I am sure that many of us have heard or read somewhere that it is best to eat every 2-3 hours making 5-10 meals/day if you want to achieve your goals (Whether they are reducing body fat or increasing muscle mass). It is even something that is still taught in Universities, which is why many nutritionists continue to give this recommendation, but the truth is that this is completely false, here I explain the reasons, today we will clarify 2 myths about this topic:
1.- The first is a myth that no matter how much time passes, it does not disappear and continues to spread like wildfire in all corners of the world: If you eat more meals a day you accelerate your metabolism, therefore, you burn more calories if you eat more times per day, but less amount in each sitting = TOTALLY FALSE.
Let's see why.
There is a term called Thermogenic Effect of Foods (TEF), TEF are the calories that the body needs to digest the food we consume. In practical terms, the TEF is normally close to 10% of the calories that made up the food you have eaten, that is, if you have consumed a meal of 500 Kcal, your body will require approximately 50 cal to digest that food. If we get a little more specific, each macronutrient has different thermal rates, therefore, talking about 10% is only an approximation since this depends on the macros of that food, for example, protein, which is the macronutrient that more energy expenditure required to be metabolized (20-30%)
After this small explanation we can logically deduce that the important thing is NOT how many times you eat per day but rather the total calories you eat at the end of the day, that is, the frequency of meals has no practical effect.
Let's look at an example to make it a little clearer:
We have 2 people whose daily energy requirement is 1,800 calories, both consume exactly the same with the same distribution of macronutrients, but the difference is that the first person eats 3 times and the second person 6.
In the first case, the person eats 1,800 cal in 3 meal times, therefore his TEF will be:
1,800 cal / 3= 600 cal at each meal time
600 cal x 0.10 = 60 cal (The TEF of each meal is 60 Kcal) X 3 meal times = 180 cal in total.
In the second case, the person eats the same 1,800 cal in 6 meal times, therefore his TEF will be:
1,800 cal / 6= 300 cal at each meal time
300 x 0.10= 30 cal (The TEF of each meal is 30 cal) X 6 meal times = 180 cal in total
In both cases the TEF at the end of the day was 180 cal, therefore, eating more times DOES NOT accelerate your metabolism nor will you burn more cal than if you eat less times
If you want to increase your metabolism through the Thermogenic Effect of Food, what you can do is increase your protein consumption (Macronutrient that requires greater energy expenditure) OR decrease Lipids and increase CHOS (Second macronutrient with greater energy expenditure), obviously without falling into extremes, because I really HATE extremes
2.- The second myth that we will talk about is the one that is frequently heard in gyms or training rooms: You have to eat every 2-3 hours because if not your muscles will begin to destroy: TOTALLY FAKE
We return to the same thing: The important thing is the amount of cal that you consume at the end of the day and the distribution of its Macronutrients that will help you achieve your goal, the human body would be extremely inefficient if, due to the fact of not eating every 2-3 hours you are already losing muscle mass, it has been proven that if our body is in order there should not be any problem in fasting periods of no more than 24 hours and even up to 48 hours since it will be from then on when the reserves of glycogen will barely run out and possibly amino acid reserves would begin to be used. So forget and get rid of that idea because with a well-structured eating plan you don't have to forcefully eat every 2-3 hours, you won't lose muscle mass or go into hypoglycemia, but it's clear that it won't hurt you either, so it depends on your diet preferences and lifestyle. Let's move on to the conclusions.
CONCLUSIONS: We must not be extremists, the fact that the frequency of meals has no relevance does not mean that we are all going to have 2-3 meals (and much less if they are high-calorie plans), nor are we all going to do 6 meal times (and much less if they are very low-calorie plans), this is the importance of PERSONALIZED and INDIVIDUAL plans, depending on your objectives and lifestyle, you will be given the meal times you require so that you have greater adherence and not produce stress to your body, that is, a plan that you can maintain and not just carry out for a short time.
Personally, I eat 5 times because I like it and it adapts to my lifestyle, needs, etc., but I do it because I like it and that's how I want to do it, not because I think my metabolism will speed up or to avoid losing muscle mass. I want this to be very clear, if you like to eat 3,5,6, meals a day, going ahead will not do you any harm, but do not do it for fear of losing muscle mass or with the belief that this way you will increase your metabolism
I hope you liked this article, share it with whoever you think can be useful :)
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