MYTH: Constant Grazing Boosts Your Metabolism
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myrealname
Posts: 90 Member
This is an article I just read. While I'm at work at a desk job, I've taken to always bringing a container full of raw vegetables that I can munch on at any time as well as a piece of fruit or two. Some days I eat them and other days not so much. Can that be a bad thing?
Opinions?
http://www.jillianmichaels.com/fit/lose-weight/myth-small-meals?xid=nl_LosingItWithJillianMichaels_20130617
MYTH: Constant Grazing Boosts Your Metabolism
Are six small meals really better for your metabolism, than a healthy three-meals-a-day diet? It's time to get to the bottom of this popular weight-loss myth.
The Truth: The exact opposite is true: If you keep eating small amounts of food throughout the day, you’ll never burn any fat.
This myth is an easy one to buy into, because at face value, it seems like it makes sense. By eating frequent, small meals, you’re continuously stimulating your metabolism, and thus burning more calories, right? WRONG. Here’s why:
By grazing around the clock, you’re preventing your body from burning fat. When you’re constantly eating, you’re consistently releasing insulin, which puts your body into its “absorptive phase.” Basically what this means is that the insulin in your body is storing sugar — and not letting other enzymes in your body release sugar to break down fat. The goal is for your body to be in “postabsorptive phase,” where it uses your energy stores for sustenance, and burns more fat.
Grazing can cause you to lose track of your calories consumed. When you have three, well-balanced meals a day, it’s easy to keep count of all of the calories you’re consuming and it’s much easier to nutritionally balance your meals. Conversely, when you have six, small meals — it becomes harder to count and remember how many calories you’ve eaten in a particular day. It also becomes more difficult to ensure that each time you’re eating, you’re consuming the appropriate combination of macronutrients like healthy proteins, fats, and carbs.
You’re left feeling unsatisfied. Studies have shown that many people don’t feel satiated following a small meal, which can then cause them to overeat later, to make up for it. Psychologically, grazing can leave you wanting more because you never sit down to have a full meal. Instead, I want you to eat every four hours — three meals per day with one snack between lunch and dinner. Eating every four hours stabilizes your blood sugar, optimizes insulin production and manages hunger.
The Bottom Line: Three balanced meals, spaced out every four hours — with a snack between lunch and dinner is the ideal meal plan for weight loss. Your body will use your energy stores and burn more fat!
Opinions?
http://www.jillianmichaels.com/fit/lose-weight/myth-small-meals?xid=nl_LosingItWithJillianMichaels_20130617
MYTH: Constant Grazing Boosts Your Metabolism
Are six small meals really better for your metabolism, than a healthy three-meals-a-day diet? It's time to get to the bottom of this popular weight-loss myth.
The Truth: The exact opposite is true: If you keep eating small amounts of food throughout the day, you’ll never burn any fat.
This myth is an easy one to buy into, because at face value, it seems like it makes sense. By eating frequent, small meals, you’re continuously stimulating your metabolism, and thus burning more calories, right? WRONG. Here’s why:
By grazing around the clock, you’re preventing your body from burning fat. When you’re constantly eating, you’re consistently releasing insulin, which puts your body into its “absorptive phase.” Basically what this means is that the insulin in your body is storing sugar — and not letting other enzymes in your body release sugar to break down fat. The goal is for your body to be in “postabsorptive phase,” where it uses your energy stores for sustenance, and burns more fat.
Grazing can cause you to lose track of your calories consumed. When you have three, well-balanced meals a day, it’s easy to keep count of all of the calories you’re consuming and it’s much easier to nutritionally balance your meals. Conversely, when you have six, small meals — it becomes harder to count and remember how many calories you’ve eaten in a particular day. It also becomes more difficult to ensure that each time you’re eating, you’re consuming the appropriate combination of macronutrients like healthy proteins, fats, and carbs.
You’re left feeling unsatisfied. Studies have shown that many people don’t feel satiated following a small meal, which can then cause them to overeat later, to make up for it. Psychologically, grazing can leave you wanting more because you never sit down to have a full meal. Instead, I want you to eat every four hours — three meals per day with one snack between lunch and dinner. Eating every four hours stabilizes your blood sugar, optimizes insulin production and manages hunger.
The Bottom Line: Three balanced meals, spaced out every four hours — with a snack between lunch and dinner is the ideal meal plan for weight loss. Your body will use your energy stores and burn more fat!
