Hi, I typically eat lunch and dinner each day, but I have no time for breakfast. I understand that I need to watch my calories in order to lose weight effectively. But, my question is, other than eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, is it bad, or considered 'extra calories' to snack on something in between the three main meals? The snack is nothing like high carb foods or high calorie foods, rather, it is something like one or two cups of vegetable juice, a cup of yogurt, or maybe a smoothie, which may contain some calories. Would eating those 'extra calories' but not considered 'unhealthy foods' affect weight loss?

Thank you.

I recommend checking out On Topic board's sticky "The Importance of Meal frequency"

But the short answer is that the most important thing is how many calories you get, not when you eat them.

You should know how much 'some calories' are though. Obviously if you eat enough snacks to take more calories in than you burn during the day, you won't lose any weight. I personally use fitday.com to figure out exactly how much I'm eating - that way you can plan your snacks and meals to meet your goals.

Yeah, so you're saying regardless of the type of snack, whether healthy and full of nutrients or unhealthy, as long as it has calories, I still need to watch it.

I'm not sure you're quite getting the concept!

If by "extra calories" you mean calories above what you need to be eating to lose weight, then yes, that's going to affect your weight loss.

If you mean dividing your calories into meals and snacks vs. just 3 meals a day or whatever, no, it doesn't matter.

The ONLY thing that matters is total number of calories over the course of the day. You can eat all of your calories at one meal, if you want. You can eat them in 3 meals. YOu can eat them in 3 meals and snacks. You can have 6 small meals.

But if you add in "extra calories" by eating more than you need, then you're not going to lose weight.

I'm aware of that, but I just wanted to make sure that even healthy nutritious foods such as fresh green vegetables can turn into extra calories which will prevent weight loss. Therefore regardless of the type of food, calories are still calories... I see.

Thank you.

Wait.
Food doesn't "turn into calories". Food has calories - it's a unit of measurement.

Look at it this way - think of a measuring cup. It's a 2 cup measuring cup. You can pour in 2 cups of coke, or 2 cups of juice, or 2 cups of flour ... it's still only going to hold 2 cups.

If you pour in 2 cups and then add another 1/2 cup of orange juice, it's going to overflow. It doesn't matter that the orange juice is healthy, the cup won't hold it.

Your body is similar. If you pour in extra "cups" (calories), your body will turn them to fat. It doesn't matter if they're healthy or not. Your body will only hold so many "cups".

Oh okay, that clears everything up. Thanks.