As with most aspects of nutrition these days there is plenty of information on the ‘optimal’ meal frequency to get ‘shredded’.
“Stoke the metabolic fire”
“Eat every few hours to avoid starvation mode”
Sound familiar? Plenty of trainers and people in positions of authority still seem to be promoting eating small meals frequently.
The theory behind this is that frequent meals will increase diet induced thermogenesis (DIT) over the course of a day, compared to larger, less frequent feedings. In simple terms DIT is the energy your body uses just to digest, absorb and store nutrients you’ve consumed. So by eating smaller meals more frequently you will increase DIT thereby resulting in you burning more energy/ ‘burning’ more fat throughout the day.
Here’s the deal. Eating more frequently in the hopes of increasing your metabolism to burn more fat has no solid evidence to support it.
Now, eating a meal does result in an increase in diet induced thermogenesis (DIT) (a “boost in your metabolism”) as the body works to digest, absorb and store the nutrients contained within the meal. On average this roughly equates to around 10% of our daily intake but varies depending on foods consumed. So if your consuming 2000 kcal of food a day around 200 kcal of this will be burnt on the processes above.
However the increase in DIT is proportional to the size and composition of the meal.
So let’s say you ate the exact same foods in the same amounts on different days. One day you consumed all your food in 3 meals, and on the other day 6 meals. Obviously the 3 meals would be larger than the 6 and therefore result in a larger and more prolonged increase in your metabolism as your body has a larger bolus of food to digest and process. 6 meals will result in a smaller spike in DIT but we are eating more frequently resulting in more spikes. At the end of the day energy expenditure from DIT would work out equal.
Short term studies conducted in metabolic chambers (subjects were basically kept in a room so that the researchers could accurately measure energy in and out) have repeatedly found no differences in energy expenditure, metabolism or fat loss when comparing anywhere from 2 to 7 meals a day. [1,2]
But what about over the long term?
A meta-analysis* by Schoenfeld et al in 2014 analysed 15 individual studies , all of which directly compared body composition. They compared the results of subjects across all studies eating less than 3 meals vs. more than 3 meals to determine if over a period longer then 2 weeks there were any differences.[3]
*(A meta-analysis = statistics on the combined results of individual trials)Their conclusion? Overall there was no advantage to a higher meal frequency on weight loss!
It’s also stated that following this meal pattern will prevent you going into that dreaded ‘starvation mode’.
This is a misunderstanding of the body fat set point theory.
Without getting into too much detail this theory basically means that our bodies have a defence system which aims to maintain a certain amount of body fat to ensure survival during a famine (not so useful in todays western societies). This is part of the reason why it’s hard to get to low levels of body fat.
According to the misinformed when we go without eating for a few hours, our bodies sense the lack of energy and slow our metabolism to a sloth like swagger in order to decrease energy expenditure and conserve energy.
Welcome to ‘starvation mode’! Your body has packed up its metabolism and is having a siesta.
This is what they believe.
This is incorrect.
Skipping a meal will not significantly affect your metabolic rate.
In fact there is data to show that our metabolism actually increases during the first 72 hours of a fast (literally starving!) [4]
“What about my gainz though bro”? I got dem catabolic feelz”
People tend to forget that digestion and absorption isn’t a rapid process, particularly if you’re eating whole food, mixed macronutrient meals (which you should be).
A typical mixed macronutrient, protein rich meal can result in nutrients being digested and released into the blood stream over a 4-7 hour period (depending on the size of the meal and other factors such as fats, fibre etc. which can slow digestion and absorption). If the meal contains an adequate amount of protein (which if your trying to optimise lean body mass it should!!) then you will have amino acids available for long after a meal.
So whats the best meal frequency?
The best meal frequency is the one that fits with your lifestyle. Remember you may have the text-book perfect diet but unless it's something you can consistently follow it's not going to mean jack.
Individuals have uncovered their abs eating 1-2 meals a day (look at some intermittent fasters) while others have been successful with 10 meals a day.
I tend to recommend clients go for somewhere in the middle such as 3-6 meals per day as this tends to reduce the likelihood of any potential problems that may arise at either extremes of the scale.
To date, research indicates that stressing about eating every 2-3 hours or trying to boost your metabolism is energy wasted. If your schedule makes it hard to have frequent meals and you find it tedious then perhaps consider less frequent, larger meals. For body composition focus on the things that provide the biggest return of investment such as consistently hitting total calorie intake, macronutrient intake and progress in the gym.
Get those right and you’re 90% there.
The easiest way to do this?
Tailor the number of meals to your personal preferences, schedule, tolerance and goals.
1) Taylor, MA and JS Garrow, Compared with nibbling, neither gorging nor a morning fast affect short-term energy balance in obese patients in a chamber calorimeter. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord, 2001 25(4): p 519-28
2) Verboeket-van de Venne, WP and KR Westerterp, Influence of the feeding frequency on nutrient utilization in man: consequences for energy metabolism. Eur J Clin Nutr, 1991 45(3): p 161-9
3)Schoenfeld, Brad Jon, Alan Albert Aragon, and James W. Krieger. "Effects of meal frequency on weight loss and body composition: a meta-analysis." Nutrition Reviews 73, no. 2 (2015): 69-82
4) Webber J, Macdonald IA. The cardiovascular, metabolic and hormonal changes accompanying acute starvation in men and women. British journal of nutrition. 1994 Mar 1;71(03):437-47