Meal timing means everything, and I can prove it!

SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish

Yup, you are essentially right, but Trojan is also right, the sweeping proclamations like this are pretty silly and off base. The scientific studies showing one thing or another seeming to tend to disprove each other can be confusing. But if so, just think about the basics a little: if the body needs certain amino acids to build muscle protein that it can not manufacture itself or manufactures slowly, and you eat these protein rich foods with these amino acids only at one time of the day and are at a deficit, the result is the body will break them down for energy, leaving a reduced supply. A reduced or lack of supply cant be increased for the amino acids we can't produce, and if you are missing a piece, it will always negatively impact anabolic synthesis of muscle. What is unknown is how long these proteins could be "conserved" for, and what percent of "building time" is negatively impacted also varies accordingly. This will happen in a body builder or a couch potato who exercises, and be extremely hard to tease out how much it effects either in both cases. But, to say it doesn't matter at all is just as misleading and wrong as declaring you *have* to eat protein every 2 hours.

Whatever the impact, its not very large, and not many people eat like that, so it is just a minor detail of fine tuning things for yourself, compared to the other issues of controlling calories, getting enough but not too much exercise, and getting enough of the proper nutrients. Its also not very complicated to deal with the possible effects with what we do know: just having some protein over several meals is good enough for most people, most probably, and food is digested over hours and you get some delayed uptake as this progresses. So if you eat even vaguely balanced meals with some of the proteins at several points during the day, its probably not even much of an issue at all. The only time most would be affected is if you want to eat a steak in the AM and donuts and coffee the rest of the day and night all the time, this probably would affect you. And to see an effect, you'd probably have to eat like this for months to have much of any measurable difference.

TLDR: Ignore both extremist views and just be somewhere in between and have some good protein a couple times a day if you want to build muscle and concentrate on your exercise, calories and total nutrients instead, its easy enough.

kgeyser

There is no advantage in eating 30 grams of protein every two hours or getting the same ending amount in three meals. The body don't give a dang. You can find any study to prove a point. You can find a link to any site that goes with what you want it to.

That is entirely different than your statement "meal timing means nothing"

You are taking scientific conclusions and changing the interpretation far beyond the scope of the original discussion.

IIFYM and IF have been hijacked by some very anti-science and ill informed message board posters and distorted far beyond their original meanings. IIFYM has never meant that you can eat 100% protein at 8 am, train at 8pm and achieve maximum muscle growth. You cannot.

No, you took it that way. Yeah, I typed nothing and probably should have typed irrelevant in most cases. Anything I put in here goes for the type of people on here. You probably aren't coming to MFP if you need optimal results to walk on a stage.

I think most people on any fitness site are trying to at least get the most bang for their buck. That means some discussion of meal timing is important. It does everyone a disservice to completely ignore it because it doesnt matter to the lowest common denominator.

This is why i stay out of the nutrition section here, but saw this thread title on the sidebar and wanted to say something.

The anti-science and dogma is getting out of hand everywhere, not just MFP

FWIW, I read his post as being directed to the people who come on here convinced that the key to weight loss is to eat something small every 2-3 hours, or make sure to eat breakfast, or not eat anything after 8 pm because carbs/sugar/insulin/magic or whatever else the reason is nowadays. Not people who have specific training goals where what you eat and when would impact performance or body composition.

DeadliftAddict

There is no advantage in eating 30 grams of protein every two hours or getting the same ending amount in three meals. The body don't give a dang. You can find any study to prove a point. You can find a link to any site that goes with what you want it to.

That is entirely different than your statement "meal timing means nothing"

You are taking scientific conclusions and changing the interpretation far beyond the scope of the original discussion.

IIFYM and IF have been hijacked by some very anti-science and ill informed message board posters and distorted far beyond their original meanings. IIFYM has never meant that you can eat 100% protein at 8 am, train at 8pm and achieve maximum muscle growth. You cannot.

No, you took it that way. Yeah, I typed nothing and probably should have typed irrelevant in most cases. Anything I put in here goes for the type of people on here. You probably aren't coming to MFP if you need optimal results to walk on a stage.

I think most people on any fitness site are trying to at least get the most bang for their buck. That means some discussion of meal timing is important. It does everyone a disservice to completely ignore it because it doesnt matter to the lowest common denominator.

This is why i stay out of the nutrition section here, but saw this thread title on the sidebar and wanted to say something.

The anti-science and dogma is getting out of hand everywhere, not just MFP

FWIW, I read his post as being directed to the people who come on here convinced that the key to weight loss is to eat something small every 2-3 hours, or make sure to eat breakfast, or not eat anything after 8 pm because carbs/sugar/insulin/magic or whatever else the reason is nowadays. Not people who have specific training goals where what you eat and when would impact performance or body composition.

As you should have.

