Stop the Madness, 6 Meals a Day is NOT Better for Your Metabolism!
Note: As not to cause any confusion, this post is directed towards otherwise healthy people who have no underlying metabolic disorders such as diabetes or people who are post gastric bypass surgery. It does not apply to you if you have been instructed by a physician or other health professional to eat multiple small meals a day.
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Today I had planned on writing “How to Get Through a Bad Injury Part II”, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not until I got something off of my chest (and it’s not a barbell). That something is this complete and total myth that eating 6 meals a day is somehow better for your metabolism. Everywhere I go online, I see countless people, including people I like, praising the idea of eating 6 meals a day and it’s great effect on your metabolism.
The truth is, that there is absolutely no evidence proving that eating 6 meals a day is somehow better for your metabolism than eating 3 meals a day. In fact, the only people I know who eat 6 meals a day are people trying to gain weight, like Hugh Jackman, who would wake up at around 5 a.m. to get in his first meal in and eat 5 more meals after that, did for “Wolverine”. (Although Michael Phelps proved that eating multiple meals for weight gain is also not necessary by consuming 12,000 calories a day in 3 meals!)
The bottom line is that there is no evidence that eating more meals is better or worse for your metabolism. For losing and gaining weight, you should go with what works for you while keeping it healthy. Just remember the golden rule, “If you’re eating more calories than you expend, you’ll gain weight, if you eat less calories than you expend, you’ll lose weight”, and you should have no problem reaching your goals. (I go into more detail about that here.) Losing and gaining weight is not complicated, so let’s not go out of our way to make it complicated!
-Rafi
I was browsing through your site and this post caught my eye. I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. There’s more to eating 6 meals per day than the raise in your metabolism. The body will adapt to the increased frequency of meals, but you will get an increase in metabolism for some time with an increased number of meals. Also, some of the reasoning behind one meal every 3 hours is the fact that protein cannot be stored within your body. Let’s say you’re body is finally ready to build some muscle during the day, but there’s no protein around because you haven’t eaten any in 5 hours. Eating more often ensures that you don’t miss any muscle building opportunities – by giving your body the resources it needs to construct new muscle mass. I don’t want to simply waste all that time in the gym because I missed a muscle building opportunity by not giving my body protein more often.
I respect your opinion, but I have to say that you’re really incorrect when it comes to this. There’s no proof that I know of that eating 6 meals a day increases the metabolism of a healthy person. And while it’s true the body can’t store protein, that doesn’t mean you need to intake protein every 3 hours. It just means that you should schedule your meal with protein for after you exercise.
-Rafi Bar-Lev