How to Eat 3 Meals a Day: Simple Tips & Strategies

If you’re a busy, hard-working professional or parent, it can be tough to find time to cook elaborate meals.

You may have a few minutes to put something together before work, while your baby is napping, or after rushing the kids home from football practice, but that usually means you get quick, less-than-healthy food intake.

So what’s the solution? How can you make 3 healthy meals a day without spending hours in the kitchen? The answer: it’s all in the prep work and cooking methods!

In this post, we’ll talk about why it’s imperative you eat a square three meals a day, and what challenges you’re most likely to face in your modern life. However, we’ll also examine how you can prepare (literally) for success and use highly efficient cooking methods to streamline your cooking.

By the end of this page, you’ll be armed with all the tricks, secrets, and techniques you need to guarantee successful meal planning, prepping, and most of all, enjoyment!

Challenges of Eating Regular Meals in a Busy Schedule

There are so many challenges that can interfere with your ability to cook and eat three square meals a day.

One 2013 study on balancing busy lives and work found the most common reasons people skip meals includes:

• Struggling to find a balance between work and personal life tasks
• Feeling too busy with work, school, or other demands
• Inability to carve out time to sit down and relax enough for a meal
• Struggling to find time to go food shopping
• Lack of time leading them to trade off food prep for other “more important tasks”

Students, mothers and stay-at-home parents, and working professionals tended to struggle most with consistent eating because there was always something to do.

It can also be difficult to prioritize healthy eating. On many occasions, it’s easier to order food or pick up something pre-packaged or processed that requires only a few minutes’ cook time (in the oven or microwave).

Last, but definitely not least, a lack of knowledge on how to prepare healthy food is a huge challenge many people (especially young people) will have to overcome. A 2013 study on barriers to healthful eating among young adults found lack of knowledge to be as much a challenge as long work hours and a busy schedule.

All of these challenges can conspire to make it difficult to not only eat regular meals, but make them healthy, too!

The Health Benefits of Eating 3 Well-Balanced Meals a Day

There is a great deal of scientific evidence to prove that eating three (or more) meals per day is ideal for your health.

A2021 study on circadian rhythms and meal timing found that people who ate three meals and followed consistent eating patterns had better sleep habits, less weight gain, and a more positive energy balance. Regular, moderately sized meals can raise your usage of calories at rest (resting metabolic rate) and help you manage energy levels and calorie consumption more efficiently.

Yes, there is research to suggest that intermittent fasting diets can reduce inflammation, improve autophagy, increase your resistance to stress, and enhance gut health. However, these fasting diets are typically the exception rather than the rule—you only fast 1-2 times per week, or eat all three of your meals during a specific eating window.

At the end of the day, a minimum of three meals ensures you have a balance of energy and nutrients. Spreading calories out throughout the day helps maintain your circadian rhythm and regulates your sleep-wake cycle, triggers your metabolism to process food for energy, and promotes efficient blood sugar and blood lipid control.

Preparing for Success: Meal Prep Tips

Importance of Planning Ahead

The key to healthy eating comes down to carving out the time, not just to cook, but more importantly, to prep.

Preparing not just one meal, but all your meals ahead of time will ensure you have healthy ingredients easily available and ready to cook when you feel hungry. Even if you only have a few minutes to whip up something simple, you’ll have access to a lot of pre-cut, pre-planned, and pre-prepared ingredients that will come together quickly and result in healthy weight loss-friendly and nutrient-dense meals.

Morning Prep Routine for Quick Meals

The best time to prep your food for the day is first thing in the morning.

Get up 15 to 30 minutes earlier every day and spend a few minutes thinking over what you want to eat that day, then preparing for it.

Slice, dice, chop, grate, and mince anything you’re going to use in your meals throughout the day, and store it in airtight bags in the fridge. Pull out your proteins ahead of time, too. That way, you have everything ready to go when you get home. It’s easier to make smart food choices when you’ve got all the ingredients handy to whip up a healthy meal.

Or, why not take it a step farther and just cook everything in advance? You’ll find it’s incredibly easy to prepare all three meals first thing in the morning with the right step-by-step prep process.

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Prepping Grains, Proteins, and Veggies

Here’s how you can organize your morning prep routine step by step:

• Start off by setting the whole grains to cook, as they take longer. Place a pot of water on the stove to boil for noodles, and set the rice in your rice cooker. Within 20 minutes, your noodles will be ready to cook. By the end of the 30 minutes, you’ll have two different starches ready for the day.
• Next comes the meat. Salt and pepper are usually good for most meat and poultry dishes, though you can add more flavoring (curry powder, turmeric, chili pepper, taco seasoning, Cajun seasoning, and so on) to give it a bit more kick. For maximum flavor, marinade the meat for a few hours or even overnight before cooking.
• Finally, chop up the veggies that will round out the meal. Once you’ve done all this meal prep, it’s time to move on to the cooking!

7 Quick and Easy Cooking Methods

Using a Crockpot for Hands-Off Cooking

Throwing everything into the crockpot or slow cooker will allow you to prepare an entire meal ahead of time, then set it to cook while you’re at work, picking up the kids, or running errands. With 4 to 8 hours of cooking time (depending on the meal), you can have a delicious meal ready to go.

One-Pot Meals for Simplicity

Think of a beef and potato stew, lamb and potato curry, or chicken noodle soup. They’re all great one-pot meals that are fairly quick and easy to prepare!

Baking for Minimal Effort

The oven can be your best friend for bigger meals. All you have to do is spend 15 to 20 minutes prepping the food, lay it out on an oven tray, and set it to bake for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes (depending on the meal). All you have to do is keep an eye on the food to stop it from burning. The perfect option if you’re an at-home parent or professional.

