Hey all

Does eating 6meals/day really elevate the metabolism?

I keep reading that it does, however I also read contradictory information.

One said that the added metabolism is simply thermogeniss, for example you eat 50g protein, and your body has to use 10 (or x, if you will) cals to digest it, however, the protein has more cals than 10 or x, so youre better off not eating the protein.

Or does it do something I am not aware of??
Thanks guys!
Tobias

Nope, eating 6 meals a day does not have an effect on metobolic rate.

You can eat 1, 2, 3, 4 or 16 times a day and it won't matter.

Get your required protein, carbs, fats and allotted calories for the day and that's all that matters.

Nope, eating 6 meals a day does not have an effect on metobolic rate.

You can eat 1, 2, 3, 4 or 16 times a day and it won't matter.

Get your required protein, carbs, fats and allotted calories for the day and that's all that matters.

I would only add that eating 3-6 times a day might prevent feelings of hunger compared to eating once and might be easier than eating 16 times :)

I was also interested in this subject and made a little research on this. The point here that we actually want to consider if there is a big difference in overall body way of working depending on wheather we eat 3 or 6 meals a day. Some may notice, that in fact people who eat 3 meals a day actually get up to 5 or so, as they snack between meals (get a fruit, cookie, coffee with milk, glass of juice etc between "regular" meals like breakfast, lunch and super)

so the problem that we consider is if adding one, two extra meals could change anything in our metabolism and the answer is usually no.
The whole idea of boosting metabolism comes from so-called thermogenic effect of foods. It means that digestion is just another process in our body that requires energy and some foods require from our body more energy than the other. The most energy requiring food in protein. The amount of energy that is required by organism to digest certain amount of carbs, proteins and fats is the same no matter if we divide those nutritients into 4 or 6 meals. Its still the same amount of energy expenditure needed to digest it. However, notice that high-protein diet is more metabolism boosting than low-protein diet with the same amount of calories.

Those who promote more-meal diets have their arguments as well, but they come mostly from their experience.
First of all, the argument that you need to eat more often (cut breaks between meals from 4-5 to 3 hours) to prevent body starvation is just ridiculus. Whatever you put into your month right now might start nutrishing your body not sooner than in few hours - it has to go through your stomach, digest for few hours, get absorbed slowly, than get transported to cells, than... well - it take a lot of time and the body actually stores lots of energy and nutritients to be used. In medical experiments, individuals who didn't eat for several hours did not show any signs of slow methabolism (feeling cold, rather slow motions, longer time of reaction, etc). Moreover, those who start low-calorie diets actually show signs of increased methabolism - they feel 'light', happy, fell they would like to do something. Its like a detox to their bodies
Now the reason why eating more often might affect your metabolism positively is that it can change the pattern of your behavior - for expamle, if you are cutting and eat below maintenance level than you might have problems with fighting the hunger, which is a result of your blood sugar droping. If you eat more often you can keep it on a just the level that will allow you to stay on diet for a longer time and do not cheat - people who react in this way will advertise eating more often. For other it is just opposite - if they are to stick to their diet they have to stick to 3 meals a day and nothing, nothing more. such people would believe that 'snacking' is the source of all evil in this world.
Very small and slim individuals who for some reasons have to diet down and they already require very little calories would very often opt for so-called "intermitten fasting" (IF) - I don't know if I use the right phrase here - it means that they would not eat whole day long or as long sa they could last, and than eat their 800 kcal - a total daily food intake - and again wait for as long as they can before they have to eat again.
Very large individuals who consume 6000 kcal a day would actually find it way more bearable to divide it into more than 4 meals, than eat few meals of huge size.

What should you choose than? Well, just stick to such plan that will allow you to keep your macronutirtients on a proper level, what meets the criteria of a healthy nutrition and meets your daily routine (like don't give up eating after workout meal). If eating less often works better for you - keep it that way, if eating more often - than that's the choice for you.

Eating more meals is to do with keeping you satiated throughout the day more than it is to do with increasing the metabolism. To increase metabolism, eat more food and train harder.

I was also interested in this subject and made a little research on this. The point here that we actually want to consider if there is a big difference in overall body way of working depending on wheather we eat 3 or 6 meals a day. Some may notice, that in fact people who eat 3 meals a day actually get up to 5 or so, as they snack between meals (get a fruit, cookie, coffee with milk, glass of juice etc between "regular" meals like breakfast, lunch and super)

so the problem that we consider is if adding one, two extra meals could change anything in our metabolism and the answer is usually no.
The whole idea of boosting metabolism comes from so-called thermogenic effect of foods. It means that digestion is just another process in our body that requires energy and some foods require from our body more energy than the other. The most energy requiring food in protein. The amount of energy that is required by organism to digest certain amount of carbs, proteins and fats is the same no matter if we divide those nutritients into 4 or 6 meals. Its still the same amount of energy expenditure needed to digest it. However, notice that high-protein diet is more metabolism boosting than low-protein diet with the same amount of calories.

