I dont believe the idea that 3 meals a day are better than 6 meals, regardless of a study. Too many fitness, physique, and athletes use 6 meals a day with great success which is the ultimate study IMO.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I dont believe the idea that 3 meals a day are better than 6 meals, regardless of a study. Too many fitness, physique, and athletes use 6 meals a day with great success which is the ultimate study IMO. [/quote]
has it ever occurred to you that people can get results in spite of what they do, not because of it.
in other words, who’s to say they wouldn’t get identical results (or perhaps better results) by eating less frequently?
besides, there are PLENTY of recreational bodybuilders who only eat 2-3 meals per day. There’s an entire eating plan based off only eating 2-4 meals per day. check it out here: www.leangains.com
I’m loving the gizmo/gremlin reference.
Would read thread again.
[quote]JMoUCF87 wrote:
MaximusB wrote:
I dont believe the idea that 3 meals a day are better than 6 meals, regardless of a study. Too many fitness, physique, and athletes use 6 meals a day with great success which is the ultimate study IMO.
has it ever occurred to you that people can get results in spite of what they do, not because of it.
in other words, who’s to say they wouldn’t get identical results (or perhaps better results) by eating less frequently?
besides, there are PLENTY of recreational bodybuilders who only eat 2-3 meals per day. There’s an entire eating plan based off only eating 2-4 meals per day. check it out here: www.leangains.com[/quote]
Ever consider the credibility of the protein cycling concept?
[quote]hammul wrote:
andersons, thank you for that FANTASTIC post. Your distinction between the average person and a bodybuilder was quite enlightening.
So, if you were advising a person with 150lbs to lose - to get to their ideal body weight - you wouldn’t overload them with rules about protein/late night eating/meal frequency, you would just emphasize the calorie deficit. Now, once that person wants to put on muscle and start bodybuilding, then they should eat frequent meals, etc.
Here’s another question - since I have your ear - while most people think that they should try to maintain their muscle mass while losing weight, isn’t this a myth? If a person is 300lbs and their ideal weight is 200lbs - isn’t their lean body mass inflated (220lbs or so) since they had gained so much weight? Doesn’t that person actually need to lose muscle, in addition to fat?
I am sure I am just preaching to the choir but many people don’t know that when a person puts on 4lbs, 3 of it is fat and 1 is muscle; just like the 3 to 1 ratio in weight loss.
Isn’t this right, as well?[/quote]
Hmmmm, why would he try to lose muscle as well? Most people here have a hard time trying to gain them, lol. Let’s say that he’s a 5 foot 8 guy, weighing 300lb (using your example) and having a 50% bf (morbidly obese). If he loses 100lb to reach his ideal weight of 200lb with a ratio of 3:1 fat to muscle loss, then he’ll still be nearly 40% bf, which is pretty obese as well. Sure he lost a lot of weight, but he’s just going to be a mini version of his former self isn’t he?
And yes, calorie is the most important thing to consider when someone is trying to lose a lot of weight, but dietary habit change is probably more valuable in the long run. Sure asking a morbidly obese person to eat just 1500 calories will make he or she lose weight, but what if most of those calories come from junk food? So in my opinion, even if the person isn’t going to join bodybuilding or some sort of physique competition, it is still important for them to consider protein and veggie intake etc, slow changes if need to be.
[quote]JMoUCF87 wrote:
…and science has caught up to bodybuilding,[/quote]
Not true
[quote]…and it seems that 3 meal per day MAY have and advantage over 6, although i’d like to see some more studies done. check this out:
THE EFFECT OF MEAL FREQUENCY ON ACCUMULATION OF MUSCLE MASS
AND STRENGTH DURING 12 WEEKS OF STRENGTH TRAINING
Truls Raastad1, Therese Fostervold1, Ã???yvind Hansen2, Ernst Albin Hansen1, Ina Garthe1,3, Per
Egil Refsnes3
1
Norweigan School of Sports Science, Oslo, Norway; 2Department of Nutrition, University of
Oslo, Norway, Olympiatoppen, Oslo, Norway
DISCUSSION
Surprisingly the 3 meals/day group increased strength and muscle cross sectional area in upper
body significantly more than the 6 meals/day group. In studies where the acute effect of meals on
muscle protein metabolism is studied, the general conclusion is that each time a minimum of
essential amino acids (6 g) and carbohydrates (30 g) are ingested, muscle protein synthesis is
maximally stimulated for a short time [3]. Hence, we hypothesised that 6 meals/day should be
superior to 3 meals/day, because of a more frequent stimulation of muscle protein synthesis. The
only study in which some support for few and larger meals can be found, is a study on older
women, where a more positive nitrogen balance was observed with a concentrated intake of
protein compared to protein intake equally distributed on 4 meals per day [4]. However, this effect
was not observed in younger adults [5].
