on watery veggies like cucumbers too, because they help to fill me up more quickly and stave off hunger.

Question: Why are we told to eat big 3 meals a day? It's much better to have 5-6 meals a day (every 3-4 hours), yet we are told even from when we are kids to have 3 big meals a day. Why are we told this? It's no wonder why kids snack on crap in front of the computer/TV.

Answer: Kids snack on crap in front of the TV because they see the parents in their family doing the same thing. I was watching a movie with my kids this morning, and doing the actions with the songs--they joined right in. When I sat down, they sat down. When I eat fruit, they eat fruit. Kids are great at copying what the adults do. Anyways, about eating 3 meals a day....many people don't count a morning snack as a meal. I was always told 3 meals plus a snack during recess, and one when I got home from school. I also was allowed something to eat before bed. I think it's the same now, just the experts are calling them meals, not snacks. This way puts more emphasis on eating healthy snacks, versus cookies or something.

Question: When did you start feeding your babies 3 meals a day? My son is 7 months and is about 2 weeks into stage 2 foods. He has 5 6-ounce bottles per day, and eats a tub of fruits in the late morning, and a tub of veggies in the early evening. I tried giving him 3 meals a day this past weekend, but he didn't do too well. What age did you start your babies eating 3 meals per day?

Answer: my doc says that babies should be eating 4 solids by 9 months. including the cereals and still using formula or breastmilk. don't push him too soon if he isn't ready. just introduce a 3rd food slowly. try it every couple of days and don't force him to finish it. Also it helps to use foods he already likes. I also think it is relavant when you started foods. if you started at 4 months then he should be eating a 3rd food but if you started at 6 months then it might take him a little longer to get used to it. My daughter was eating 3 foods by six months (i started at 4 months old). My son was eating 3 foods by 8 months but I started him at 5 1/2 months because he was born 11 weeks early and it took a long time to get him used to it.

Question: When should I begin my daughter on 3 meals a day? 3wks ago, she went from once a day (Stage 1 baby food) to twice a day (Stage 2 baby food). When should we transition to three times a day & Stage 3 baby food? She'll be 7mons old on the 2nd. Thanks!

Answer: Whenever she is ready and wants to eat more. However, I agree that Stage 3 foods are pointless. My pediatrician said that if your kid is eating Stage 3, they can eat Table food.

Question: What is the difference between 6 and 3 meals a day? Everyone says to eat 6 meals a day to lose weight, instead of 3. What are the benefits of 6 meals a day? Thank you.

Answer: 6 meals supposedly ups your metabolism, prevents it from going into starvation mode, and it also helps you to never fell hungry. And you get more variety in foods.

Question: Is it better for teenagers to eat 3 meals a day or 5 small meals a day? I was wondering if it is better for teenagers to eat 3 meals a day or 5 small meals a day. I have heard different things but i wasn't so sure as to which one is the best to do.

Answer: 5-6 small meals...lots of veggies and protien...drink tons of water..

Question: When did you start giving your baby 3 meals a day? My little girl has been managing 2 meals a day (along with her breastmilk) for a few weeks now (she gets baby porridge in the morning then stage 1 bolognese/veggies etc mid afternoon) and I just wondered when you started giving your little one 3 meals a day. Thank you.

Answer: Hey hun :) Rosie is 6 moths and ive just started her on 3 meals a day. She's also having yogurts after her lunch and dinner too, little fatty lol I started her on breakfast and her night time meal then just introduced lunch. She still has her formula too though. Every baby is different and ready at different times so just start whenever it feels right to you :) Ill probably get loads of TD here lol X

Question: When was your baby eating 3 meals a day? We've been on solids with Noah for about 3 weeks now. He has some veggies and some fruit at dinner time along with a bottle. At what age did your baby start eating 3 meals a day? I'm just not too sure where to go from here. He's almost 6 and a half months.

Answer: I was giving my son breakfast and dinner (2 meals a day) up until recently, like the last 2 weeks he seems to want something around lunch time. So I have just started 3 meals a day and he is 9 months old. How old is your son? Edit: At 6.5 months I wouldn't worry too much about it, the solids are just kind of experimental and an "extra" thing anyway at that point. I think for now what you are doing sounds fine. You could start to add things in for dinner such as meat or fish in addition to the veggie and try those out (if you eat meat) and breakfast you could try mixing the fruit in with some oatmeal or yogurt, another good thing for breakfast is pancakes mixed with fruit. Unless he seems super hungry I wouldn't worry about having 3 meals of solids a day so young.

Question: How much money should I alot per day for food on a trip to New York City, for 3 meals each day? I have a trip early next year to new york city for some drama school auditions and I was wondering how much money I should alot per day for food, for 3 meals each day. Since the days will be rigorous I need to keep my stregnth up so I will probably eat breakfast even though I normally dont. For lunch I was thinking either a cheap resteraunt, street vendors, or on campus(if available), and then maybe order out or a cheap place for dinner. Each audition consumes an entire day so the only meal I will really be able to fix for myself would be breakfast.

