Should I eat MORE or LESS???

[27300man]

Stats:
5'7
195
BF% mid to high 20's

My diet: Not too strict. Switched all white carbs with brown, I choose fish and chicken over steaks, and veggies. I eat about 2-3 times a day light - med serving.

My goal is to drop BF% and build more muscle. The majority of my fat is around my abdominal area. I've been reading a lot about people eating 6 meals a day to help build muscle. Should I do the same or will I only get fatter with more muscle? If I eat less I obviously will loose weight, but will I gain muscle while keeping my weight training regimen?

[gbrice75]

It's about burning more calories than you consume. 2000 calories/day (example) is 2000 calories whether it's in 3 meals or 8. However, eating several smaller meals has benefits:

You are constantly feeding your body, stimulating and firing up your metabolism. Think of a camp fire. If you don't give it fuel, it wll eventually go out. If you continuously feed it, it'll burn forever. Healthier metabolism = more fat burned and more efficient utilization of nutrients.

Letting your body go for long periods of time without food could trigger 'starvation mode', especially with a large caloric deficit. Your body will hold on to stubborn fat and sacrifice muscle. This is how we evolved to deal with times of famine. Even worse, your body could store dietary fat when present. Yes, you can ADD BODYFAT even while eating below maintenance. You might be losing weight according to the scale, but actually losing muscle and adding fat.

Finally, with regards to weight training - eating frequent meals ensures a constant supply of aminos (protein) in the bloodstream. Generally, our bodies crave protein every 3 hours or so. Why deny it?

Eat close to or even at your maintenance level, get a solid workout and cardio regimen, and you will progress.

Hope this helps.

[musclestack]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to hijack, but I just have a quick question for gbrice. G-I've noticed that you bring up the fact that you can add body fat even when in a calorie deficit in many threads. I'm not arguing this, I'm just curious. Do you have any studies that explain this? Or can you explain to me how this happens? I'm always confused with some 'weight wathcer' diets when they say you can eat things like cherry pies and such and as long as you stay in a deficit, you'll still lose weight. I totally understand why this would not be recommended in our lifestyle due to not getting the sufficient, healthy pro/carbs/fats in our diet to preserve our muscle, but how is it that people say you can burn FAT on a McDonald's diet (for example) as long as you stay in a calorie deficit? Yes, obviously you would burn muscle too, but how can they claim you can burn fat on these diets without contradicting what you mentioned above? By the way, the McDonald's thing I just threw out there......not really sure whether or not you can lose fat eating McDonald's all day, regardless of the quantities.

To the OP- GBrice will sort you out. Figure out your TDEE first. I like to use lean body mass x 15 as a starting point, which would put you at around 2,200 calories, give or take. Do yourself a favor, and spend an entire day or two researching this forum, then come back with a revised diet, listing all macros (pro/carb/fat/cals) for each meal and the daily total. He, and others will help tweak it for you to get you sorted out. Good luck, bro.

[Sgt. Hartman]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to hijack, but I just have a quick question for gbrice. G-I've noticed that you bring up the fact that you can add body fat even when in a calorie deficit in many threads. I'm not arguing this, I'm just curious. Do you have any studies that explain this? Or can you explain to me how this happens? I'm always confused with some 'weight wathcer' diets when they say you can eat things like cherry pies and such and as long as you stay in a deficit, you'll still lose weight. I totally understand why this would not be recommended in our lifestyle due to not getting the sufficient, healthy pro/carbs/fats in our diet to preserve our muscle, but how is it that people say you can burn FAT on a McDonald's diet (for example) as long as you stay in a calorie deficit? Yes, obviously you would burn muscle too, but how can they claim you can burn fat on these diets without contradicting what you mentioned above? By the way, the McDonald's thing I just threw out there......not really sure whether or not you can lose fat eating McDonald's all day, regardless of the quantities.

To the OP- GBrice will sort you out. Figure out your TDEE first. I like to use lean body mass x 15 as a starting point, which would put you at around 2,200 calories, give or take. Do yourself a favor, and spend an entire day or two researching this forum, then come back with a revised diet, listing all macros (pro/carb/fat/cals) for each meal and the daily total. He, and others will help tweak it for you to get you sorted out. Good luck, bro.

