Is grazing bad? page

[Annieh]

In contrast to my usual approach of eating three meals plus a snack, lately I've found myself slipping into the habit of grazing during the day.

Even though I'm still eating primal choices, I wonder if I'm missing out on something by going down this track.

Do you think meal timing matters much?

[Damiana]

You can inadvertently eat too much during grazing sessions, and that can impede your weight loss goals, that's it methinks.

[peril]

You have a direct impact on your hormones by the frequency at which you eat. There is much in the paleo blogosphere on this point

[lemontwisst]

I am a born grazer...for me it's been a lifelong habit learned from my mother. In my experience, limiting my eating to three meals a day, nothing in between (besides black coffee, tea, water) has helped me get a handle on my insane sugar cravings, ignore cravings when they do strike and has helped me to relearn what my actual hunger signals feel like.

I second Damiana's thought that you may unintentionally eat more by grazing, and there certainly is plenty of information out there about how meal timing (or timing any eating) impacts hormone levels (gargantuan Leptin Reset thread...?). There are a lot of eating plans out there (Whole30 and No 'S' are the first to come to mind) that advocate three meals a day (or two, if you just aren't hungry enough for three) and no snacking in between. That said, if grazing works for you, hasn't hindered your goals or had a seemingly negative impact on you, I don't see the issue.

[heatseeker]

+1 for accidentally eating too much by snacking. I find that snacks don't actually satiate me, and I end up eating the same amount as I would have anyway at meals, so altogether it adds up to a higher food intake than my body needs.

[primalrob]

there is some difference in insulin response by grazing, but i'm not sure how much of a concern it is. i agree with the fact that it can lead to overeating though. i mostly graze, but i eat in a fairly small eating window so it amounts to maybe two meals if i were limiting myself to those. i figure that grazing is probably how ancestral humans would have done things...eat food as its available, not by eating before hunting/gathering, waiting for an employer provided lunch break, and then more food in the evening. that schedule is a product of agriculture. the thing is, the grazing would have been fairly moderate in amounts of food until there was something big to eat.

[sbhikes]

I don't think grazing is bad. Maybe not optimal depending on your goal. Maybe totally natural at times.

[Gorbag]

Bad for what and what is exactly meant by "grazing" here? Anyway, it depends very much of the context of your diet – and the warrior diet incorporates a grazing period for the most of the day and one huge meal at night, so doing that will probably be OK. Everything boils down to calorie input versus expenditure after all, so if you are “grazing” on fatty cheese and bulletproof coffee between the four heavy meals it may backfire on you…

[RichMahogany]

Everything boils down to calorie input versus expenditure after all

And does the type and timing of calories input not have an effect on the expenditure? And does the nature of the expenditure not have an impact on the perceived demand for calorie input? This is a less than worthless statement in the context of this discussion. Shouldn't you be drinking a diet coke?

[Gorbag]

And your point exactly? Even if it should turn out to be correct what you are saying, then everything for sure boils dpwn to calorie imput versus expenditure, and that's mean in this context that if your meals and grazing inputs are larger than you burn by activities, then you will gain weight, and if that's what you are shooting for, then go for it!

And yep, right now I am "grazing" on my usual CokeZero and lime juice, less than 20 calories to keep hunger at bay compared to your 500 calories + bulletproof...