So would just eating three meals a day make you "catabolic"??

[robby67]

or just make your bf% higher than the six per day???

[bbjeff86]

it might not make you more catabolic... but it really depends on a few things, mainly your amount of muscle, and your total amount of calories (particularly protein).

Six meals is definately your best option if at all possible.

[efini84]

eating one meal a day will not make you "catabolic" as long as calories in >= calories out

other than not having to eat so many calories in a single sitting, there is no advantage to having 4,5,6+ meals a day vs 1-3

[Crunchbar]

eating one meal a day will not make you "catabolic" as long as calories in >= calories out

other than not having to eat so many calories in a single sitting, there is no advantage to having 4,5,6+ meals a day vs 1-3

i disagree, therre is more to being healthy then cals in vs cals out.
timeing also plays a big role, but cals in vs cals out is probably the biggest determinant of weight loss/gain.

If cals in vs cals out were the only thing that mattered, then why would bodybuilders and everyone do things like wake up in the middle of the night to eat, eat before bed, eat on such a strict schedule, ect.
If you only ate 1 meal a day, it will not be good, duno what would happen but it def would be far from optimal.

[efini84]

If you only ate 1 meal a day, it will not be good, duno what would happen but it def would be far from optimal.

it is only "optimal" in that instead of eating 3000 calories in a single meal is far more difficult than eating 500 calories spread out through 6 meals.


the undying theory is that metabolism is increased or kept high when consuming food every couple hours. this is false and studies have shown that.

[Crunchbar]

i disagree

there is more to it then simply cals in vs cals out.

lemmy ask you this. Have you ever heard of nocturnal feeding, or waking up in the middle of the ngiht to eat? If you could jsut load up on cals in one sitting, (ie before bed eat all the cals u would eat during the night ) then nobody would sacrafice sleep to do this!

[efini84]

i disagree

anecdotal evidence != scientific studies


provide a single study that supports the idea that metabolism is raised through increased meal frequency.

[Crunchbar]

i am not in the mood persay for an intense debate, i have however heard that eating meals more frequently does speed up the metabolism.

THere is a limit as to how many cals ur body can use in one sitting, if u overdo it to much, then ur body doesnt just wait tlel u go to sleep to use the 300 carbs it has left over, it stores them as adopose tissue and stuff like that.

Cals in vs cals out is dominantly important but when it comes to havinign all cals in one sitting vs spread out i think other factors come into play then simply the ability to down "x" cals at one time.

[burgerboy]

this one dude said it best

Net growth is the quantity of new proteins formed in muscle, minus the quanitity of proteins lost by muscle breakdown.

when do you think muscle breakdown occurs?
I'm not sure I'm gonna rally completely behind the cals in, cals out theory

[matthor]

the human body (on average) has around 80,000kcal worth of fat stores (this is visceral fat) and at rest the primary energy source utilised is fat - due to this abundance. this 80,000kcal is enough energy to run like 1,500km.

So, is eating 3 meals a day catabolic? no. Does spreading meals throughout the day help to control appetite and blood sugar, yes. should you worry too much? no.

Eat however it fits your schedule to ensure your daily calories = what you want them to for your goals - how you go about it is of a much lesser concern.

There is actually recent studies showing that intermittent fasting has positive effects on insulin sensitivity (in overweight females at least

[efini84]

i am not in the mood persay for an intense debate, i have however heard that eating meals more frequently does speed up the metabolism.

you and a way too high percentage of the people on this site heard wrong



http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpo...9&postcount=44

[noahklop]

yeah you def. dont have to eat six meals a day. 2 of my friends are much bigger, less body fat than me, and they eat like horses about 3 meals a day. I however noticed no difference when switching from 3 a day to 6 or 7. Dont get me wrong i do think it is optimal to do frequent meals just not mandatory for gains.

[johnnyironboard]

there is more to it then simply cals in vs cals out.

yep
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/md66.htm

a highlight from the link.
****In the 1950s, two researchers-Professor Alan Kekwick and Dr. Gaston L.S. Pawan - jointly conducted a study to test the theory that differing proportions of carbs, fat and protein might have different effects on weight loss, even if the calories were kept the same.

They put obese subjects on a 1,000-calorie diet but varied the percentages of protein, carbs and fats. Some subjects were on 90 percent protein, some were on 90 percent fat, and some were on 90 percent carbs. The subjects on the 90 percent protein diet lost .6 pounds per day; the ones on the 90 percent fat diet lost .9 pounds per day and the ones on 90 percent carbs actually gained a bit. Obviously, something other than calories is at work here.

