This article is going to discuss the importance of eating more frequently if you wish to burn fat and build lean muscle mass.
Pretty much everyone on this website will know that if you’re planning on building a body similar to what you imagine a Greek God would have then you’d be best off eating 5-6 smaller meals per day than the ever so popular 3 meals. Hell, even if you just want to burn some fat, put on a bit of muscle and look/feel better! The problem is that very few people actually know why such eating habits are better. After all, we all want to reach our goals as quickly and safely as possible and simply doing this will do numerous things such as improving insulin sensitivity, increasing growth hormone, and even testosterone.
Here are 3 reasons why this eating method is superior
#1 – Your metabolism reacts to anything you eat
It doesn’t matter if you eat chicken breast, steak, or even grass out of the garden. Whatever you eat, as soon as you begin digesting, it will burn calories. However, there is of course a difference. The amount of calories burned is usually dependent on the macronutrient profile of the food consumed. Protein, for example, causes you to burn more calories than any other macronutrient.
A meal consisting of at least 15 grams of good quality protein or better more, can burn up to 69 calories. So if you eat 6 small meals, each with greater than 15 g. of protein, you will end up burning 69×6 = 414 calories.
Crickey! That’s 414 more calories than you would’ve normally burned. That’s a hell of a lot of calories if you are only eating 1500 a day, you are already burning almost 500 off without even doing cardio yet!
#2 – Smaller meals at higher frequencies also allow for a lot less storage of excesses, due to the principles of absorption
You will also experience better absorption of the vitals of your body. There are only so many nutrients that your muscles and organs can handle and of course hold. You simply can’t fill your MUSCLES beyond what they can hold. (This is why we try to make them bigger of course) But think of it logically– It’s like trying to pour a 20 oz. bottle of water into a 10 oz. glass.
There’s going to be that 10 oz. of water that doesn’t make it into the glass and simply pours all over the side, and we don’t want that. Remember what your mother used to say when you were a kid and would over pour the glass you were trying to fill! Exactly. So what does your body do with all the nutrients and calories it doesn’t need? Well, once your muscles and the other vitals of your body have been full of the nutrients they need, the excess is either stored as body fat or excreted.
If you’re on a high-frequency eating plan and you should be, your body will become accustomed to the fact that it will be getting more of what it needs soon, so very minimal is stored, with the rest sent on to your excretory organs.
How is this better than eating 3 meals per day? Well, say your awake 14 hours per/day…your 3 meals are roughly divided amongst those 14 hours… 14/3 = almost 5….this means that around every 4 to 5 hours you will be eating a meal….in that 4 hours between your meals your body WILL be deprived of certain nutrients. You’ll normally tend to feel hungry. These hunger pangs are your body’s way of shouting at you to give it food because it craves it.
So what normally happens? You get some chocolate bars, or some candy, or some snack/junk food and begin to eat away. You then feel terrible, regretting whatever you’ve eaten, thinking you should make yourself puke or just as bad “Ahhh, tomorrow I’ll eat clean” and of course, you don’t, but there’s always next week? Next month? Next year? Now, eating 6 times a day can simply solve this problem.
After your body is used to such large breaks between meals, it will start storing more and more of what doesn’t get absorbed into muscle cells. This means that it will start depositing the excess into your fat cells. This leads to growth in your fat cells, which means you might turn into a tub of lard. Scratch might to WILL turn into a tub of lard.
#3 – NO MORE HUNGER PANS even when dieting
Seriously, eating so often will keep those hunger pangs at bay, It’s a lot easier to diet if you just don’t desire food than if you are having to fight with your brain “NO, I won’t eat this, I won’t eat!” Simply not wanting to eat is much better and beneficial, and you won’t suffer from the side effects of hunger, such as drowsiness, “lack of competitive edge (snicker’s commercial)”, and the other things we go through when we’re hungry.
So can you build a ‘perfect’ physique on a three meal a day plan? No, at least not as efficiently as on a 5-6 meal per day plan.
I hope this informative post clears up any questions you may have about why high-frequency meals are better. If you have any questions at all, feel free to post them.
