Boost your Metabolism with Mini Meals

As I have discussed multiple times in my previous articles on metabolism, eating smaller meals at more regular intervals during the day can really help boost your metabolism. In this article I discuss mini meals in more detail and how to accommodate them into your daily routine.

Planning and preparing your mini meals in advance is very important. Initially it can seem like too much effort to plan your mini meals. However, if you do not plan your mini meals you are very likely to get complacent. For example, you may decide to go to the supermarket at lunch time, purchase the ingredients for your mini meal and then bring them back to the office. On the way you pass a fast food joint and since you are hungry now you go in and buy your lunch. By failing to plan and prepare this one mini meal you have already replaced it with a full sized one.

The planning process does not have to be as difficult as you first may think. Each of the six mini meals can contain the basic ingredients that make up breakfast, lunch and dinner. The only difference is that you will break them down into smaller portions. If you are not sure of how small the portions should be in your mini meals look on the packaging for the real serving sizes.

To help you further I have outlined some ideas below that can help you on your way to planning and preparing mini meals.

1) BREAKFAST:

Breakfast is widely thought of as the most important meal of the day because it begins your body’s digestion process. Ideas for breakfast include:

• Whole grain cereals.
• Fruits.
• Whole wheat toast.
• 1 Scrambled egg.
• 1 ham and egg sandwich on half a slice of wheat toast.

2) LUNCH:

Again there are lots of options for your lunch including:

• Half sandwiches on wholewheat bread (try mustard instead of mayonnaise).
• Fruit.
• Nuts.
• Yogurt.
• Cottage cheese.
• A single slice of pizza.
• Cheeseburger with low fat cheese and no bread (occasionally when you feel like cheating).

3) DINNER:

With dinner careful planning is essential since it is often also a time when the family come together. In particular be careful that you give yourself real serving sizes and that you are not eat too much. There are too many options to list for dinner ideas here but make sure the dinner you prepare is quite healthy and contains lots of vegetables and lean proteins.

4) SNACKS:

Snack foods are essential for success when eating mini-meals. Snacks can be used to supplement your main meals, ensuring that you are eating six times a day. Some good snack ideas include:

• Fruits.
• Raw vegetables.
• Granola.
• Whole wheat snacks.
• Pumpkin.
• Sunflower seeds.
• Yoghurt.
• Low calorie popsicles.
• Frozen yoghurt.

By planning and preparing your mini-meals properly you can really give your metabolism a boost. You can either split your main meals into two smaller meals or prepare three small main meals and then supplement these with healthy snacks. As you can see, implementing mini meals into your daily routine does not have to be as difficult as it first seems. When you get the hang of it you will find it much easier and start to notice the results of your improved metabolic rate.

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If you are struggling to think up new and exciting mini-meals I recommend Meal Plans 101. This fantastic piece of software allows you to choose from 13, 339 food options to create almost limitless mini-meal plans for yourself and can be fully customised to your weight loss goals.