Diet, Nutrition and SupplementationPost here for supplement reviews or nutritional advice. If you're trying to get "ripped abz" THIS is where you should be.
Let me preface my question by saying that I am an experienced dieter: 10% of the time a form of low-carb (Adam's Diet) and the other 90% is mostly: whole grains, low fat/fat free dairy, nuts, lean protein, veggies, fruits, avoid HFCS and trans fats and sugar. I know 5-6 small meals spread throughout the day is ideal for energy balance and to keep the metabolism stoked, but I have a serious question about Calories in/out vs. the thermic effect of food:
I am going on a 7 day business trip and I will be eating low carb (steak, veggies, no fired food or white starches) but I will be drinking (martini's and wine, no sugar-laden mixers.) Nevertheless, assuming I will be eating my 2,000 maintenance calories all in one sitting for 7 days (assume please for the sake of my question that this cannot be changed), then is it ok from the point of view of weight management to skip the other meals of the day? Forget that this is unhealthy, I just want to know if 2,000 calories at once is better than say 3,000 calories (1,000 over maintainance) spread throughout the day? Thanks guys
The only example I can think of is Ramadan-- isn't that fasting all day and feasting at night? Otherwise my SIL eats like that regularly and packs on pounds like nobody's business but she does it long term.
Maybe what you need to do is take the 7 days as they come and do your best to deal with, what it seems, food/eating options that are beyond any control of your own. Free your mind so you're not overly stressed and have a plan in place to work hard the next week.
1. What difference does it make? If you're going to do it no matter what does the answer really matter? Try to enjoy yourself and don't stress what you can't change anyway.
2. The details between 1 maintenance meal and 3 hyper caloric meals isn't easy to say. It's individual to a degree and there's going to be some overlap. If you're eating 2k at maintenance over 3 meals and then go to 1 you'll likely gain weight so 2k calories is no longer maintenance it's over maintenance, just like gaining weight at 3 meals at 3k calories.
1 x per day maintenance may be 1,600-1,800
3 x per day maintenance may be 2,000
5 x per day maintenance my be 2,100-2,200
That meal timing table is very informative, Gobbla. It clarifies something I never understood: that meal infrequency decreases the daily "maintenance" calorie number specific to the individual. So, "the longer you go without eating, the less you should eat in one sitting...." Am I correct here? Until, I assume, you can get back to spreading your meals apart again? Interesting. I never knew you can eat more by eating smaller meals more frequently, I always thought that eating smaller meals more frequently helped with energy balance, nutrient timing for muscle growth and satiety (to prevent binge eating and making bad food choices after fasting) Thanks!
Remember that available energy\nutrient timing will effect how your energy is used and in turn how much is available\used at any given time.
A lot of the benefit of eating smaller meals is that you feel better so you're more active (burn more calories). If you gorge and take a nap because you're lethargic and then get up and start moving around but are tired because you haven't eaten in 4 hours you'll burn less energy.
It's all a big holistic window. A lot of "making potential" for more calories being burned\used vs actual hard X=Y. The thing to keep in mind is that the #'s and everything is primarily conceptual. If you feel as good and perform as good with 1x a day as with 5x, the actual difference in calories needed for maintenance probably isn't going to be as dramatic, but there is going to be a difference.
I do read from time to time people who do very well with one meal a day. I would kind of be curious about making the transition during a time with all of the stress business travel entails. You will survive, why don't you take notes and let us know how it goes?
I'm curious to see how it works out for you. I read an article on T-Nation once that talked about eating 3 "larger" meals per day as opposed to 6 "smaller" meals a day. If I recall correctly the author was making a point that with 3 larger meals, it takes longer to digest and may have more satiety. I've often wondered about this. I've always kind of thought that the 6 smaller meals a day is suggested as a better way for people to control their portion sizes and limit their caloric intake in the process. You may burn additional calories through TAF with 6 smaller meals, but I wonder how much of a difference it would make throughout the day.
How are you going to eat 2,000 calories of steak and veggies in one sitting? That's a HUUUUUUGGGGEEEEEE meal.
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Will you even break down and use all that food if eaten at once? Or will you just poop more of it out afterward, undigested? (I always wonder just how much the body can take in at one time, if one eats waaay more than one usually does at one sitting... does one really use all of the calories eaten?)
Would you be able to handle a meal that big and not feel any ill effects if you're used to eating more often much smaller meals? I find that if I eat over a certain amount in a sitting I'm miserable afterward.
There's a bunch of people over at bodyrecompostion.com who are experimenting with intermittent fasting. Most popular set up = fast for 16 hrs and eat in an 8hr time window.
Personally I'm having better results with a Ramadan-like setup except that I don't eat before the sun rises (that'd be around 4am by now) but am using a 12hr time difference between breakfast and dinner.
Reason being that in my experience, metabolism tends to really tank if you skp breakfast, which is noticeable by a drop in body temperature. b/f has about 40% of total calories for the day.
Mind you, on training days I'm preferring to eat multiple times/day, though some eat as infrequent on training days as well.