Those who promote more-meal diets have their arguments as well, but they come mostly from their experience.
First of all, the argument that you need to eat more often (cut breaks between meals from 4-5 to 3 hours) to prevent body starvation is just ridiculus. Whatever you put into your month right now might start nutrishing your body not sooner than in few hours - it has to go through your stomach, digest for few hours, get absorbed slowly, than get transported to cells, than... well - it take a lot of time and the body actually stores lots of energy and nutritients to be used. In medical experiments, individuals who didn't eat for several hours did not show any signs of slow methabolism (feeling cold, rather slow motions, longer time of reaction, etc). Moreover, those who start low-calorie diets actually show signs of increased methabolism - they feel 'light', happy, fell they would like to do something. Its like a detox to their bodies
Now the reason why eating more often might affect your metabolism positively is that it can change the pattern of your behavior - for expamle, if you are cutting and eat below maintenance level than you might have problems with fighting the hunger, which is a result of your blood sugar droping. If you eat more often you can keep it on a just the level that will allow you to stay on diet for a longer time and do not cheat - people who react in this way will advertise eating more often. For other it is just opposite - if they are to stick to their diet they have to stick to 3 meals a day and nothing, nothing more. such people would believe that 'snacking' is the source of all evil in this world.
Very small and slim individuals who for some reasons have to diet down and they already require very little calories would very often opt for so-called "intermitten fasting" (IF) - I don't know if I use the right phrase here - it means that they would not eat whole day long or as long sa they could last, and than eat their 800 kcal - a total daily food intake - and again wait for as long as they can before they have to eat again.
Very large individuals who consume 6000 kcal a day would actually find it way more bearable to divide it into more than 4 meals, than eat few meals of huge size.

What should you choose than? Well, just stick to such plan that will allow you to keep your macronutirtients on a proper level, what meets the criteria of a healthy nutrition and meets your daily routine (like don't give up eating after workout meal). If eating less often works better for you - keep it that way, if eating more often - than that's the choice for you.

Awesome,. conclusive info.
Thanks

Have you read the book Eat Stop Eat??
It explains this, and it condones Intermittent Fasting (IF)

However, I still had my doubts.
Thanks for clearing it up, and this goes to every1 that answered so far.

:D

Tobias

Nope, eating 6 meals a day does not have an effect on metobolic rate.

When it comes to personal fitness, you should be very wary of any 'absolute' advice like quoted above. There are certainly many scientific truths about health and fitness, but the thermogenic/calorie burning effect of eating 3 large meals or 5-6 small deals per day is not among them. Try it out both ways and see how your body responds, then make the judgment yourself.

For me, eating 6 small meals per day certainly helps. My energy levels remain more constant throughout the day, which helps prevent large range swings in mood and blood-sugar levels. For others I know, it make no difference.

Just my two cents.

When it comes to personal fitness, you should be very wary of any 'absolute' advice like quoted above. There are certainly many scientific truths about health and fitness, but the thermogenic/calorie burning effect of eating 3 large meals or 5-6 small deals per day is not among them.
Are you saying there aren't any articles that show studies that 3 meals vs. 6 meals have no effect on metobolic rate?

If so then you need to do some searching.

Nope, eating 6 meals a day does not have an effect on metobolic rate.

You can eat 1, 2, 3, 4 or 16 times a day and it won't matter.

Get your required protein, carbs, fats and allotted calories for the day and that's all that matters.Yup!thats the ticket.:tu:

I understand the eating various meals a day.
But when will the body burn fat???

I like eating 3 times a day, and maybe snacks in between but small ones. I mean unless you stop eating at say 9pm and wake up at 9am you have 12 hrs of fat burning.

But during the day, do you guys think there is better times to eat your meals???


That's how I do it.
If you read EAT STOP EAT, by this guy named Brad Pillon
he says, there's a diffrence between fed and unfed states.
I think right when the body is about to burn fat you down oatmeal egg whites and peanut butter is not really optimal.

And I know what works for one doesn't work for the other,
but I've been on many cutting diets, and have been helped by so called experts and I was eating 2900cals a day. That's pure bs!!!!!!!
I'm angry I went though that.

I was spending money to eat less. Pound a broccoli, cans of tuna ....chicken breast after chicken breast.

