What Meal Of The Day Should Be The Heaviest?

Hello beautiful people…..Let’s talk about food….:)….after all, we all eat…and we do a lot with and around meals.
…..Familiar with this quote "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper”? .. 
The quote was popular a few years ago when calorie counting became part of weight management. I agree entirely with breakfast being the most important meal of the day (I regard the first meal of the day a “ breakfast"  regardless of the time of day you have it)  because I believe it contributes to how you “kick start” your metabolism and “wake” your taste buds up.
However, eating large during breakfast with the mindset  of eating less during the day doesn't always work, studies have shown. It actually does have  the opposite effect….You tend to eat more because your body is expecting the same portion it had for breakfast. This  study  shows that eating a large breakfast will not reduce food intake later in the day but could actually add more calories to total food consumption. 
The bottom line is to watch/monitor total daily calorie intake. A "stuffed" tummy is not the same as being “well-fed”...

These are tips for "balancing our plates":

• Keeping meal portion at a minimum. 
• Maintaining  consistency in  frequency, portion (plate size), and composition are important.
• When/If you skip a meal  or 2, for whatever reason like fasting, the next meal should be your usual portion (Not eating breakfast, lunch and dinner together) . Speaking of skipping meals, especially breakfast, there are conflicting results from studies done to identify the benefits of skipping  breakfast with regards to weight management…so it all boils down to what works for your weight and health.
• The importance of having fruits and vegetable included in our diet cannot be over emphasized-(the recommended portions are 5 servings of vegetables and fruits per day). 
• When hunger calls, answer with water first.

I tend to agree with health articles that recommends  healthy diet should consist of less processed/cooked food and more of uncooked/raw food (excluding animal products, of course)……..That might be a challenge for some of us that enjoy cooking,…. but it is do-able.:)...