[Mtguy8787]

eating one meal a day will not make you "catabolic" as long as calories in >= calories out

Yea, one meal per day def. would.

other than not having to eat so many calories in a single sitting, there is no advantage to having 4,5,6+ meals a day vs 1-3
You are an uneducated moron

--

[efini84]

--

a) post reported seeing as how you apparently lack the ability to provide support for your "argument" and instead want to resort to juvenile name-calling.

b) enjoy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Effect of the pattern of food intake on human energy metabolism.Verboeket-van de Venne WP, Westerterp KR, Kester AD.
Department of Human Biology, University of Limburg, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

The pattern of food intake can affect the regulation of body weight and lipogenesis. We studied the effect of meal frequency on human energy expenditure (EE) and its components. During 1 week ten male adults (age 25-61 years, body mass index 20.7-30.4 kg/m2) were fed to energy balance at two meals/d (gorging pattern) and during another week at seven meals/d (nibbling pattern). For the first 6 d of each week the food was provided at home, followed by a 36 h stay in a respiration chamber. O2 consumption and CO2 production (and hence EE) were calculated over 24 h. EE in free-living conditions was measured over the 2 weeks with doubly-labelled water (average daily metabolic rate, ADMR). The three major components of ADMR are basal metabolic rate (BMR), diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT) and EE for physical activity (ACT). There was no significant effect of meal frequency on 24 h EE or ADMR. Furthermore, BMR and ACT did not differ between the two patterns. DIT was significantly elevated in the gorging pattern, but this effect was neutralized by correction for the relevant time interval. With the method used for determination of DIT no significant effect of meal frequency on the contribution of DIT to ADMR could be demonstrated.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Meal frequency and energy balance.Bellisle F, McDevitt R, Prentice AM.
INSERM U341, Hotel Dieu de Paris, France.

Several epidemiological studies have observed an inverse relationship between people's habitual frequency of eating and body weight, leading to the suggestion that a 'nibbling' meal pattern may help in the avoidance of obesity. A review of all pertinent studies shows that, although many fail to find any significant relationship, the relationship is consistently inverse in those that do observe a relationship. However, this finding is highly vulnerable to the probable confounding effects of post hoc changes in dietary patterns as a consequence of weight gain and to dietary under-reporting which undoubtedly invalidates some of the studies. We conclude that the epidemiological evidence is at best very weak, and almost certainly represents an artefact. A detailed review of the possible mechanistic explanations for a metabolic advantage of nibbling meal patterns failed to reveal significant benefits in respect of energy expenditure. Although some short-term studies suggest that the thermic effect of feeding is higher when an isoenergetic test load is divided into multiple small meals, other studies refute this, and most are neutral. More importantly, studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging. Finally, with the exception of a single study, there is no evidence that weight loss on hypoenergetic regimens is altered by meal frequency. We conclude that any effects of meal pattern on the regulation of body weight are likely to be mediated through effects on the food intake side of the energy balance equation.

My comments: Ok, since nothing interesting came up on Pubcrawler this week, I decided that I'd crush another long-standing nutritional dogma (I thought about changing this from a research review to a mythbusting column but I'm going to run out of stupid myths to dismiss). How many times have you heard something along the lines of "Eating 6 times per day stokes the metabolic fire." or "You must eat 6 times per day to lose fat effectively." or "Skipping even one meal per day will slow your metabolic rate and you'll hoard fat." Probably a lot.

Well, guess what? The idea is based on piss-poor observational studies and direct research says that it's all bull****. The idea came, essentially out of a misunderstanding of the thermic effect of food (TEF) also called dietary induced thermogenesis (DIT) which are the calories burned in processing of the food you eat. While TEF differs for the different nutrients, on average it constitutes about 10% of a typical mixed diet. So every time you eat, your metabolic rate goes up a little bit due to TEF. Aha! Eat more and metabolic rate goes up more, right?

Except, let's think about that. Say we have two people, both eating 3000 calories per day. One eats 6 meals of 500 calories/meal while the other eats 3 meals of 1000 calories/meal. The first will have a TEF of 50 calories (10% of 500) 6 times/day. The second will have a TEF of 100 calories (10% of 1000 calories) 3 times/day. Well, 6X50 = 300 calories/day and 3X100 = 300 calories/day. No difference. Sure, if you increase food intake from, say, 1500 calories to 2000 calories, you will burn more with TEF; but this has nothing to do with meal frequency, it has to do with eating more food.