Shock_Wave

"For all newbies, MEAL TIMING MEANS NOTHING"

wrong.


just this leucine component disproves that religious statement of yours. The statement "meal timing is irrelevant" means there is no increase in protein synthesis triggered by post workout protein and/or leucine ingestion. Demonstrably false.

IIFYM does not mean you can eat 100% of your protein at one single time of the day and achieve maximal protein synthesis. you cannot. Impossible. Even Martin Berkham, the guy who popularized IF, calls for BCAA supplementation when training falls outside the eating period. That does not jive with "meal timing means nothing".

http://www.jissn.com/content/10/1/5

http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/288/4/E645

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/2/533S.full


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22357161

http://www.nutritionj.com/content/13/1/9

Practical nutrient timing applications for the goal of muscle hypertrophy inevitably must be tempered with field observations and experience in order to bridge gaps in the scientific literature. With that said, high-quality protein dosed at 0.4–0.5 g/kg of LBM at both pre- and post-exercise is a simple, relatively fail-safe general guideline that reflects the current evidence showing a maximal acute anabolic effect of 20–40 g [53,84,85]. For example, someone with 70 kg of LBM would consume roughly 28–35 g protein in both the pre- and post exercise meal. Exceeding this would be have minimal detriment if any, whereas significantly under-shooting or neglecting it altogether would not maximize the anabolic response.

Tipton et al.
small dose of EAA (6 g) taken immediately pre-exercise was able to elevate blood and muscle amino acid levels by roughly 130%, and these levels remained elevated for 2 hours after the exercise bout

Fujita et al.ingestion of 20 g whey taken immediately pre-exercise elevated muscular uptake of amino acids to 4.4 times pre-exercise resting levels during exercise, and did not return to baseline levels until 3 hours post-exercise

The next scheduled protein-rich meal (whether it occurs immediately or 1–2 hours post-exercise) is likely sufficient for maximizing recovery and anabolism


As all your studies show if you work out then EAT YOUR PROTEIN EVERYDAY for a positive muscle protein synth. or don't and have a negative protein synth.!!

stevencloser

There is no advantage in eating 30 grams of protein every two hours or getting the same ending amount in three meals. The body don't give a dang. You can find any study to prove a point. You can find a link to any site that goes with what you want it to.

That is entirely different than your statement "meal timing means nothing"

You are taking scientific conclusions and changing the interpretation far beyond the scope of the original discussion.

IIFYM and IF have been hijacked by some very anti-science and ill informed message board posters and distorted far beyond their original meanings. IIFYM has never meant that you can eat 100% protein at 8 am, train at 8pm and achieve maximum muscle growth. You cannot.

No, you took it that way. Yeah, I typed nothing and probably should have typed irrelevant in most cases. Anything I put in here goes for the type of people on here. You probably aren't coming to MFP if you need optimal results to walk on a stage.

I think most people on any fitness site are trying to at least get the most bang for their buck. That means some discussion of meal timing is important. It does everyone a disservice to completely ignore it because it doesnt matter to the lowest common denominator.

This is why i stay out of the nutrition section here, but saw this thread title on the sidebar and wanted to say something.

The anti-science and dogma is getting out of hand everywhere, not just MFP

I'd say bang for your buck also includes extra effort taken vs. the advantages it brings. Meal timing takes extra effort. I'm not going to cut my lunch into 4 and 2/7 pieces (to exaggerate) just to not "waste" any protein that might give me a slight increase in my muscle gains if the return is something like 1 pound more lbm in 2 months. I'm not in a hurry.
Most people wouldn't even see any significant difference in muscle gains between what they're doing and optimal meal timing anyway probably.

So yeah, "regular people" just trying to keep lbm or get some muscles really don't need to take the extra effort of meal timing.
If you're trying to become a pro bodybuilder or something like that and the highest amount of muscle gain in the fastest time is one of your top priorities, go ahead and time your meals.

Shock_Wave

So yeah, "regular people" just trying to keep lbm or get some muscles really don't need to take the extra effort of meal timing.
If you're trying to become a pro bodybuilder or something like that and the highest amount of muscle gain in the fastest time is one of your top priorities, go ahead and time your meals.

x2 this^ QFT

krawhitham

I think the key is just to do what works for you.

I tend to feel hungrier and eat more as a result if I don't eat every 4 hours. My blood sugar drops, I get cranky, and then ravenously hungry and I'll over eat for the rest of the day. It doesn't just work like oh, I skipped breakfast so I'll have double the calories for lunch and that's it. Nope. I have double the calories for lunch, and triple the calories for dinner because my body is in this crazy blood sugar drop then spike then drop.

Just eat when you feel hungry, peeps, and during that meal eat only what you need and not too much. It's not much more complicated than that. It gets complicated when you encounter life emergencies and work and relationships into the mix that doesn't allow you to eat when that hunger strikes :^/ At least that's what messes me up.