There are some people who may need to eat every 2-3 hours. Those are people with a particular kind of diabetes which has reached a certain level and if they eat too much food at one point, the spike in their blood glucose/blood-sugar is very high. So they have smaller meals which are spread over a period of time. But if you are trying to lose weight and think that eating every 2-3 hours will increase your metabolism and help you burn fat, I’m here to tell you that you’re doing it the wrong way and it can actually be counterproductive.

Digestion
We need to understand that a normal meal which is made up of good quality carbohydrates, the right amount of protein and the right essential fats takes anywhere between three to four hours to digest. If it’s a high protein meal that could be upto six hours. When you eat every 2-3hrs, you never give your digestive system a break. If you have a good breakfast it should be sufficient to take you right up to lunch time which may be three and a half to four hours later. That makes you invest more in your breakfast, your lunch and your dinner. You look at quality nutrient dense calories. You look at the quality of calories. You don’t look at eating every two hours to maintain a metabolism because if you have your breakfast lunch and dinner which consists of the right kind of calories which is quality and you have the right kind of ratio between your carbohydrates protein and your fat, you have sufficient energy to carry you on and maintain your metabolism.

Metabolism
It breaks down into two elements which is catabolism and anabolism. Catabolism is basically your body breaking down chemical bonds to release energy and anabolism is your body storing energy in the form of chemical bonds using carbohydrates and fats from the food that you eat to store energy for later use. So sometimes when we eat too much of the wrong carbohydrates or protein or fat what happens is we store more of this in the form of chemical bonds and if we don’t get our body into a catabolic state which is breaking down these bonds to release energy we stay fat or we get fat.

Energy
Your digestive system uses roughly 75 to 80 percent of your total body’s energy every day to break down the food that you eat. So if you’re eating the wrong calories your digestive system has to work harder which means it uses energy from you and if you eat too much of protein as well and you’re not working out the right way to do justice to the amount of protein that you’re eating you’re going to have the same problem. Excess energy loss, excess energy diversion to your digestive system. Not enough of energy to maintain your metabolism, not enough of the energy to help you burn fat, not enough of energy to help your vital organs function the way it is supposed to and then we have other issues.

Dinner Myth
There’s another myth about not eating at night will help you lose weight. That doesn’t work as long as you’re putting quality calories in your system your digestive system will still work just the way it’s supposed to work. Now if you’re going to have a heavy carbohydrate meal like one hour before you sleep you’re asking for problems definitely because carbohydrates break down into energy which you are not really going to use because you’re going to sleep. Plan your day the right way and be sensible about the way that you eat.

So don’t do the 2-3hrs eating any more. Have a healthy breakfast, a lunch and a dinner which is equal in carbs protein and fat. If you have to go low on carbs let it be at dinnertime but you still need carbohydrates at dinner.