Answer: I'd say you could squeak by on $20 a day. Really! You can get a breakfast special for about $5-7, then get a burrito, pizza slice, falafel, or deli sandwich for lunch for less than $5, and there are these Korean groceries on nearly every corner in Manhattan that have a food bar with great stuff you can buy by the pound. Dojo is a good, cheap restaurant (8th St/St. marks Place between 2nd and 3rd Aves., and also on 3rd St. between Broadway and 6th Ave. They had a soy burger platter witha salad and pita bread that's the cheapest meal in town, and very good!) The East village is prob the cheapest part of town for restaurants. Benny's Burritos is good, on Ave. A and I think 6th St.. There's also Odessa diner on Ave. A between 7th and 8th. Look in the book "Let's Go NY" for more suggestions. Good luck! Be yourself and you'll do best.

Question: Where did the the idea of 3 meals a day come from? The diet books that I've read recommend eating 6 times daily. Where did the the idea of only 3 meals a day come from? If humans were in kept in a zoo exhibit, how would the nutritionist design their feeding schedule? Should all the meals be roughly the same size? What are the names for each meal? Note that "snack" implies something smaller than a regular meal.

Answer: It was introduced to suit the working hours from unions since the factories started employing workers,and it was breakfast lunch,and dinner for those working late shifts.and there's also tea breaks,between those,so you are correct to say 6 a day.

Question: What is the historical significance of why we eat 3 meals a day? Are there any historical references for this? -is it because 3 meals were a sign of wealth, if so where can one learn more about this.

Answer: This is a really great, intriguing question that is way too complex to really do justice here. But I'll try anyway. The amount of food that human beings eat each day and the timing and importance of meals and when they are consumed varies from culture-to-culture and era-to-era. How we eat today in the United States is very different from how our great grandparents ate, which was very different from how people ate when they were hunters and gatherers. Prior to the domestication of plants and animals, most people were on subsistance diets. This meant that they might literally go days without food, since they relied on what they could gather from nature or hunt. Also, because they couldn't preserve food (no refrigeration or methods of preservation), they basically had to eat as much as they could when the food was available. Excess calories would be stored as fat which could then be tapped by the body when the hunting party returned empty-handed. Once humans domesticated animals and could plant crops, people could start to control the timing of their diets better. Excess grain could be stored for later, and people could actually start to develop meals by mixing different ingredients. Bread, for instance, is not only a way of making grain more digestable, but it also allows you to consume the food over a period of a few days, if necessary. It's a very basic method of preserving food. Domesticated animals and fowl (chickens, pigs, cows, etc.) also allowed people to control the availability of food. If they needed to eat, they could slaughter a chicken. Or they could trade their excess meat or grain for other foodstuffs. Eventually marketplaces developed and people started to have much more control over their diets. However, it's important to understand that for most of human history, people have not had sizeable surpluses of food that allowed them to eat frequently. Indeed, until the 19th Century, many people might only eat once or twice a day, depending on the availability of their food and their socio-economic position. The idea of "three square" meals is really a fairly recent concept and it was shaped in large part by industrialization and the standardization of work hours. Eating "three meals a day" is partly a product of an eight hour work day, which was segmented by a lunch at the four hour mark. It also was reinforced in the US during the 20th Century by government nutrition guidelines that recommended "three squares" a day. Arguably, this idea of three meals a day has waned some in the past few decades because of the proliferation of "convenience" food, which encourges a lot of snacking (unfortunately, not always on healthy foods.) Outside of developed countries and Europe, eating habits to this day vary a great deal from culture-to-culture. Even the modern eating habits of Americans are different from current eating habits among contemporary Europeans. For example, the Europeans still tend to eat very light breakfasts, and larger lunches and dinners, which are really opportunities for socializing. In the US, because of the mobile nature of our society, eating has become a much more solitary activity, fueled by the amount of time people spend eating at their desks or on the run in the car. Unfortunately, this trend, like so many American culture exports, is becoming more common-place globally -- and people's health is generally not the better for it. The other point you made was around eating as a sign of wealth. For most of human history, only the wealthy could afford to eat frequently. So being "fat" was a sign of wealth and socio-economic status. To be thin meant that you weren't eating as often, which was usually the case for farmers and peasants. Ironically, thiness is now associated with health and affluence, and being fat has become associated with lower economic status or poverty. This is in large part do to the fact that although for most people, regardless of income, there is plenty of food to eat. Eating is no longer a problem, but eating healthy is. Eating healthy can be more costly, both in food and time, and thus it is less of an option for people with lower incomes who may not have the luxury of being able to prepare meals. Indeed, metabolic syndromes are more prevalent among the poor than other, more affluent groups. This is likely caused by excessive consumption of highly-processed, but cheap - foods and fast food. For a great examination of this phenomenon, I would recommend the book "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser. For a more detailed and scholarly look at how food and our concept of meals has evolved through time, I would recommend "Near a Thousand Tables" by Filipe Ferdandez-Armesto. I've included a look below. Best of luck!

Question: Does your 6 month old eat 3 meals a day?? My 6 month old had a well baby visit last week and his Ped. said he should be eating 3 solid meals a day. We started solids a little after 4 months old (cereal) and we are slowing introducing new foods. Right now we are at 1 meal a day maybe 2 on a good day. 3 meals just seems a bit excessive to me. He also told me that he should consume 3 meals a day and only have 24 oz. of formula and a few oz. of diluted fruit juice. Does this seem normal for 6 months old? I was thinking closer to 9/10 months. Thanks!!

Answer: No my son is not eating 3 meals a day. he is 6 months and is having lunch and dinner, for breakfast he is still just having milk. if he is happy and gaining weight u dont need to worry about giving him 3 meals a day til he is few months older.