How Many Meals a Day to Lose Weight?
1... 3… 4, 6.
Perfect!
Oh, prepping for the week?
Nah bro, prepping for the day!
Gotta eat 6 meals to keep that metabolism on FIRE BRO!
Huh Meal frequency, one of the many popular tweaks
often recommended to people that want to lose weight and burn fat fast.
Perhaps the most popular recommendation is to eat 6 meals per day!
Your digestive system will have to keep working, which supposedly will keep your metabolism
high and burn more calories throughout the day.
Plus, if you wentt too long between meals, you put yourself at risk of a slowed metabolism!
And, looking at it face, there’s… some sense to it.
More eating equals more bodily activity, sure.
But, when we look pass face value, the truth begins to unravel.
In the research of eating more meals to increase your metabolism, to put things short, it’s…
metabolic nonsense.
As far back as 1997, we already had epidemiological reviews which found weak evidence linking
greater weight loss or energy expenditure to eating more frequent smaller meals.
The overall conclusion was that total food intake was the only thing that really mattered.
Flash forward to more recent research, and we’ll see that not much has changed.
In 2009, a review of 25 studies once again concluded that there was no association between
eating frequency and weight loss.
In terms of metabolism, a 2012 study compared 3 meals to FOURTEEN meals a day and still
found no differences in resting metabolic rates within a 24-hour analysis.
Same goes for one study two years prior, which noted 3 meals and 3 snacks a day was just
as effective as only 3 meals a day for weight loss when the total food amount is equal.
As far as digestion, measurements of thermic effect of food, the amount of energy it takes
for your body to digest your food, showed that changes in meal frequencies, again, did
not alter thermic rates.
The only thing that mattered is the size of the meal, with larger meals requiring more
energy to break the extra food.
But the proverbial coup de grace came in a 2015 meta-analysis.
In their analysis, they initially found that higher feeding frequencies DID associate with
greater reductions in fat and body fat percentage as well as an increase in fat-free lean mass.
But, the researchers realized that all of these positive findings stem from one single
study out of the 15 analyzed.
This study, which looked at boxers eating 2 or 6 meals per day, might have run into
the issue of accurately reporting physical activity.
When this study was removed from the review, statistical values point towards meal frequency
having, again, virtually no effect on fat mass, lean mass, or weight loss.
So, it seems like it’s settled.
Alone, eating 6 meals or more a day won’t provide extra benefits.
Also, when it comes to the claims of fewer meals slowing metabolism, we might be able
to learn a bit from the research on fasting.
On such research, one study in 1994 found that fasting for 12 hours had no effect on
metabolism.
Same in 2005, where eating every other day did nothing to metabolism after 3 weeks.
Interestingly enough, the 1994 study saw that after 36 hours of fasting, metabolism increased.
Not exactly standard practice for most, but it’s interesting to see that research actually
suggest the opposite of the initial claim.
Now finally, the big question: How many meals should you eat a day?
(cut to it depends) As always, your main goal should be eating
a healthy diet, tracking your intake, and proper exercise.
Whether you choose to meet this goal with 2, 3, or 6 meals per day is ultimately up
to whichever you can stick to the most.
Some research does show that more meals can help with hunger and satiety, but on the same
note, some studies show it does not effect it at all.
Knowing which direction of the research you favor is simply something you need to test
for yourself.
All that being said, the claims about six meals per day and metabolism is mostly more
fad talk.
As with other fads, just ignore it.
It won’t be long until another fad rolls along.
Still doing six meals a day?
Nah, bro.
It didn’t work for me…
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