I'm sure that GB can the answer the how and why in detail but I know from experience that the body will store dietary fat as body fat when there is not enough fat present in the diet. I'm assuming that not taking in enough dietary fats puts the body in a starvation mode and signals it to store all dietary fat as body fat.

OP - it's not necessarily about eating less or more, it's about spreading your meals out evenly over the course of the day in order to maximize the thermic effect of food and keep your metabolism as high as possible. I dont remember where I read this but it makes sense - think of your metabolism as a fire. If you only add a large amount of firewood to the fire every 5 hours then it will burn down to almost nothing after 5 hours and when adding logs will smolder down and almost go out before finally eventually burning up the massive amount of logs you have added. Obviously, not the best way for maintaining a steady source of heat. But if you add a reasonable amount of firewood every 2.5 hours then you have a red hot inferno that puts out a ton of heat all day long.

It's hard to do at first, but you almost have to quit thinking in terms of only meals and snacks in the traditional sense of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and anything in between is snack. You need a small meal of lean protein and complex carb or healthy fat every 2.5 hours starting from the time you wake up. If that happens to fall during "lunch" or "dinner" then that's great but the important thing is to plan your meals for when your body needs them and not when society tells us it's the correct time to eat.





Edit: Damn, just read GB already used the fire analogy and I thought I was being original.

[FireGuy]

First thing you need to do is figure out how much you are eating. Without knowing how much you are eating there really is no way anyone can advise you to eat more or less. Now, how much you are eating does not refer to meal frequency (that can be addressed later) it has to do with total caloric intake for the day. You also need to get a fairly accurate estimate of how many of those calories are coming from each Macronutrient (Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats). Once you have that adjustments and recommendations can start being made.

[jimmyinkedup]

It's about burning more calories than you consume. 2000 calories/day (example) is 2000 calories whether it's in 3 meals or 8. However, eating several smaller meals has benefits:

You are constantly feeding your body, stimulating and firing up your metabolism. Think of a camp fire. If you don't give it fuel, it wll eventually go out. If you continuously feed it, it'll burn forever. Healthier metabolism = more fat burned and more efficient utilization of nutrients. This is turning out not to be true. apprently the effect exreted is the same. Larger meal = longer period of sustained energy - just like if you put alot of wood on the fire to begin with..it takes longer to burn out

Letting your body go for long periods of time without food could trigger 'starvation mode', especially with a large caloric deficit. Your body will hold on to stubborn fat and sacrifice muscle. This is how we evolved to deal with times of famine. Even worse, your body could store dietary fat when present. Yes, you can ADD BODYFAT even while eating below maintenance. You might be losing weight according to the scale, but actually losing muscle and adding fat. Starvation mode factors in after 72 hours w/o food

Finally, with regards to weight training - eating frequent meals ensures a constant supply of aminos (protein) in the bloodstream. Generally, our bodies crave protein every 3 hours or so. Why deny it? given rate of digestion nutrient avaibility etc..aminos will be readily avail 6+ hrs post meal.

Eat close to or even at your maintenance level, get a solid workout and cardio regimen, and you will progress. 100 % agreed !

Hope this helps.

Now i eat smaller frequesnt meals. Have for years. Its second nature. However the statements i posted in bold have recently been proven to be the case. Again not saying eating often is going to hurt you by any means...but 3 meals/day vs 6 apparently isnt going to change things one way or the other if macros are equal.
Its intruiging..i have a hard time acknowedging the above myself having subscribed to smaller frequent meals...but apparently its the truth..studies seem to show it... Guys like Alan Aragon and Layne Norton all seem to support this as well.
I dunno ..its interesting stuff...
The longer im around.... the more i learn.
OP hey maybe give smaller more frequent meals a try - it wont hurt and perhaps the satiation effect of eating frequently will make this easier.

[FireGuy]

^^ Have read more and more on this as well and the studies seem to suggest it really doesnt matter if you eat 3 or 7 meals a day as long as the total calorie intake is identical. I would still suggest more frequent smaller feedings throughout the day just for the comfort factor alone. I feel much better having smaller meals than gorging 1,000-1200 calories at one sitting.

[gbrice75]

There are constantly new studies disproving older or currently accepted norms. That's what science is about. To say the statements in bold have been PROVEN might be a little ambitious. Proven until disproven? The 6-8 smaller meals/day was also proven... see what i'm saying?

