Diet manuals suggest six modest meals for a few key reasons:
- Your body does require additional energy to metabolize food when you eat it.
According to the notion, your body will continuously burn more calories and your metabolism will be operating at its best if you eat little meals throughout the dat. That isn’t accurate, though.
Your body will use the same amount of calories to metabolize the meal whether you consume 2000 calories in a short period of time or 2000 calories spread out throughout the day.
Therefore, while the idea of “always eating to keep your metabolism firing at its best” seems sound in theory, the truth is quite different. - You may be less inclined to overeat at regular meals if you eat smaller portions.
There is obviously some truth to this, especially for those who have trouble controlling their portion sizes or are unsure of their recommended daily intake of food.
However, some people may find that eating six times a day is quite prohibitive and requires a lot of work once they educate themselves and take control of their food. I am certain that I do.
Furthermore, I would content that since you are having six tiny meals, you are unlikely to feel “full” and may even be more prone to consume additional calories during each snack.
This is why choosing a diet plan that suits you depends so much on personal inclination.
Despite having ostensibly rational foundations, the “six meals a day” strategy doesn’t work for the reasons you may expect (#1), and it might seem expensive to prepare and consume six meals a day (#2). Six meals a day might work well for other folks. What works for you is what matters!
If we had to eat every three hours back when we were cavemen, we would have been in major difficulty as a species. Do you believe Joe Caveman ate his evenly portioned meals by pulling out his pocket sundial six times a day?
Absolutely not! He ate when he could, endured and dealt with extended periods of not eating (no food storage or refrigeration), and his body adjusted to continue operating at its best so that he could still go out and get fresh food.
The “six-meals-a-day” weight loss method has been thoroughly contested by a recent study (reported in the NYT and emphasized by LeanGains):
Before and after the intervention, there were [no significant] differences in gut peptides ( peptide VY and ghrelin), appetite assessments, or adiposity indices between the low and high [meal frequency] groups. We draw the conclusion that, in the circumstances outlines in this study, eating more frequently did not result in a bigger reduction in body weight.
SOURCE: NERD FITNESS
