We all have heard the saying, Eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince and eat dinner like a pauper (poor person). This is popular wisdom for staying fit and avoiding obesity with a special notice on having a heavy breakfast to get your day started. A hearty breakfast supports both weight loss and may help reduce risk factors for heart disease because you are more active at the start of the day.
There’s another less known saying, Eat breakfast, share lunch with a friend, and serve dinner to your adversary. Whichever way you look at it, the result is the same: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
So, the Groß (Big in German) question is, Is 3 meals a day vital?
- Don’t be concerned about missing breakfast. The only guidelines are to eat when you’re hungry, not to overeat, and to always eat a varied and balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
- Many Intermittent Fasting adherents eat once or twice a day within 4 hours or 8 hours (eating window) while fasting for 16–23 hours at a time.
- Due to junk food and cereal producers’ marketing, many dieticians and doctors recommend eating a light snack every two to three hours. It is completely ludicrous because frequent feeding keeps insulin levels elevated.
- When insulin levels are high, fat is accumulated from carbohydrates. Leptin, or the fat-burning hormone, is triggered when insulin is low, which occurs after 13 hours of fasting and beyond. You pick how many meals you should eat.
- Lower-fat, lower-fiber diets benefit from three meals every day. Because processed meals absorb quickly, it’s best to spread the calories out throughout the course of the day. Diets heavy in fibre and fat cause digestion to slow down. It is totally normal to eat only two or one meal every day and yet be healthy.
- People can successfully operate on one meal every other day, or even go through multi-day fasts followed by a recovery period, according to those who advocate this. Not everyone is cut out for it, based on their physiology, genetics, conditioning, and diet.
- Science recommends having 4-6 smaller meals throughout the day, each one including a range of well-balanced, nutrient-dense foods. Since the human body absorbs only around 64% of the iron in a meal. The RDA for Vitamin B-12 is less than 3 micrograms per day, which is a negligible quantity. However, only a small portion of that amount is absorbed in each meal. This is why we require a diverse range of nutrient-dense foods as part of a well-balanced, nutritious diet and why eating smaller meals throughout the day is preferable.
- It also keeps blood sugar stable throughout the day, eliminates cravings, crashes, and blood sugar rises, and provides the body with a continuous amount of energy and nutrients needed to function efficiently throughout the day.
There is no proof that skipping breakfast is detrimental to health. People with diabetes, on the other hand, should consider eating a healthy breakfast or obtaining the majority of their calories early in the day.
Note: It may appear that avoiding eating is an effective approach to reducing weight, but it is not. Food deprivation is bad for your health, and you usually end up getting all those calories back – and then some – because you make yourself so hungry. Those who skip breakfast, eat little or no lunch and then eat a heavy evening meal have higher BMIs.
History of ‘3 Meals a Day’ Practice:
According to most publications and studies, the ritual or habit of eating three meals a day originated with European settlers and subsequently established the eating pattern of the majority of people worldwide.
The Ancient Greeks were the first to develop the concept of breakfast; they’d have bread soaked in wine in the morning, followed by a light lunch and a large evening meal.
However, this trend become frequent and common during Industrialization, when workers were required to conform to particular schedules set by bosses/factories. Work and relaxation periods were also negotiated as part of labour/contract discussions by unions.
There is no proof that eating 3 square meals a day benefits the body’s energy needs. In fact, missing meals and fasting may be better for your health than following strict eating routines. According to experts, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner may be harmful to our health.