For me personally, I can't subscribe to the 3 larger meals being ok. It only seems logical that with huge amounts of calories consumed, above and beyond what the body can process efficiently, would have to create a 'spillover' - i.e. stored bodyfat and/or wasted or less efficiently used nutrients.

I'm not close minded to new ways, but i'm not quite ready to jump ship just yet. My .02

[maxwkw]

There are constantly new studies disproving older or currently accepted norms. That's what science is about. To say the statements in bold have been PROVEN might be a little ambitious. Proven until disproven? The 6-8 smaller meals/day was also proven... see what i'm saying?

For me personally, I can't subscribe to the 3 larger meals being ok. It only seems logical that with huge amounts of calories consumed, above and beyond what the body can process efficiently, would have to create a 'spillover' - i.e. stored bodyfat and/or wasted or less efficiently used nutrients.

I'm not close minded to new ways, but i'm not quite ready to jump ship just yet. My .02

I like this thread a lot. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...citationsensor here's a study relating weight loss and meal frequency.

from a lot of studies I've read 3 meals is generally better than 1, but there is little difference between 3 vs. 6 meals


Personally, I tend to perform and feel the best when I have more frequent feedings, but when they are placed later in the day. I generally wake around 7:30, but won't start eating until around 10

[Sgt. Hartman]

I like this thread a lot. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...citationsensor here's a study relating weight loss and meal frequency.

from a lot of studies I've read 3 meals is generally better than 1, but there is little difference between 3 vs. 6 meals


Personally, I tend to perform and feel the best when I have more frequent feedings, but when they are placed later in the day. I generally wake around 7:30, but won't start eating until around 10

That study was done on 8 women and 8 men who were obese. I'm not trying to discredit it, but I would like to see the same study performed on people who are at a reasonable BF level of say 10% - 15%.

I have read other studies saying that 3 meals is just as good as 6 meals, but never a study saying that 3 is better, so until I see definitive proof that 3 is better than 6, I will continue to eat every 3 hours.

I'm not being closed minded - I just need to see that it is beneficial to change my eating habits and not "just as good as".

[jimmyinkedup]

There are constantly new studies disproving older or currently accepted norms. That's what science is about. To say the statements in bold have been PROVEN might be a little ambitious. Proven until disproven? The 6-8 smaller meals/day was also proven... see what i'm saying?

For me personally, I can't subscribe to the 3 larger meals being ok. It only seems logical that with huge amounts of calories consumed, above and beyond what the body can process efficiently, would have to create a 'spillover' - i.e. stored bodyfat and/or wasted or less efficiently used nutrients.

I'm not close minded to new ways, but i'm not quite ready to jump ship just yet. My .02

I hear you GBrice - i do. Hell ive done a TON of reading on this recently. Studies , opinions , articles everything i can get my "hands" on. I DO belive that the bold i posted are "facts" - yet i still eat smaller frequent meals! *LOL*
At this point its a habit or lifestyle however i suspect a part of me is reluctant to abandon what has worked. I have a baby on the way -due 7/28 ....after that my time may be more limited - so i may ,in fact, get to test out the less frequent -higher calorie meals depending on how i can work meal planning into a new busier schedule. Up to this point it really hasnt been all that inconvenient. After July who knows..i may have some first hand feedback.

[jimmyinkedup]

That study was done on 8 women and 8 men who were obese. I'm not trying to discredit it, but I would like to see the same study performed on people who are at a reasonable BF level of say 10% - 15%.

I have read other studies saying that 3 meals is just as good as 6 meals, but never a study saying that 3 is better, so until I see definitive proof that 3 is better than 6, I will continue to eat every 3 hours.

I'm not being closed minded - I just need to see that it is beneficial to change my eating habits and not "just as good as".

Yeah i dont think you'll see its gonna be better to eat 3 larger over 6 smaller. Just the same results either way.
I think it shows the overemphasis on frequent eating. This has a definate benfit to new people coming into the lifestyle..its one less change they may need to implement. It also may benfit those who are extremely busy or working at jobs where frequent meals are not possible , etc....
Its nice to know missing a meal and simply making up the calories at the next one isnt going to be detrimental.
If the opportunity to try both is avaible and people are willing to try- they can try and decide for themselves which they prefer.

[billyyb]

building muscle wise tho, wouldnt you still need the protein every 2-3 hours?

[gbrice75]

I just need to see that it is beneficial to change my eating habits and not "just as good as".

