One of the popular diet and fitness myths is the concept of meal timing, specifically the idea that you should eat more frequently than the standard breakfast/lunch/dinner that north american society has become accustomed to.
This is a concept borrowed from bodybuilders who followed a ‘bulk and cut’ cycle routine where they would eat massive amounts of calories during their ‘bulking’ phase and then gradually drop their calories for their ‘cut’ phase.
In some cases it could have been necessary to eat 5-6 meals if these guys were trying to eat 5000-6000 calories each day…that would be 1000 calories at each meal…that is quite a bit of food, and it wouldn’t feel too good to try and each that much food in only 3 meals…think about how gross that would be, 2000 calories at breakfast lunch and dinner!
The pseudo scientific claims of ‘insulin control’ and ‘revving up your metabolism’ followed as a reason for eating in this pattern in order to lose weight…but the reality is that the frequency of your meals cannot change your metabolic rate, and it won’t make any difference on your hormone or insulin levels (beyond the effect that changing the total amount of calories would have).
This concept of ‘meal timing’ has been thoroughly investigated in the scientific literature and shown to be completely irrelevant to metabolic rate, weight loss, energy levels, hormonal balance (and just about any other claim that the fitness media drum is still beating)
I go into a much more in depth investigation into this concept in my new weight loss program called “The Anything Goes Diet” that will be coming out tomorrow! AWESOME!
Anyway I’ll be posting some updates this week and more info if you’re interested in picking it up (on sale this week).
This is the diet program I’ve been working on for the past year, and if you been reading my blog for any length of time you might have already heard about this (or at least had an idea that I was writing this thing)
The take home message on meal timing is this:
Eat as many or as few meals as you like as long as your total calories are where you need them to be for your goals (weight maintenance or weight loss).
John