Study: 3 Meals Superior to 6 for Mass Gain

Diet and Nutrition
21

[quote]Malevolence wrote:
Flow wrote:
I was under the impression that the 6 “meals” a day meant this:

Meal 1: Comparatively Large Breakfast

Snack 1

Meal 2: Lunch

Snack 2

Meal 3: Dinner

Snack 3

The snacks being a small portion of protein and fat or carbohydrate

I see that is the normal trend for body composition. . .

The thing is: WHAT IS A MEAL!?

I don’t consider a 6 MEALS a day diet a good choice for people that aren’t VERY physically active, or those with genetics for burning things off nutrients quick as hell.

Someone should establish what’s being discussed here. . . Specifically what a meal actually is, and if it counts as another MEAL when you pop a protein shake and some fish oil tablets between lunch and dinner or whatever.

Also, do you guys count your pre and post work out shakes as MEALS? I dunno, to each their own I guess.

It’s how many of each nutrient you need that matters most for your goals. Eat less energy nutrients (fats and carbs) and you’ll have a tendency towards losing weight (what that weight consists of depends on your diet’s structure and your own individual genetic tendencies).

Eat more energy nutrients and you’ll have a tendency towards gaining weight, and you’ll have the added bonus of not having to focus on those protein shakes if your diet is majorly composed of protein sparing carbohydrates.

It all works. I do think that there is some logic to spacing meals out a bit more if you are in the presence of an excess of nutrients. This makes sense because your body may be more receptive to being ‘refueled’ again if you give it adequate time to utilize the previously ingested nutrients.

That may make for a more anabolic milieu, but I have no studies to point to in this assertion.

Eh, what do I know? LOL

You missed a crucial point to the experiment. All the subjects were assigned a daily caloric intake, which was their maintenance level + ~280 calories.

The definition of a meal is irrelevant next to the total calories consumed in a day. Whether that is done in 3 ‘meals’ or 6 ‘meals’ is what matters. Not what constitutes those feedings.

[/quote]

I was not referring to the experiment. I was referring to the concept of the ‘number of meals consumed in a day’ in general.

The experiment does clarify what constituted those meals, and it has been proven that the simplistic “calories in vs. calories out” explanation of nutrition is ineffective.

Not to mention the fact that protein, fat and carbohydrate sources of “calories” are not necessarily equivalent.

Also the definition of a meal can be VERY relevant to a fitness related nutrition discussion.

Is this a meal?

1 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup cashews

Is this a meal?

10 oz. salmon
5" sweet potato
1 apple

One has less physical food volume than the other. One has more macronutrients (as they are defined in kcal) than the other. One contains primarily fat as the source of “energy nutrients”. One contains primarily carbohydrate as the source of “energy nutrients”.

So when I have the former meal before I go to sleep, is that meal #6, or just a snack I’m having before I hit the sack?

I think these considerations are extremely relevant to a discussion of body composition when using the term “meal” to refer to a feeding.

For example, I find that people are BLOWN away when they hear that I eat 6-8 meals a day. Their idea of a meal is a full fledged meal with possibly a dessert. The issue at large is that I really don’t eat a massive meal like that every time I eat. I eat different amounts of food based on a variety of factors.

I think this study was designed to analyze the legitimacy of separating meals up into larger or smaller portions, which makes the constitution of those meals pertinent to discussion in this thread. . .

And I truly believe that the best nutritional advice for a weight lifter is. . .

“Just fuckin’ eat” :slight_smile:

22

Still though. If you, personally, lay out the macronutrient goals of a days food intake and the caloric goals. Then it is less relevant what constitutes a meal, so long as you are meeting those goals. That is what we are learning from studies like this.

23

[quote]Malevolence wrote:
Still though. If you, personally, lay out the macronutrient goals of a days food intake and the caloric goals. Then it is less relevant what constitutes a meal, so long as you are meeting those goals. That is what we are learning from studies like this.

[/quote]

That seems to be the case for gaining mass.

24

[quote]Seinix wrote:
Pretty interesting but if we were in a statistics class I would call this a small sample size. 16 men and 11 women? That’s a bit paltry, considering they were applying their hypothesis to all adults around the world.

I would say redo the study with double-blinding, completely randomized experimental design, and with a sample size of 1000.[/quote]

No way. 1000 subjects would likely be overpowered and thus find a significant difference no matter how small and meaningless it might be.

In this study, there are a couple problems:

  1. What is the effect size. “Significant” does not mean important.
  2. What is the variation? How many subjects show a pattern opposite to the reported effect?

Finally, although the details were not reported there, it is unlikely that the 6 meal diet included as many calories or as much protein as bodybuilders consume in the real world. In other words, it might be the case that just consuming more food overall, especially protein, is the important factor in mass gain, and eating 6 times allows you to consume, digest, and absorb more.

25

[quote]Uncle Gabby wrote:
ahzaz wrote:
I heard that more frequent meals, like one every 2-3 hrs, would speed up your metabolism. So eating LESS often would slow it down, no? Slower metabolism = more calories left for mass building right?

No. Metabolism is directly tied to lean body mass. If you have 2 people who are the same height who both weigh 200 lbs, one is 10% body fat and the other is 20%, the one with 10% body fat will have the faster metabolism. The only way he can slow down his metabolism is to lose lean body mass, which is the opposite of what you want to do.[/quote]

This maybe true, but metabolism isn’t entirely tied to LBM. The body is a nearly perfect machine that is remarkably good at, and is always seeking homeostasis. If someone continues to eat less and less the body will slow its metabolism down because it thinks it’s starving to death and will try to preserve as much fat and LBM as possible. That’s why the average housewife doesn’t lose a ton of weight when starving herself.

26

Maybe not, but weight and body composition are not synonymous. You can stay the same “weight” but carry more fat and less muscle, or vice versa.