Spidey, this is going to come from a purely engineering mindset, so take it for what its worth - and then I’ll follow-up with a specific bodybuilding example.
When you take a sinusoidal wave, ie the standard trig level wave that looks like the waves of an ocean, and try to change it to a steady signal, ie less pulse and more constant you increase the frequency so that the “wave caps” are closer together. Its like lying to the system receiving that signal as input that the input is a constant as opposed to pulsed. This is essentially what they do with an AC to DC converter, going from an intermittent signal to a steady one to feed the system. Buffers, Op-amps, capacitors, etc. do the job, but the point is, increasing the frequency is what brings balance to the system, not reducing the frequency.
Now let me apply this to something bodybuilding specific. When folks go on TRT or choose to inject they have a couple options. 1) Inject a longer estered steroid once every week or two, its simpler, easier and more convenient. 2) inject a shorter estered steroid, or inject the same longer estered steroid at a greater frequency, more needles, more time consumed, but with a different positive.
When you inject a large sum of something into a system that was at homeostasis before-hand you incur a dramatic response from the system, you shock it. In the case of the steroid, your system now tries to deal with this large “slug” of juice. Your mood will swing from more T, you’ll be more likely to deal with side effects - all because your body is trying to deal with a drastic change (the large waves of the sinusoid).
To counter this, guys will take a dosage and split it to occur more often than once every one to two weeks. This levels the steroid in the blood, makes it more consistent, and more manageable to the system. Your body will also adapt quicker to a smaller dose (however more frequent) and not be as susceptible to side effects.
Assuming even than 1-2 meals a day gives the same benefit as 5-6 meals a day, what it doesn’t do is provide your body with a steady flow of nutrients/income to the system. You’ll eat for a period fo 6-8 hours (in the case of intermittent fasting) and then for the next 16-18 hours that food will move through your digestive and excretory systems. But what else happens is as the food leaves your stomach it shuts down and stops working until another big slog of “work” comes through.
Essentially an on/off system. Not necessarily bad, but I assume you’ve heard that its better to let your air conditioning run in your home and reach homeostasis than to constantly run it on/off. Allowing it to steadily make small adjustments is more efficient.
This is true of an assembly line and almost any process - the function of on/off of massive slugs of “work” is less efficient and more exhaustive to the “system” than to let the “system” continually run at a smaller load of “work.” Its the base idea for things like Six Sigma and Process Innovation. Reaching a point of efficiency in the system that allows it to perform optimally and so that all equipment is performing work and not either waiting or offline. Our bodies are essentially just very refined/advanced machines.
That is my reasoning at least. But you’ll get greater insulin spikes in one big meal, than 3-4 smaller meals. Because the first small meal will adjust your body to the level of insulin needed (and assuming the same macro’s in the remaining meals) will continue at that level for subsequent meals. That’s why cheat meals shock your metabolism, because its a big slug of “work” out of the norm, so your body goes to super burn mode and then you burn more calories of the subsequent smaller meals.
I hope that made sense and wasn’t just worthless rambling. If so, I apologize.