Which brings us, the long way around, to the above review paper which examined not only earlier observational work but also direct studies of varying meal frequency on either weight loss (during such studies) or metabolic rate. And, with the exception of a poorly done study on boxers (which I'll discuss later, maybe next week), they found no effect of varying meal frequency. None. They concluded that earlier studies finding an effect of meal frequency on weight gain (or loss) had more to do with changes in appetite or food intake, not from a direct impact on metabolic rate. For example, early observational studies found that people who skipped breakfast were heavier. The study suggested that perhaps people who were overweight had started skipping breakfast in an attempt to lose weight; not that skipping breakfast made them fat.

That is, and in keeping with last week's study (and a lot of confusing issues regarding the effect of food on bodyweight/bodyfat), certain eating patterns tend to impact on caloric intake. Some early studies actually found that eating more frequently caused weight gain, mainly because the foods being added were snacks and were in addition to normal food intake. Other studies have shown that splitting one's daily calories into multiple smaller meals helps to control hunger: people tend to eat less when they split their meals and eat more frequently. When you go too long between meals (I usually find that 3-5 hours is about the limit depending on the meal composition), you tend to get hungry and end up at the vending machine eating candy. Eating more smaller meals can also have some health benefits in terms of blood glucose control and blood cholesterol; no-one is denying that.

However, this is all tangential to the claims being made for metabolic rate. Whether you eat 3 meals per day or 6, if your daily caloric intake is identical, you will expend the same number of calories per day from TEF. And, as opposed to mice and rats, for whom everything happens faster, skipping a meal will not affect human metabolic rate at all. Quite in fact, it takes at least 3-4 days of fairly strict dieting to impact on metabolic rate; a single meal means nothing. You will not go into 'starvation mode' because you went more than 3 hours without a meal.

More practically, I sometimes wonder if the people who are adamant about 6 meals/day have ever worked with a small female athlete or bodybuilder. A 120 lb female may have a daily food intake of 1200 calories/day on a diet. Dividing that into 6 meals gives you 200 calorie 'meals'. More like a snack. 4 meals of 300 calories or even 3 meals of 400 calories is a much more livable approach than a few bites of food every 3 hours. The low caloric intake on my Rapid Fat Loss Handbook more or less prevents a 6 meal/day approach, each 'meal' ends up being nothing. I recommend 3-4 meals/day on that diet.

So, like last week's research review about the glycemic index, quit obsessing about meal frequency if it doesn't fit easily into your lifestyle. I consider 3-4 meals/day a workable minimum for most, 3 meals plus a couple of snacks works just fine too. High meal frequencies may have benefits under certain conditions but are in no way mandatory. And, in case you missed it the first time through: eating more frequently does NOT, I repeat DOES NOT, 'stoke the metabolic fire'.

[matthor]

lyle is a smart cookie

[efini84]

lyle is a smart cookie

i really like his stuff. UD2 in particular is outstanding.

[lafemmeforte]

I find more than 3 meals a day to be helpful because it helps me stay awake and relaxed, as opposed to being very energetic after a meal and crashing before the next one.

blood sugar levels are more constant at 6 meals a day, and I think most people find that helpful.

[Crunchbar]

if u read the last paragraph of lyelles post note that he says a minimum of 3-4 meals is fine. A MINIMUM!!!

could this mean that your 1 meal a day example might be an extreme that would have negative effects?

[ozigal]

the human body (on average) has around 80,000kcal worth of fat stores (this is visceral fat) and at rest the primary energy source utilised is fat - due to this abundance. this 80,000kcal is enough energy to run like 1,500km.

So, is eating 3 meals a day catabolic? no. Does spreading meals throughout the day help to control appetite and blood sugar, yes. should you worry too much? no.

Eat however it fits your schedule to ensure your daily calories = what you want them to for your goals - how you go about it is of a much lesser concern.

There is actually recent studies showing that intermittent fasting has positive effects on insulin sensitivity (in overweight females at least

i was just looking to see if anyone would bring up the control of blood sugar Thumbs up to you! I used to eat 3 larger meals a day and would find that my energy levels were very low come my next meal. Since eating 5 meals a day (one every 2 and a half hours) i've actually completely eliminated this problem.

To the op, no i wouldn't say it'll make you catabolic but you might find your blood sugar levels unstable, like i did.

[Photostic]

I am a proponent of eating frequent small meals. 6 meals a day are certainly not mandatory to achieve goals of the average person. However, meal frequency absolutely has an effect on metabolism. As someone said above, your body doesn't just hold excess calories in the stomach until it needs them again. It stores them as adipose tissue and will use the adipose tissue as well as muscle to feed itself if you neglect to do so when it gets hungry again.

Not a very scientific post, I know, but I'm looking for some studies right now.