Meals: Three a Day or Six?

If you're like me, you probably grew up eating three meals a day. Breakfast was pretty light, lunch was a little bigger and dinner was the largest meal of the day (except for Sunday's when lunch was the biggest meal). Then several years ago I started hearing about the importance of breakfast and how it actually should be the biggest meal of the day to provide you with the needed energy for the day ahead. Around that same time, researchers were saying that dinner should be the lightest meal because there'd be no time to burn all those calories before going to bed, increasing the chance of it all going to fat.

Then about 10 years ago Jorge Cruise wrote a book called The 3-Hour Diet that really turned the diet world on its head. Cruise presented a three-point approach:

1. Eat breakfast within one hour of rising.

2. Eat every three hours.

3. Stop eating three hours before bedtime.

Cruise says that eating systematically like this increases your BMR (baseline metabolic rate), increases your energy levels, and decreases your appetite. Most nutrition experts agree that irregular eating patterns can affect weight loss, but scientifically there's not a lot a proof supporting that we're better off eating six smaller meals instead of three.

Jorge Cruise is a well-spoken, good-looking, fit, charismatic guy and I think that's part of his appeal to the masses. Plus he once was overweight and used his method to lose the weight and become one of biggest fitness gurus on the planet. So, he has some street creds with the us regular folk. Who would you rather listen to, a guy in a lab coat or Jorge? Check out the clip below that gives a 10-year overview of Cruise's success.


Most scientist aren't disputing Cruise's eating plan, they're just saying that there haven't be any studies to support his theories that eating more smaller meals increases your metabolism causing you to burn more calories. One team of nutrition researchers recently concluded that whether you eat 3 or 6 meals a day, weight loss ultimately comes down to "how much energy (or calories) is consumed as opposed to how often or how regularly one eats." Basically it comes back down to what we already knew: Calories IN = Calories BURNED. If you want to lose weight, you need to shift the equation to Calories BURNED > Calories IN. So, which ever method (3 meals or 6) helps you to eat fewer total calories at the end of the day and burn more total calories at the end of the day is the method for you.

This debate of how many meals to eat made me wonder about runners. Well as a runner, I think you need to think of your body as a machine and because you're constantly running that machine, you need to be constantly refueling. I don't eat 6 meals a day, but I do eat just about all day long. To me the key is what you're eating. I usually have a hearty breakfast of oatmeal or English muffins with peanut butter and jam. Then about midmorning I'll have a handful of almonds and sometimes even a small square of dark chocolate. For lunch I'll have something like a turkey sub from Subway with some Sun Chips. Then by mid-afternoon I'm ready for a granola bar. Dinner can be iffy with a busy family, but we try to eat healthy. Even if we pick up fast food, we try to eat grilled chicken and baked potatoes or something like that. Often I'll even have a yogurt sometime after dinner. I try not to eat anyting after 10PM though. The point is that I'm feeding my body all day with good foods for two reasons. First, I'm running a lot and I need to make sure my glycogen stores are full. Second, I've discovered that if I don't have that healthy midmorning snack, then I'll gorge myself at lunch. Same thing with the mid-afternoon snack. So listen to your body, but listen carefully. Is it a craving that's calling you or is it your body saying it's time for some fuel. A handful of almonds or a cup of yogurt is great; a Snickers bar not so much.

Runners are also different in their diet needs from the regular Joe on the street who's a non-runner. Typically runners need a diet based on a 50 percent carb, 25 percent protein, 25 percent fat ratio. For more information on the speicific diet needs of runners check out Madelyn H. Fernstrom's book The Runner's Diet (Rodale Books, 2005). Look for an upcoming post reviewing Fernstrom's book on RunnerDude's Blog. Training for a marthon? Check out Nancy Clark's Food Guide for Marathoners (Meyer & Meyer Sport, 2007). Bon Appétit!