Whatever....sorry for the rant.

ANy1 else

I'm glad I could help with my previous post

I guess I could make some comments on fat burning that you would find usefull. I didn't read the book you mention, but I've read some seriously lots of different stuff on this subject so I preety much know what you speak about. From what you've written, my first impression would be - just dump it :)
You know - people tend to look for something new, better, faster, magic pill... just because they find it difficult to do what's right, simple, but not easy to complete.

First, notice that there are some sophisticated dieting and training solutions for people with sophisticated body condition situation and only for them. The majority - and I have no reason not to believe that you are one of them - would do better if they just stick to lots of traditional stuff that is simply working just fine. Write more details on your body condition, measurements and we will try to optimise a proper diet and training for you, but don't really look for anything magic, fast or whatever.

Getting into shape and loosing fat is not a matter of some very details you need to watch, but it all comes to consistency and time... long time (you might accelerate that preety simply with stuff like crash dieting, just to get overall worse effects). It took you some time to get that gut of yours, so just accept that it will also take time to loose it.
Now here is a bunch of guidelines you can get from me:
1. Loosing fat is not a matter of finding some special magic zone, time zone, nutrition zone... it's a complex process of having proper hormones level, muscle exercise, nutritient (diet), caloric expenditure, rest, mental state, water intake, motivation, etc. Each of them is very important and you should try to keep each thing up to 90% of the "perfect" state - like with dieting - it doesn't count that much if its 5 meals or 6 or 4.5 ...really. It counts that you try to keep proper macro-, micronutritiens, calories on the right level for some very looong time (a year?) on a right level. If you fail sometimes - that's ok. Just make sure that 80-90% of the time it is preety much ok. In fact, sticking to 100% can be mentaly destroying and that's why diets allow so-called cheat meal - you can reward yourself sometimes for sticking to what's good for you. Skipping a workout could be worse for your fat loosing than not sticking to something that some dude wrote in some book to earn money

2. Whatever you do, there has been lots of people who were in the same situation, did something and succeded. We are all so very similar that if you do what they did, you will very probably get very similar results. I advice following those who achieved it healthly, legally etc. You will find lots of people like this writing in this forum.

3. To loose fat, you need to loose weight. To loose weight you need to a) eat less (calories) and b)use more calories, as a result your body will need to take some energy from your body (burn fat!)

a) eating less is tricky - you need to get all the nutririens you need (especially protein) and at the same time lower the calories level. How much can you cut the calories? That's difficult question, but a reasonable answer is to cut it as much as you can keep lifting the same weights in the gym. You will also need to include many other nutritients like fish oil, etc that will help your progress. Please read relevant post on this forum.

b) burning more calories can be simply divided into two categories: strenght training in a gym - to stimulate muslces growth, or when you cut it halps to prevent muscle loss, stimulates hormones, helps develop proper technique of exercises. Cardio training - burns calories, improves heart condition, moves coordination, breathing, etc. When you are in a good shape you can try including interval training (HIIT) into your workout plan. You will find a lot of relevant stuff also in this forum.

4. Keep a journal, take photos of yourself to see progress, find friends to compete with, sign up to a gym, tell everyone that you have decided to get in shape. Tell them about your progreess. Let them laught of you - you will be the one laughing in the end and they will gain a lot of respect to your comitment. Whenever you fail - make sure there will be people asking about your progress... you will feel ashamed to tell them you gave up, so you will not give up.

5. When you get to a gym, on a track or whatever-make progrees. Change exercises, if you can lift more than you intended - just do it, just kick the hell out of yourself every single time! Give yourself a reward every now and then. When it's cold outside, raining or whatever makes you feel not too motivated, just imagine yourself muscular, strong, giving the best of yourself running in rain or just associate great pleasure with sticking to what's good for you - a warm shower and hot tea after running in a rain? Smile of women when they see the perfect ABS you will have?

6. Stick to your workout

For me, six full meals a day is certainly beneficial. Aside from any speculations about its effect on the metabolism, I can list the following benefits I have had from this:

1. Before adopting the idea of six deliberate, structured meals, I ate very frequently during the day, mostly junk. Reducing my eating frequency to just six times in a day was the first step in applying dietary discipline. Reducing it still further would probably have been just too alien for me to tolerate at that stage.

2. By sticking with six proper meals, instead of reducing it still further, I find it not too hard to get a balanced diet overall. What I don't get in one meal I can get in the next. I know frome experience that at times when I'm forced to have only a few meals in a day, I sacrifice the range and selection of nutrients.