This is a good point... it's kind of the 'if it ain't broke' saying... we all know eating many smaller meals 'works' for our goals. For most of us, 3 larger meals isn't 'tried and true', and if it isn't better, why change your eating habits which you are comfortable with and know first hand work?

Jimmy has a good point though about new people coming into this lifestyle. I know for me, I had a REALLY tough time dealing with many meals throughout the day... not a problem implementing it, but a problem with the concept of it. It's counter-intuitive.

I hear you GBrice - i do. Hell ive done a TON of reading on this recently. Studies , opinions , articles everything i can get my "hands" on. I DO belive that the bold i posted are "facts" - yet i still eat smaller frequent meals! *LOL*
At this point its a habit or lifestyle however i suspect a part of me is reluctant to abandon what has worked. I have a baby on the way -due 7/28 ....after that my time may be more limited - so i may ,in fact, get to test out the less frequent -higher calorie meals depending on how i can work meal planning into a new busier schedule. Up to this point it really hasnt been all that inconvenient. After July who knows..i may have some first hand feedback.

LoL, it's a scary proposition to jump ship, isn't it? Hell, 3 meals/day would make my life alot easier!

Congrats on the baby man! We have that in common - we have our first baby on the way as well, due 10/7 so i'll be right there with ya bro. I may also have to guinea pig this idea on myself once the baby comes. God knows I won't be able to dedicate as much time as I do now.

[Twist]

If you are eating 3kcals a day then each meal would have to be 1000 cals at 3 meals per day. Thats a lot of calories and the average guys would allow it to be less strict due to the "need" to take in more calories. Take that same guy and give him 6 small meals at 500 cals a day and he will be more likely to eat healthier because its a more realistic plate of food. I can see most guys saying, "nah a big mac is fine, I gotta get in 1,000 cals this meal." Nobody is gonna take 1 bite of a big mac to constitute his meal when eating small meals. He will most likely go with something healthier. See the benefit?

Now I usually put women on a NO SNACKING 3 "big" meals for the day plan. It seems to work out much better. Probably because of the low calorie count that the meals are (5-700). Much easier that way. The small meal program would work here but how are you gonna eat 250cals in 6 small meals in a society like this? Very hard for most. This leads to cheating among other things.

Now as far as thermic effect etc. I would just say that you should try both and see what works with your body. I know that taking in 4k cals a day in healthy food is really really hard for me. Doing it in 3 meals is just impossible. 6 meals is more like it. As long as you keep it healthy, I don't think that it makes too much of a difference as far as thermic effects. I do believe that if you are exercising as you should, then your body will need a CONSTANT flow of amino acids. So eating 3 big meals may be fine, but foods such as steak should be used to supply this flow. Eggs will leave you high and dry in times of need (steak and eggs anyone?). Now once again though when we use these slower digesting foods we get foods higher in fat content. So this once again comes down to the individual.

[jimmyinkedup]

Congrats on the baby man! We have that in common - we have our first baby on the way as well, due 10/7 so i'll be right there with ya bro. I may also have to guinea pig this idea on myself once the baby comes. God knows I won't be able to dedicate as much time as I do now.

Congratulations back at you! Oh btw - just found out the other day - its a boy - my man dukkit is the only person here i told..
Have a feeling life as i know it is gonna change..in many ways! I have a 4yr old stepdaughter..but only in her life since she was 2...never had a baby...
Anway best to you and your wife gbrice !

[27300man]

Thanks for the help everyone! The diet is the hardest part for me. I struggle hard to keep my discipline if there's a fat rib eye steak in front of my face. I'm gonna try breaking my meals up to 6x.

[Damienm05]

Thanks for the help everyone! The diet is the hardest part for me. I struggle hard to keep my discipline if there's a fat rib eye steak in front of my face. I'm gonna try breaking my meals up to 6x.

I don't think you're walking away with the right lesson. You need to get a food scale and a knowledge of the macros (protein, carbs, fat, and calories) for the foods you eat - at that point, the portions you consume and when you consume them according to your body's individual needs is the answer. I don't care how many meals you eat.

I wouldn't want you to run around indiscriminately banging hookers all day when you could always just get a girlfriend and have a sustainable, happy sex life. The same is true of trying to figure out how to break up your food intake substantially before actually looking at said food intake and making appropriate long-term adjustments.