Eating every 2-3 hours a MYTH!??? WTH!

It's not ironic, because I can back up what I say.

Jim Stoppani, PhD-Jim Stoppani received his doctorate in exercise physiology with a minor in biochemistry from the University of Connecticut. Following graduation, he served as a postdoctoral research fellow in the prestigious John B. Pierce Laboratory and Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine, where he investigated the effects of exercise and diet on gene regulation in muscle tissue.

Science proves that


1. Eat 6 smaller meals per day, not 2-3 feasts

This will ensure that you supply your body with the nutrients necessary to build muscle and burn fat.

Bonus: Your resting metabolic rate increases. It will also prevent your body from kicking into “starvation” mode, which can happen when too much time elapses between meals.

If this happens, your body will start burning muscle for energy and increasing your body fat stores, as well as slowing down your metabolism. This is the exact opposite of what you want to happen.

Don’t be one of those people that complain about their situation but never does anything to improve it. Don’t become “happy” with the status quo of being miserable. Now take action on your knowledge!
(Dr Jim Soppani)"

I had these same questions so I did some investigation and I've summarized what I found, below. If anyone wants links to the source documents or studies, send me a PM and I can provide them. So...in no particular order, what I've learned in support of eating multiple smaller meals a day:

1) Protein utilization - You cannot utilize more than ~30 grams of protein per meal for anabolic purposes. Protein consumed in excess of this amount is either used for its caloric value (not optimal because protein is a "dirty" fuel), or will be stored as fat. Individuals with protein needs in excess of 90 grams/day, and who only eat 3 meals/day run the risk of being in a continual protein deficit. The body will react to this by catabolizing lean body mass.

2) Excess thermogenesis of multiple meals - This is not a myth. It has been demonstrated that single, large meals are more efficiently processed than are multiple, smaller meals of equivalent caloric value. Another way of saying this is that it takes more calories to process multiple small meals. The difference in the caloric requirements is not trivial, and does effectively raise the metabolic rate of the individual eating multiple meals.

3) Fat storage - Larger, less frequent meals produce a greater insulin response, which results in increased fat storage.

4) Reduced time spent in energy deficit - This is related to the first point listed, but is slightly different. Consider that at any given time your body has a specific requirement for energy. It is less when you are at rest and more when you are exercising. Similarly, at any given time your body is receiving a certain amount of energy through nutrition. This level is high immediately following a meal and will taper off over time. Studies have shown that the less time spent during the day in energy deficit (and the avoidance of large deficits), the lower the amount of muscle catabolism the body will employ. Consider an extreme example of this: A person exercises hard in the morning, and eats one meal a day in the evening. Even if that meal is sufficient to cover the individual's daily caloric requirements, they will have spent most of the day in an energy deficit, catabolizing lean muscle mass, and they will spend most of the evening in a large caloric surplus, with a high insulin response, laying down fat. Think of this as reverse body recomposition. Now consider a person on the opposite end of the spectrum. They eat 5 small meals a day and they time their largest meals to be before and after their exercise period. This person can support both muscle growth and fat reduction. Ignoring that the frequent eater will have burned more calories as a result of the frequent meals, in these two example the two individuals will have engaged in the same amount of exercise and eating the same amount of calories per day, but by managing the amount of time during the day spent in extreme surplus or deficit, they will experience very different outcomes.

The slide below illustrates this. Eating Pattern 1 shows a person eating multiple small meals a day. Eating Pattern 2 shows a person eating three large meals a day. Eating Patter 3 shows a person eating one large meal in the evening. It's important to note that all three end the day at the 0 line, meaning that they all exactly covered their calorie requirements. However, each of them spent all of the minutes and hours during the day at various levels of caloric surplus or deficit. Studies suggest that Eating Pattern 1 is optimal for avoiding fat creation and muscle catabolism.


Anyway...that's what I've found, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :laugh:

I am confused about this as well. I was watching a talk show the other day and Jillian Micheals was introducing her new book and so she was talking about how she de-bunks food mths that are everywhere. One of them was that ''you should eat every 2-3 hours'' She completely DISagrees with that statement saying that its the worse thing you could do for your metabolizm because when you eat, you create insulin, and constant insulin stores fat. She strongly recommends every 4 hours.

In my humble opinion she is replacing one form of dogma with another.

See here regarding insulin:
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

Okay I came across this article in peer trainer about Myths of Eating every 2-3 hours. So which is it? 6 small meals a day or 3 meals a day!!!

Here is the article.

http://www.peertrainer.com/myth_busters_jjvirgin.aspx

What does everyone else do?

It is whatever the hell works for you.

Six small meals a day was not a recommendation that came about because of any metabolic benefit, it instead curbed hunger by keeping a reasonably steady flow of food going into you throughout the day to keep you from overeating if you had an otherwise complete lack of self control. It is the illusion of a health benefit packaged for helpless morons.

You can eat three meals, you can eat six meals, you can eat twelve meals. You can even fast for 16 hours and eat one big meal for all your calories. You can eat at night. All of this works if you want it to as long as you adhere to your ideal calorie intake.

It doesn't f*cking matter. Your body will always obey the laws of physics (thermodynamics specifically) when it comes to calories.

This was in my e-mail today. I know Shape isn't normally a credible source, but they actually put some good information in here, and one of the commenters posted some good links I know SS would approve of.

http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/weight-loss-strategies/10-unbelievable-diet-rules-backed-science