Eat Five to Six Small Meals a Day

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

Let me let you in on a little secret: Despite my poker-straight hair, I'm like the girl with a curl. When my habits are healthy, they are very, very healthy. When they are not ... well ... you know.

Lately, I've found myself grazing -- skip breakfast, eat a granola bar around ten, start to get ravenous around two, binge, feel guilty, vow to do better. It's ugly. I know myself; regular, nutritious meals are the foundation of maintaining my healthy habits, probably more than anything else. The minute I start skipping meals, I'm headed for diet disaster.

With that in mind, I've decided to try eating five to six small meals a day for this week's "Walking the Walk." Though I tend to be more of a three squares and one or two small snacks kind of girl, I think this will help me get back into the habit of eating consistent, healthy meals. (Plus, it might just jump-start my metabolism.)

I aim for a 1500-calorie day, so I'm going to try and divide those calories equally -- 300 each meal for a total of five meals. If you're trying this at home, be sure to eat the amount of calories that are right for you.