Some people do very well on just one meal/day. Actually mankind would never have made it till today if they didn't. On the average caveman ate once a day and infrequently twice and if they did, they had a smallish breakfast.
Ok, so I didn't completely fast during the day, but I stuck to little snacks like string cheese and slim jims (less than 600 calories total before dinner and drinks. Dinner was steak or seafood and vegetable sides most nights. I avoided all starch, sugar and processed foods. I had cocktails every night but stuck to martinis and white and red wine (martinis have no carbs and red and white wine have 10-25 grams of carbs per bottle respectively.)
Result: I stayed at maintenance - attribute it to: 1) snacks prevented me from making bad food choices at dinner 2) the alcohol stalled weight loss, but the dearth of carbs allowed me to get away with a few more calories eaten overall and mostly at night when my metabolism was slowest (and slowed further by the alcohol)
And on top of it all...everyone should try low carb dieting even if only for the fact that you never feel bloated...I loooove that.
1. What difference does it make? If you're going to do it no matter what does the answer really matter? Try to enjoy yourself and don't stress what you can't change anyway.
2. The details between 1 maintenance meal and 3 hyper caloric meals isn't easy to say. It's individual to a degree and there's going to be some overlap. If you're eating 2k at maintenance over 3 meals and then go to 1 you'll likely gain weight so 2k calories is no longer maintenance it's over maintenance, just like gaining weight at 3 meals at 3k calories.
1 x per day maintenance may be 1,600-1,800
3 x per day maintenance may be 2,000
5 x per day maintenance my be 2,100-2,200
Where did you get these numbers from? Just pulling them out of .. or is it based on research or experience.
I've been on 2 meals/day for 4 days/week for a while now (did 3 meals before) and it almost seems correct. Mtn dropped towards 2000 kcal from around 2300 kcal. But there are too many confounding factors going on to be 100% sure. A much much more influentail factor is eating allergenic foods. Stay away from those and mtn goes up considerably! Been eating a few too many of these allergens (esp dairy) .
I've been wondering what caused the metabolic slowdown. And finally concluded it had very little to do with meal frequency, but everything with reduced food intake. But it's been 2 months now that I reduce meal frequency to just 2 (instead of 3) meals on rest days. This enables me to eat 1000-1200 kcal and still feel as if I'm eating a 'normal' amount of calories.
However, the annoying part is that metabolism follows intake like a shadow. Unless I jack up calories really high on training days (viz 25% above maintenance, around 2500kcal and more). I do this now and hopefully maintenance will come back up again. Otherwise I've got to say you were right.
You're likely very much right. Overall calories are going to trump anything else. Keeping your metabolism high "requires" a fair amount of food (unless you're a freak like galya). More fuel = more performance = higher metabolism (everything as a "potential")
The meal frequency comes into play (in my mind) as in "what parts\how often" are you putting your body into starvation mode (and for how long over a period of time). A higher frequency of meals means that you don't really get into starvation mode so you can afford to eat a little more. If you're eating 1-2x then you might be a little more likely to store energy a little easier in comparison. All that is dependent on how much you eat per meal too, so 2 big meals might have a comparable effect as 3 small meals. Blah blah blah
But then again I'm just pulling most of this out of my ass, so it could all be lies.
The advantages are numerous when your blood sugar levels are stable and you aren't going into hypoglycemia mode easily. Eating 2 meals takes a ton less time and preparation. And actually, as weird as it may sound, I feel more clear-headed when I don't eat than when I do. Eating makes me tired & hungry!
For now I'll keep at a minimum of around 20% over maintenance for training days and will wait and see what happens.
I'll be a bit miffed/pissed actually when I finally have to come to the conclusion that 2 meals aren't worse/better than 6 meals, because then I feel that I've put myself through a ton of torture trying to lose weight on 6 meals. Am I the only one who gets hungry and tired from eating?
The advantages are numerous when your blood sugar levels are stable and you aren't going into hypoglycemia mode easily. Eating 2 meals takes a ton less time and preparation. And actually, as weird as it may sound, I feel more clear-headed when I don't eat than when I do. Eating makes me tired & hungry!
For now I'll keep at a minimum of around 20% over maintenance for training days and will wait and see what happens.
I'll be a bit miffed/pissed actually when I finally have to come to the conclusion that 2 meals aren't worse/better than 6 meals, because then I feel that I've put myself through a ton of torture trying to lose weight on 6 meals. Am I the only one who gets hungry and tired from eating?
I could never get by on two meals a day, but I'm considering going to 3-4.
With 6, I'm always hungry, and never really satisfied.
3 meals is definitely more comfortable, but as time passed, I noticed how when after longing for the 2nd meal , I'd start to forget all about them and have to eat the 2nd and 3rd meal about 1-2 hrs apart instead of 4-5 hours.
So eventually back to only 2 meals/day.
That's the only worry I have : that the drop in metabolism is due to reduced meal frequency. Only time will tell.
All Calories in One Setting???
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