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Replies
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When broscience battles broscience, does anyone win?0
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I think saying:
The Truth: The exact opposite is true: If you keep eating small amounts of food throughout the day, you’ll never burn any fat.
Is just replacing one crappy myth with another crappy myth.
Making an assertion about meal frequency or meal timing and trying to apply it in a universal sense without regard to energy balance and without considering individual preferences is pretty much laughable and wrong.
EDIT: (The Bottom Line: Three balanced meals, spaced out every four hours — with a snack between lunch and dinner is the ideal meal plan for weight loss. Your body will use your energy stores and burn more fat! ) ^^^ this is just a bunch of nonsense.
That being said, evidence would point to the subject of the article being correct. It is a myth that constant eating boosts metabolism.0 -
Grazing can cause you to lose track of your calories consumed. When you have three, well-balanced meals a day, it’s easy to keep count of all of the calories you’re consuming and it’s much easier to nutritionally balance your meals. Conversely, when you have six, small meals — it becomes harder to count and remember how many calories you’ve eaten in a particular day.
Enter, MFP. If you count your calories, how can you lose track? Eat whatever you want, whenever you want. Log it and stay within your calorie limit. It's simple, really.0 -
I think eating repetitively through the day makes me get into a 'snacking habit' and I end up eating more. So whether this is true or not, I do better when I don't graze.
In Italy and France (where the food is amazing), my family members are all fairly thin and healthy - they don't snack!0 -
There is a lot of wrong in that article.......0
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This is replacing one myth with another.0
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In for potential ludicrous claims0
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If that was true, I wouldn't have been able to lower my BF% so dramatically, and I wouldn't have lost the 43 pounds I've lost since Jan. this year.
I eat constantly!0 -
Meal timing and number of meals doesn't matter
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11319656
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1905998
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15085170
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8399092
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8383639
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21123467
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/199439850 -
It does matter, if you're a diabetic. Diabetics benefit from eating smaller amounts more often. I don't believe it benefits weight or fat loss, I just prefer to graze.0
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Meal timing and number of meals doesn't matter
I was going to say the same thing. I've read so many for both sides, and then ready quite a few detailing why its really just personal preference. I prefer small meals throughout the day because then I don't feel so insatiably hungry later on or at a meal.0 -
Bull...besides an intermittent fast in the morning b/c i just can't eat that early, I graze all thoughout the day, have 18% body fat, am 40 yrs old and can eat 2000 cals per day. PHOOOEY!0
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I would def have to disagree with this article. I eat 4-5 times a day and I have lost 80lbs and I have no problem tracking my calorie intake at all. The reason I do eat several small meals a day is not because I think it keeps my metabolism burning, but because it helps to keep my blood sugar stable throughout the day (no I am not diabetic) and because of this I DON'T binge. This has worked for me, but it may not work so well for someone else, but I think it's wrong for her to say that it doesn't work for anyone.
When are people going to realize that we are all created different and what works for one person may not work for someone else.0 -
Wow....double mything. That takes talent.
OP...if you're at a calorie deficit, you're burning fat...no matter how often or when you eat. 'cuz laws of thermodynamics.0 -
I think eating repetitively through the day makes me get into a 'snacking habit' and I end up eating more. So whether this is true or not, I do better when I don't graze.
In Italy and France (where the food is amazing), my family members are all fairly thin and healthy - they don't snack!
I was thinking the same thing! I got to visit France a few years back and my host family ate three meals a day and did not snack at all! They joked about how they see Americans eating all the time. We went to a restaurant and I asked for a "to go" box and they all looked at me like I was crazy. My host mom said "That is why you Americans get hungry, because you don't eat all your food at one sitting", lol. It was so funny but I could not imagine wasting the food that was not eaten. But, I rarely saw any overweight people there. It was pretty amazing!!0 -
That's stupid. I munch all the time and lost 20 lbs in the last 3 months.
Jillian Michaels is not a good reference.0 -
I weep for insuline0
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Instead of saying this or that is the truth or a lie, test it for yourself and report the results. We have all the tools in the world to do this. You can post up a link to an article and try it, then get back and report your results.
What works for one may not work for another.0 -
Grazing throughout the day may keep you from gnawing off someone's face in a hunger induced craze. Or is that just me?0
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Meal timing and number of meals doesn't matter
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11319656
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1905998
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15085170
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8399092
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8383639
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21123467
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985
THIS. Real science not bro-science.0
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