3. When my exercise program has called for it, sometimes my intake has been 5,000 or more calories per day. I don't want to have to polish off 5,000 healthy calories, with the required nutrients, fibre, etc, in a mere 3 or 4 meals.

4. I like structure, ritual, and action. A reduced meal frequency for me would detract from all those psychological benefits and undermine my discipline.

5. Some activities (including exercise) require the right nutrients at the right time. Failure in this department noticeably affects my performance.

6. I like eating. it's one of my favourite pleasures in the world.

There are real medical benefits from fractionating your food. I'll list a couple in a very colloquial way:

1. There is no Insulin spike since hormone levels keep mostly the same during the day which helps to prevent fat storage and diabetic/sugar related injuries.

2. Nitrogen Balance can be kept positive during the day, enhancing its "building" function.

3. People suffering from gastritis or any peptic disorder would have less Stomach's Hydrochloric Acid concentrations which would help in food digestion...

Cheers...

Are you saying there aren't any articles that show studies that 3 meals vs. 6 meals have no effect on metobolic rate?

If so then you need to do some searching.

I thought your post was curious so I took the time to search the entire NCBI Class A, AA and AAA journals and wasn't able to find an article at all about studies regarding fractioning in three or six on meals comparing metabolic rate but I really, really doubt there would be a difference.

The reason is quite simple, but since it seems you favor reading and searching which I applaud immensely, I recommend this article to you:

Basal metabolic rate studies in humans: measurement and development of new equations. Public Health Nutr. 2005 Oct;8(7A):1133-52.

You'll have a clear answer on why not only fractionating food has no effect on metabolic rate, but it has nothing to do with it at all.

Cheers...

I understand the eating various meals a day.
But when will the body burn fat???

I like eating 3 times a day, and maybe snacks in between but small ones. I mean unless you stop eating at say 9pm and wake up at 9am you have 12 hrs of fat burning.

But during the day, do you guys think there is better times to eat your meals???


That's how I do it.
If you read EAT STOP EAT, by this guy named Brad Pillon
he says, there's a diffrence between fed and unfed states.
I think right when the body is about to burn fat you down oatmeal egg whites and peanut butter is not really optimal.

And I know what works for one doesn't work for the other,
but I've been on many cutting diets, and have been helped by so called experts and I was eating 2900cals a day. That's pure bs!!!!!!!
I'm angry I went though that.

I was spending money to eat less. Pound a broccoli, cans of tuna ....chicken breast after chicken breast.

Whatever....sorry for the rant.

ANy1 else

To answer your questions:

1. Your body functions are independent of your times of consumption. I mean, your body isn't still when you eat and burns when you are not eating. Just breathing will burn 600 calories a day for example, doesn't matter if you eat or not. You don't burn fat at night just because you aren't eating at night time. Actually at night is the time when your muscles "grow" the most, since GH is secreted at a circadian rate, increasing when you sleep.

So don't worry about "when it is burning fat" in regards of time, but rather focus on "how to burn fat".

2. During the day it is better to eat your meals every two-three hours and space them during your "awake time". Just a couple of tips: Have a big protein portion before nighttime (best way is using whey protein), and don't eat much carbs, specially complex after around 5-6p.m., when your metabolic rate starts to decrease.

3. 2900kcal a day is very relative. Its a gargantuan amount for a 120lbs skinny tall girl, but its an almost starvation state for a pro athlete. It all depends on your stats, your daily exercise and yes, on your basal metabolic rate. There are a 1000 other things which determine such, but let's not get too much into detail here.

I thought your post was curious so I took the time to search the entire NCBI Class A, AA and AAA journals and wasn't able to find an article at all about studies regarding fractioning in three or six on meals comparing metabolic rate but I really, really doubt there would be a difference.

The reason is quite simple, but since it seems you favor reading and searching which I applaud immensely, I recommend this article to you:

Basal metabolic rate studies in humans: measurement and development of new equations. Public Health Nutr. 2005 Oct;8(7A):1133-52.

You'll have a clear answer on why not only fractionating food has no effect on metabolic rate, but it has nothing to do with it at all.

Cheers...
Actually I think you took my post the oposite way. My comment was directed in the way that I'm saying more or less meals has no effect on metobolic rate what so ever.

I am in the camp that X meals a day doesn't matter, calories and macros do.

if you read my post from earlier in the thread:

Nope, eating 6 meals a day does not have an effect on metobolic rate.

You can eat 1, 2, 3, 4 or 16 times a day and it won't matter.

Get your required protein, carbs, fats and allotted calories for the day and that's all that matters.

