Are you a grazer or do you eat three meals each day? A recent study showed that people who ate small amounts frequently throughout the day were more likely to store excess body fat than those who ate at more conventional meal times. Humans were not designed to eat all day. Your digestive system and hormones require a break between meals. The hormones insulin, leptin, ghrelin and others are involved in regulating your appetite and deciding whether calories get burned or stored. Insulin is a hormone that signifies a well fed state. It picks up carbohydrate and fat from your bloodstream and delivers it to your muscles, liver, other cells and fat stores. Eating frequently throughout the day makes your body more likely to gain fat because most foods trigger insulin to be released. Pure fat such as olive oil, coconut oil and others are the only nutrients that don’t promote insulin release. Grazing can also eventually make your body less sensitive to insulin and leptin, meaning it releases more than it should for the same given amount of food. This is true even if you’re eating small portions frequently throughout the day (unless you're young and very active and all the food you ate is used to fuel an activity, eg. cycling). If you have lost sensitivity to your appetite hormones, it means you’re not likely to feel as full and satisfied after you’ve eaten a meal. This means, rather than eating six small meals per day, like many dieticians have advocated, it is best for most people to stick to three main meals. Of course if you really can’t stomach breakfast, there’s no need to force yourself to eat if you aren’t hungry. You could eat an early lunch, a mid afternoon snack and then dinner. Likewise, if you do graze throughout the day and you are completely happy with your body weight, blood sugar and blood fats, that eating pattern works for you, so there’s no need to modify it. In general, grazing doesn’t work well for people with syndrome X, polycystic ovarian syndrome, post-menopausal women and people who don’t do much exercise. For more information about controlling your appetite and losing weight, see my book I Can’t Lose Weight and I Don’t Know Why. Reference