How many of us have been told to eat frequently to keep our metabolism burning? That you need to eat more times a day with smaller meals to keep your body at peak performance while losing more fat.
Yes, I’ve heard it plenty and I finally went outside the box and found there is more to controlling your diet than just size and frequency. I came across a style of eating called intermittent fasting which is built around a 16 hour fasting period followed by an eight hour eating period in which you eat the normal maintenance calories you would in a typical day. While commonplace in gyms and magazines, the evidence against meal frequency was limited but a study, Bellisle F et. al. Meal frequency and energy balance. Br J Nutr. (1997), went through all pertinent studies related to meal frequency and weight loss and determined there was little correlation in the studies showing more or less fat loss in any groups, with most studies coming up neutral.
A more recent study done in 2009 at the University of Ottawa placed 16 obese individuals, split by eight men and eight women, all on a diet restriction the same between each. One group would eat 3 meals and 3 snacks in a day while the other would only eat 3 meals a day. The study last 8 weeks and in all groups the findings of lean body mass, body fat and BMI were all within similar ranges showing no metabolic differences with meal frequency.
The author reviewing the 1997 study points out some common misconceptions leading to the higher meal frequency belief. A primary one being the misunderstanding of the thermal effect of food, which people took as the more you eat, the more calories you burn. In theory, this is a practical explanation. What generally is not accounted for is that eating in this style requires you to eat more food. Though technically you will be burning more calories, it would still be at a same rate of 10% of intake of calories. So, if you take in an additional amount of calories, of course you will burn more, but you will have consumed a higher total number of calories to only have a small percentage burned off.
For people looking to follow a high frequency meal plan, it can be a tedious process to prepare so many meals just for one day and to keep up with it day after day. The studies show there is little value to when you eat and the amount your body can burn off metabolically. There are many alternate styles of eating out there and our bodies react differently. I have tried various diets to see how my body changes with them and thus far for my own case, a version of intermittent fasting has been working extremely well. Had I not opened my mind and tried something everything I had learned up to that point said not to do, I wouldn’t have found an effective plan that works very well for me and my lifestyle. Don’t let myths stop you from trying new things which could keep something you’re looking for out of reach.
Sources:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/meal-frequency-and-energy-balance-research-review.html#more-1389
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/health/23really.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/27-foodclock.jpg
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