Pressure Cooking for Speed

Pressure cookers use steam pressure to cook foods extra quickly. This is especially useful if you want to make a flavorful main meal (curry, pasta sauce, etc.) in less time, or using meat that would usually take longer to cook.

Grilling for Flavorful Dishes

Who doesn’t love grilling? You can make an entire meal on the grill: meat and veggies, served with whole wheat bread/tortillas. Fire up the grill for lunch and throw your dinner’s meat on as well. Use thinly-sliced meat, poultry, and fish to speed up cook time.

Stir-Frying for Quick, Healthy Meals

Stir-frying is a quick frying method that will help you to produce some delicious veggie-heavy Asian meals in far less time—perfect for pairing with rice or noodles.

Creating Nutritious Salads in Minutes

Salads are an amazing option for those who have less time to cook and want lighter, smaller meals. Chopping the lettuce, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and other veggies will take just 5 minutes or so, and you can spend another 5-10 prepping and cooking the protein (steak, chicken breast, etc.). Add in some cheese, legumes, feta cheese, croutons, and olives or avocadoes (both healthy fats) and you have a complete meal!

Sample Meal Plans for 3 Meals a Day

Breakfast: Oatmeal (made with milk, honey or sugar, and a scoop of peanut butter) with fresh berries or fruits.

Lunch: Stir-fried rice with chicken, bell peppers, onions, cabbage, and zucchini.

Dinner: Greek meat skewers (ground beef, ground pork or turkey, onions, mint, and parsley) with Greek yoghurt, pita, and a Greek salad (onion, tomato, cucumber, and feta).

To whip up this entire day’s meals in 30 minutes:

• Set your rice cooker to prep a batch of fresh rice the night before
• Set the oats to boil in water (on medium heat)
• Slice the veggies for your stir-fry into strips. Dice the onions for the meatballs at the same time.
• Form the ground meat into skewers (quicker than meatballs) and set them in the oven to cook for 20 minutes.
• Cut the chicken (thigh or breast) into strips.
• Stir-fry the rice, chicken, and vegetables until soft. Put it into a container to take for your lunch.
• Stir milk and sweetener into your oatmeal, and eat breakfast (your most important meal of the day) hot and fresh.
• Take the meatballs out of the oven. You can heat up the pita and make the salad fresh at dinner time.

How easy is that? In half an hour, you can guarantee you end up eating three meals, cook some of your favorite foods (add or remove ingredients as desired), hit all the important food groups, and most important of all, enjoy what you eat!

Tips to Maintain Consistency with 3 Meals a Day

Here are some simple yet highly effective tips to keep yourself accountable and consistent with eating three meals every day:

• Give yourself time to prep. Carving out that prep time in the morning will ensure you have all of your ingredients cut, chopped, marinading, and ready to whip up when you’re back from work.
• Prioritize dinner. Even if you have to eat lunch out of a container or at your desk, make sure to take a few minutes to put together a healthy dinner every single night. A healthy dinner cooked in large batches can make for healthy leftovers to take to work the next day.
• Prep meals in batches. Rather than just making one portion, why not make three or four? That way, you’ve got a healthy dinner for the next night, or a healthy lunch. Pre-prepared ingredients can also be mixed and matched—for example, spaghetti and meatballs can also be used for stir-fried noodles and a meatball sub.
• Buy convenient ingredients. Sliced or grated cheese, diced garlic, cherry tomatoes, pre-cut raw meat can all make cooking and planning your meals a whole lot easier.
• Plan on busy days. Think ahead to days when you know work will be extra piled up or you’ll have only a few minutes to eat. Cook for those days so you’ve got healthy meals ready to go—much better than skipping meals or eating junk food.

A bit of forethought can be absolutely game-changing for your eating habits. Shopping for, planning, and prepping your meals ahead of time can make it so much easier to cook healthy food with far less time invested every day.

Wrapping Up

As you can see, smart food prep and utilizing simpler cooking methods can help you to turn out amazing dishes in just a few minutes in the kitchen every day.

For optimum results, spend a few minutes every morning prepping the day’s meals. Have everything ready to go so all you need to do is turn on the oven or crockpot, or put all the ingredients together for your delicious salad.

The more you do it, the more you’ll come to realize that healthy eating doesn’t always require time-consuming cooking!

Frequently Asked Questions

How far apart should your 3 meals be?

Opinions vary slightly from expert to expert, but the general consensus is that you should eat every 3-5 hours (3-4 hours according to Johns Hopkins University, and 4-5 hours according to Northwestern Medicine). However, cutting long periods down to 2-3 hours and eating more light meals (with healthy snacks) may increase the thermic effect of food, leading to more calories burned throughout the day.

What should be the biggest meal of the day to lose weight?

Research suggests that either breakfast or lunch should be the biggest meal of the day to lose weight. One 2013 study on the association between meal timing and eating frequency with body mass index and obesity observed that people who consume large meals in the evening tended to have higher BMIs, but eating larger lunches protected against obesity, encouraged weight loss, and helped participants lower total calorie intake every day.

What is the healthiest time to eat dinner?

You should eat dinner no less than 2-3 hours before you go to bed. That way, your body has time to digest your food and allows for the proper post-prandial rise and fall in blood sugar levels. One 2022 study even found that an earlier dinner (5 PM, in this case) can facilitate better metabolism and increase calorie-burning.

Sources:

Is Eating Three Meals a Day the Only Way to Be Healthy?

The Influence of Meal Frequency and Timing on Health in Humans: The Role of Fasting

Timing is everything: Why eating on a regular schedule supports overall well-being