CONCLUSION
We found no beneficial effect of eating 6 meals/day compared to 3 meals/day as long as the total
energy intake and the intake of nutrients is similar and above the requirements. On the contrary
we found indications in favour of 3 meals/day on both strength and muscle mass measurements in
upper body.
REFERENCES
[1] Paddon-Jones et al., Am. J. Physiol.Endocrinol. Metab. 288, E761-E7671, 2005.
[2] Iwao et al., Scand. J. Med. Sci. Sports. 6, 256-272, 1996.
[3] Tipton & Wolfe., J. Sporst Sci. 22, 65-79, 2004.
[4] Arnal et al., Am J Clin Nutr. 69 (6):1202-1208, 1999.
[5] Arnal et al., J Nutr. 130 (7):1700-1704, 2000.[/quote]
Sorry but your study is not applicable to the majority of T-Nation readers. The study that supports that fewer meals elicit a greater increase in muscle protein synthesis (MPS) was done on older women, not young healthy people. There is a scientific difference between the two groups, namely studies on aging and muscle protein synthesis have been shown to cause significant changes in amino acid metabolism, decreased ability to respond to anabolic stimuli such as insulin amino acids, (1) and aging is also believed to cause certain MAP kinases key to muscle protein synthesis to be unresponsive. (2)
Several things can be done to overcome these age related changes… provision of excess leucine (3), changes in the daily protein intake pattern or exercise, which improve activation of translation initiation and muscle protein synthesis. (1&2)
While there is still no evidence presented in this thread that 6 meals is the best approach, I still tend to think that more than 3 meals is better for muscle protein synthesis. But if you want ingest fewer larger meals, intermittent small snacks supplemented with L-Leucine would likely be as effective for MPS as more frequent meals.
(1) Amino acid metabolism and regulatory effects in aging - PubMed
(2) Skeletal muscle protein anabolic response to resistance exercise and essential amino acids is delayed with aging - PubMed
(3) http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17482512
BT
Finally, some decent debates… Thanks for posting references and actually basing your arguments on actual research and not just speculation.
Just throwing this out there…
There also aren’t any studies supporting the consumption of 1g protein (or more) per pound bw for muscle growth…and this includes studies using “bodybuilders”. In fact the research support at most 1.7g per KG…which is .77g per pound.
Meanwhile I’ll continue to use 1.5-2g of protein per pound bw for my scrawny butt as that is what has worked.
Sometimes you do things because champion athletes and coaches have far more real world experience and results than some University Lab.
[quote]BantamRunner wrote:
Sometimes you do things because champion athletes and coaches have far more real world experience and results than some University Lab.
[/quote]
FTW
The study I supplied wasn’t the one using older women, they only referenced that study because they found that by “pulsing” 80% of the days protein in one meal was better for muscle mass than spread out. The study I gave was on the difference between 3 & 6 meals, and upper body CSA of the muscle was greater for the 3 meal group.
Overall I think the difference will be negligible at best, so my advice is to eat as often as is convenient and focus on the total amount at the end of the day, as that will determine 99% of your results.
[quote]BantamRunner wrote:
Sometimes you do things because champion athletes and coaches have far more real world experience and results than some University Lab.
[/quote]
yeah, cuz like arnold said that milk is for babies and beer is the best post workout drink. who’s some pencil neck in a laboratory to disagree?
[quote]JMoUCF87 wrote:
The study I supplied wasn’t the one using older women, they only referenced that study because they found that by “pulsing” 80% of the days protein in one meal was better for muscle mass than spread out. The study I gave was on the difference between 3 & 6 meals, and upper body CSA of the muscle was greater for the 3 meal group.
Overall I think the difference will be negligible at best, so my advice is to eat as often as is convenient and focus on the total amount at the end of the day, as that will determine 99% of your results.[/quote]
Based only on the study you referenced I’d have to agree with you. But there’s a chance that there is something glaring in the design of the study’s methods or something. Is the study you quoted published in a journal? I can’t find it anywhere. I’d like to read more about the methods used in the study if you have it.