by Larry Pepe
PART 1
"Why am I supposed to eat 5, 6 or 7 meals a day?" Everytime I prepare a nutritional program for someone, I know that this question is coming. As a culture that has been raised on the fallacy that eating breakfast, lunch and dinner is the ticket to health, it is often difficult for us to adopt a new way of thinking about food and meal frequency. And let's not ignore that eating 5 to 7 times per day requires a greater level of planning and effort, causing many to stick to old, less effective habits simply because it's easier. But, being in your best shape and best health--the MAXIMUM RESULT--isn't about doing what's easiest. It's about doing what's best.
Let's use an analogy. Think of you body as a car that needs fuel. Would you wait until you ran out of gas to refuel? Let's hope not. But, when you consider that most people will have breakfast between 6 and 8 AM, lunch somewhere between Noon and 1:30 PM and dinner between 6 and 8 PM, you can see that there are gaps between meals potentially as large as 8 hours. These gaps create multiple problems including suppression of metabolism, denying the body of maintaining a positive nitrogen balance, low energy and fatigue, and, of course, extreme hunger coupled with a greater likelihood of making poor nutritional choices between and at meals. This leads to another analogy....
Once you went to the gas station, would you stand there pumping gas like an idiot until your tank was overflowing and the gas was spilling all over the floor? Well, when you arrive at the dinner table after a 6 or 8 hour hunger strike since lunch, you are certainly likely to gorge yourself to satisfy that hunger as quickly as possible. This will often lead to either eating the wrong types of foods ("Hello Dominos...") or too much of the right foods. Either way, too many calories are consumed, and like the gas that spills over on to the ground, those excess calories have to go somewhere as well--namely your abs, glutes and hips.
As ridiculous as both of these scenarios sound, most people do this with their bodies every single day. Let's look at how adjusting your meal frequency can solve these common pitfalls.
THE BENEFITS OF EATING FREQUENTLY
Elevated Metabolism
Every time that you consume food your metabolism activates to process and metabolize what you've just eaten. We've all heard about the classic "slow metabolism". Well, the quickest way to speed up your metabolism is to eat more frequently. The more you can hype your metabolism, the more food you can consume and still get lean or add quality muscle mass without bodyfat.
Improved Digestion
By consuming smaller meals throughout the day, you give your body the best chance of fully digesting what you've consumed. Think about this example. Let's say you are consuming 3000 calories per day with a total protein intake of 250 grams per day. If you are eating 3 meals per day, this would amount to 1000 calories and 83 grams of protein per meal. The problem is that most people agree that it is very difficult to digest more than 40-50 grams of protein in one sitting. By splitting that same caloric and protein intake into 6 meals, each meal becomes an easily digestible 500 calories and 42 grams of protein.
Positive Nitrogen Balance
One of the major reasons that steroids work is that they create the ultimate physiological environment for growth and repair--positive nitrogen balance. Do you have to take steroids to reach this state? The answer is NO! By making sure that the body is supplied with quality protein every 3 hours or so, positive nitrogen balance is achieved and maintained. It's really very simple--if you're eating protein three times per day, you aren't anywhere near positive nitrogen balance. Five to seven times per day, and you are.
Energy
This may seem obvious, but it's certainly worth a mention. The two macronutrient food groups that act as fuel for the body are carbohydrates and fats. Certain types of carbs will only provide energy for an hour or so, while others will give you a more sustained boost. Either way, intense weight training and/or cardiovascular work will deplete your energy stores. Rather than overload your body with carbs and/or fat every 5 or 6 hours, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to have moderate amounts of these fuel sources entering your system at shorter intervals throughout the day.
Moderated Insulin Levels
Additionally, in the case of carbs, if you take in too many high glycemic carbs, this will create a dramatic release of insulin into your bloodstream. Here's the problem: In the presence of elevated insulin levels, it is IMPOSSIBLE for your body to metabolize and burn fat.
Hunger
By eating frequently, you will not suffer the hunger pangs that you would by taking in exactly the same amount of food condensed into less meals. As you won't be walking around starving, you will be much less likely to eat foods that will be counterproductive to your particular goals, i.e. you won't junk out! Also, since it won't be five or six hours since your last meal when you get to the lunch or dinner table, you won't be like the fool who keeps pumping the gas into an already full tank by gorging yourself with too much food.
HOW TO EAT FIVE TO SEVEN TIMES PER DAY
So now that you know why you should feed your body frequently, you may still be wondering how in the world you are going to make it happen. Click on Part 2 of this Article posted here on FemaleMuscle.com and I'll give you a number of tips that make it a lot easier to follow this incredibly effective and beneficial nutritional approach without killing all your free time or your wallet. Until then, here's wishing you the MAXIMUM RESULT in all your fitness and bodybuilding endeavors.
PART 2