Actually I think you took my post the oposite way. My comment was directed in the way that I'm saying more or less meals has no effect on metobolic rate what so ever.

I am in the camp that X meals a day doesn't matter, calories and macros do.

if you read my post from earlier in the thread:

If that was the case, then I agree with you 100%:nod:

Sorry, I misunderstood in that case.

There are real medical benefits from fractionating your food. I'll list a couple in a very colloquial way:

1. There is no Insulin spike since hormone levels keep mostly the same during the day which helps to prevent fat storage and diabetic/sugar related injuries.

2. Nitrogen Balance can be kept positive during the day, enhancing its "building" function.

3. People suffering from gastritis or any peptic disorder would have less Stomach's Hydrochloric Acid concentrations which would help in food digestion...

Cheers...

I was going to say, the best reason to eat more meals is insulin. Frequent eating of quality foods will regulate insulin levels. Fewer spikes = better energy and regulated calorie expenditure. When I control insulin the weight just falls off and I feel better. My two pence.

I was going to say, the best reason to eat more meals is insulin. Frequent eating of quality foods will regulate insulin levels. Fewer spikes = better energy and regulated calorie expenditure. When I control insulin the weight just falls off and I feel better. My two pence.

One of the first things you recommend to a diabetic patient is to spread his/her meals during the day; its amazing the effect this has on preventing and delaying nephopathy and retinopathy in such patients.

That's very true.
I have a diabetic grandmother and she MUST eat 6 meals a day for the insulin to be stable and blood sugar issues as well (I know zilch about this).

Again, I "snack". Can be a piece of fruit with some natural pb,
things like that

I am day ~45, and I've lost 20lbs. I don't care how much is water, it just looks good on the scale:D

It's been working for me, so I will stick to it.

It's very hard to talk about this and convince ppl this or that is how it should be done.
No wonder it's such a multi billion dollar industry.

One of the first things you recommend to a diabetic patient is to spread his/her meals during the day; its amazing the effect this has on preventing and delaying nephopathy and retinopathy in such patients.

If you think about it, the diabetic is a very extreme example of why so many Americans are overweight. Eat lots of processed carbs, your insulin is all jacked up, isn't self-regulating, energy levels suck so you don't exercise, you're the michelin man.

When I was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the NHS nutritionist (who was an anorexic stick-insect of a girl) advised me to make carbs my overwhelming food source, while reducing fat intake as low as possible and seriously curtailing protein.

I'm still alive to this day: guess whether it's because I accepted or ignored the official advice?

When I was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the NHS nutritionist (who was an anorexic stick-insect of a girl) advised me to make carbs my overwhelming food source, while reducing fat intake as low as possible and seriously curtailing protein.

I'm still alive to this day: guess whether it's because I accepted or ignored the official advice?


Wow....makes me never want to go see a nurtitionist again!!

If you think about it, the diabetic is a very extreme example of why so many Americans are overweight. Eat lots of processed carbs, your insulin is all jacked up, isn't self-regulating, energy levels suck so you don't exercise, you're the michelin man.

I'm in the UK, and I suspect we're not too far behind the US in this respect (if we haven't alredy caught the US up).

Today I have this disease, which as yet cannot be cured; it can only be controlled better or worse, allowed to progress more slowly or more quickly towards organ damage, disability and death. And there's no history of diabetes in my family, so I can't blame genetics. My own bad lifestyle caused this.

The shocking thing is, as I've discovered from making several experimental changes in my diet since I first drastically cleaned it up, only a very few specific and straightforward things actually needed to be done to effect the change. But health practicioners and the government are crippled in their approach because they don't focus vigorously on those few key things, and because policy is dictated by short-termism, pessimism, and lack of courage.

I don't buy the point that multiple meals don't help. I won't argue the metabolism but if you're eating clean the volume of food gets impressive.

Most people think I eat very little because I'm lean. Then they see how much food I can eat. There is no way I'd manage with less meals unless I upped my fat intake.

I am just a beginner, but the way I see it, there are two main reasons to eat more frequently, and neither of them is overall metabolism:

1. Hunger. It can be hard to go 5-6 hours without eating anything substantial. You will almost certainly become hungry, and I find that when I am hungry I make my poorest food decisions.

2. Protein distribution. There is currently a thread on the nutrition board about a study showing that intaking a moderate amount of protein (30 g) was just as good for synthesis as a large amount. While the optimal amount of protein is likely alot higher for advanced weight-lifters, I think it makes sense that as your poor more protein into your body the marginal benefits decrease. For a beginner like me, I think it makes alot more sense to try to spread the protein out. But this is probably not that important for cutting.