“eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

[MindMover]

For people with Type 2 diabetes, eating two large meals a day may be better than consuming the same number of calories in six small meals.

Some diabetes experts recommend small meals as a better way to control metabolism; others believe eating three larger meals is better. Some believe it makes little difference one way or the other.

Czech researchers randomly assigned 54 diabetics ages 30 to 70 to a 12-week diet of either two or six meals a day. Both groups ate the same number of daily calories. Then the groups switched diets for another 12 weeks. The study appears online in Diabetologia.

The differences were not dramatic, but compared with those eating six meals a day, those who ate just breakfast and lunch reduced their weight and waist circumference. Those eating fewer meals also had improved fasting glucose levels, lower liver fat content and better insulin sensitivity.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/a-meal-schedule-for-diabetes/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=health&_r=0

[hlthe2b]

1. I can agree with doing away with the large dinner.

But, heavens. If I eat a large breakfast--no matter whether low carb or high protein or high carb or whatever the makeup.... it is as if it has primed my appetite for the day. Then I am eating constantly.

I find a small breakfast, healthy mid-morning snack and late but reasonable lunch works best. Then, eating a small dinner fairly early, but still allowing a very small snack lat evening works best. I make sure every meal has an overall low glycemic index, though.

Either approach should keep insulin and glucose well controlled.

[Schema Thing]

2. just eat like a pauper. full stop.

albeit a pauper who understands the importance of whole foods and especially vegetables.

[tridim]

3. These studies that focus on one variable all suck IMO.

They never address the root causes of ailments, which is why they never work. I can guarantee diabetes symptoms will not improve by doing what the article states. It's just sad reading stuff like this.

Research "resistant starch", stop eating sugar and other refined foods, feed your gut flora, supplement where necessary and exercise. It's the only way to get healthy. It improves EVERYTHING not just glucose levels, that is the key.

[MindMover]

4. kr .. nt

[Silent3]

5. It's called "isolating variables", and it's important for research

Is it possible that you might miss some effects which only occur when changing many things at once? Possible, yes.

On the other hand, if you don't "focus on one variable" at a time, you never figure out for sure which elements in diet, nutrition, and exercise are the most crucial, in general, and for specific people or specific conditions.

There are a lot of people who think they have the simple answers, impatiently waiting for science to catch up to their supposed wisdom, but with so much different and often conflicting "wisdom" in this area, I'm afraid you'll have to be patient while scientists plod along on methodically sorting things out one variable, or maybe a few limited variables, at a time.

As for sugar: "Stop eating sugar" is hardly possibly, since some sugar naturally occurs in many foods, particularly fruit, which is certainly a good part of a balanced diet.

Avoiding added sugar is a good way to avoid excess sugar consumption, and that's a good thing, but absolutism about the issue is certainly not necessary for good health. It's absurd to imagine that chemically or biologically "added sugar" is some totally different toxic beast compared to naturally included sugars, as if it's something dangerous in the smallest traces, when your body isn't going to process it any differently than other sugars when it comes along infrequently and in small doses.

Avoiding added sugar is simply a useful rule of thumb, a convenient way without tracking nutrients and calories in detail to keep total calories from sugar down, to avoid displacement of more nutrient-rich foods, and to prevent spikes in blood sugar levels and distorted eating behaviors.

[Silent3]

6. I do practically the opposite, and my blood sugar and other health measures...

...are great. Then again, I don't have diabetes, so whether this advice might be good or not for diabetics, it doesn't particularly apply to me.

I usually eat a breakfast of about 600 calories, a lunch of about 800 calories, sometimes a mid-afternoon 200-calorie snack, 800+ calories for dinner, and then snack on this and that throughout the evening after dinner, such that I consume the most calories in the evening, between about 6-11 PM.

That may sound like a lot of calories, but I almost always burn 1000 calories or more doing exercise each day, 6 days per week, so if I don't eat that much, I'd lose too much weight. For me 3000-3500 calories/day is a maintenance diet.