Difference between grazing & eating 5-6 small meals?

Hello all... I'm confused. What exactly is the difference between eating 5-6 small meals (as my surgeon suggests) and grazing? for example:  5-6 meals.. 8:30 am, 11:00 am, 1:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 6:00 pm & 8:30 pm.. Feels like grazing to me. Also, what is the difference between drinking with your meals, and eating.... soup? (liquid and solids).. or cereal (again,  liquid and solids)..  or am I being a devils advocate? Thanks for your thoughts.  I posted this on another board and didn't get any answers. lol Tina

I don't think you are being the devil's advocate at all. Those are perfectly understandable questions to me!!! For me, the difference between eating 5-6 small meals and grazing is that if I ONLY eat during my specified mealtimes and NOTHING bu****er in between.  For instance, I usually eat breakfast at 7, snack at 10, lunch at 12, snack at 3 dinner at 6 and sometimes snack at 9. Now if I stick with that, I'm eating 5-6 small meals daily, But, the GRAZING comes in when I eat breakfast and then on the way to work in the car I think I have to have something, so I eat a 1/2 piece of fruit or even just suck on a piece of SF hard candy.  Then I get to my desk and start  drinking coffee with creamer (which doesn't have many calories, but does have some). Then I eat my snack at 10, but at 11:00  I give in to a handful of peanuts from a co-workers desk or just one or two chips out of a bag that someone offers me. Then at lunch I have my planned food and then at 1:00 I have another handful of nuts or a breath mint (or 2-3) and then at 2:00 I remember that I brought a piece of fruit that I didn't eat for lunch and I eat that, KNOWING that fruit cannot be bad for you!!! And at 3:00 i eat my planned snack and at 4:00...and at 5:00... and at 6:00    etc, et****il I go to bed!!! As far as eating  soup and/or cereal, I've never thought about it, and really  don't know what the difference is!! How's that for wisdom?   LOL Maybe someone else on here can answer that one for you!! Hugs and best wishes on your journey!!     Piggybabe

with grazing, you are constantly eating and not creating that feeling of being full, so you keep going back for more. when you eat your 5-6 small meals, you are able to feel full up until your next small meal, that's when you are to take in your fluids, the period inbetween. i graze on holidays.. lol hth...gina

Feeling full with my small meals is only in my dreams.  What I use the small meals for is to get in enough protein (calories) to keep my blood sugar from dropping.  Feeling full is not a reality fo rme.

To  me  5  or  6 meals a  day  would  be  planned  meals and  all  the  food  would  be  accounted  for ..  Grazing  to  me  is  eatting  the  meal  and  eatting  food  that  is  not  counted  in  your  food  plan  for  the  day  ..  You  have  no   clue  or  control  of  what  your  eatting ..  this is only my   view  and  understanding  of  it  !! 

I agree with everyone else. My 5-6 mini meals are planned, high protein meals, but when I graze its pretty much whatever is sitting on the counter that I pop in my mouth on the way thru the kitchen several times during a day. I do not get full when I graze b/c I'm eating very small amounts throughout the course of the day, but with my meals I reach the feeling of full that lasts until my next normal meal time.  As far as liquids go, when I eat cereal I don't put that much milk on it so its not like eating and drinking a 16oz bottle of water at the same time. I'm not a soup eater, but I do see your point there~I guess if you chose to eat soup then you would eat it with the understanding that it will most likely pass thru quickly so you will become hungry sooner than if you sat down and at chicken salad.

Grazing is eating when I am not hungry.  For me, I have to eat every 2 1/2-3 hours to keep my blood sugar from bottoming out.  Since my pre-WLS weight gain was caused by grazing this is a very problematic situation to find myself in.  I truly wish I could just do 3 meals a day and leave it at that, but worrying about blood sugar and having that play those old grazing tapes in my brain ...

Everyone has definied it well, I think. My take is that grazing is keeping a bowl of (nuts/chips/meat chips) on the desk and grabbing a handful every 15-30 minutes, never feeling full oir empty. The 5-6 teeny meals are usually a few oz, consumed within 15 minutes and with at least 2 hours in between.

the object is to feel full, then empty.

soup & cereal? I'm not a fan of using them regularly. if you have a chance for a nice hearty soup for dinner, go for it, but to use as a regular food source? No, because it teaches you to "drink" your food, vs chewing it, savoring flavor and textures, which is what causes your brain to feel satisfied. Cereal is largely sugar (12g in the milk, for example), and again, often a drinkable meal.

I'd rather see you eat the meat/veggies in the soup or eat the grains in the cereal as a chewable food or snack (one of your designated meals).

At least 2 hours in between "feedings" is my way of measuring the difference between grazing and eating several "little meals" a day ... I understand you being devil's advocate. I also understand being afraid to eat so many times a day because it's taking the scary lion out of the cage, trying to walk it and return it safely back to its lair. Now because I can't eat more than 6-8 oz at a time of anything other than liquids, my body needs that next feeding to fuel it and keep up my energy. Think of it like this:  Remember when you were to "turn that light either on or off... when you KEEP turning it off, you break the circuit and turning it back on burns up electricity.'  Well, my friend, that is our metabolism....  The metabolism needs to be turned on and off frequently rather than have it try to burn big meals less times a day.  It works too hard and slows down.   When I'm really in the midst of a lot of physical stuff, I'm starving for that next feeding because I've utilized all the fuel/energy the food could possibly supply (unlike grazing where I might eat more mindlessly.  There's a huge difference between need and want; sometimes we need to think/rationalize it until we figure it out.    I used to eat 1 fairly large meal a day and I was over 300 lbs; now I eat 5-6 little meals a day and am 130.  All's I know is it works.   Good luck and God bless.

grazing is uncontrolled,unmeasured, unplanned nibbling. grabbing a bite here and there out of the bag, out of the box, standing in front of the fridge. 5-6 small meals are schedulled, planned, measured, placed on a plate, and eaten at the table with a knife and fork.  they are geared towards meetingy our bodies nutrtional needs and getting the appropriate sevrings of each food group that you need for health. I have sample menus on my blog.  I dont usually sit down with a big glass of water and a meal, but I dont worry about wetting my cereal or eating soup. I also may take a tiny sip when I am eating something that turns out to be dry or too spicy.