I swear if I get one more email about why people should/shouldn’t follow the 6 meal a day program, I’m going to lay down a serious ass beating. On top of that, I always have some tool sending me links to articles and proof that eating 6 meals a day isn’t the way to go and that it’s an old myth. (As if I don’t keep myself informed)

Ridiculous.

So I figured it is time to shut their ass up. Yes, I’ve read the studies. Yes I know people that don’t need to eat 6 meals a day and yes I have personally been eating 6 meals a day for many years and the results speak for themselves. But the effectiveness of this method lies in more than just caloric math. Half the battle for most people, as I’ve found, is psychological. And while the effects of eating 6 times a day can be debated from a biologic/nutrition standpoint, it’s psychological awesomeness is something you just can’t fuck with.

So on we go. I’m going to give you 6 reasons why you should (if you aren’t already) be eating smaller frequent meals instead of 2-3 big ones.

1. Better Energy Levels

Do you know one of the most taxing processes for your body? It’s digestion of food. Ever had a huge ass meal (like say, steak and potatoes) only to find yourself vegetating on the couch for a few hours after? Or ever had the strong urge to fall asleep at work because of the ginormous lunch you stuffed down your throat?

Yeah, there’s a reason for that.

Huge meals take a huge amount of time to digest, which means all the energy is going towards digestion. Why the hell does anyone think that this is a good idea? Specially in today’s fast paced world where we barely have time to sit and think?

Eating smaller meals will prevent you from dozing off and will keep you up and alert. I don’t need RedBull to pull all nighters. All I need is some oatmeal, peanut butter + jelly and some half-caf coffee. Consuming those foods in small proportions every 45 minutes will keep me up all night long. Don’t believe me? Go try it.

2. Controls your blood sugar levels [Edit: New research proves otherwise... updates below]

A new study was done comparing 3 meals/day versus 6 meals/day and compared the insulin and BG levels and the results were not what I expected. First let me get something out of the way, and that is the design of the study itself. Yes, the subjects were fed liquid meals and yes the carbohydrate source was pretty much straight glucose… not what you would eat normally but liquid absorption rate is much higher so that’s what they use. The end result was this…

“Baseline glucose and insulin values were not different between study days. Peak glucose levels were highest on the 3CHO day; however the 12 h glucose AUC was higher during the 6CHO condition (p = 0.029) than 3CHO condition, with no difference in the insulin response. The 6HP condition resulted in a decreased glucose AUC (p = 0.004) and insulin AUC (p = 0.012) compared to 6CHO.

Conclusion

In non-obese individuals, glucose levels remained elevated throughout the day with frequent CHO meals compared to 3CHO meals, without any differences in the insulin levels.”

First let me explain what all the wording means. CHO is a carbohydrate dominant meal where is PRO is a protein dominant meal. The numbers (3 or 6) represent the number of meals total calories were divided into, giving you the frequency. Simple shit. So, what about the results? Well, while there was not much difference between the CHO and PRO groups (it’s expected that a carb heavy meal would result in greater BG levels), there was a difference between the 3 and 6 meal groups. It seems that 3 meals a day resulted in lower BG levels for the individuals.

In my opinion, the real world results would be a lot less dramatic since having glucose syrup and all-liquid meals is not something people do unless you got your ass kicked and are bed ridden in a hospital. Still, you cannot argue with the facts.

So what is a frequent meal eating plan good for? Well for mass… duh. Look, there are guys out there that I help pack on pounds and they can eat huge meals every sitting so in 4 meals they can achieve their macro-nutrient ratios I outlined for them. However, there are some (like me) that just can’t eat massive ass meals. But I’ll be damned if i don’t reach my ratios for the day, especially if I’m feeling like bulking. So what do i do? Simple, eat 6-8 times a day. There’s your second reason.

3. You’ll feel hungry LESS often

Lets face the obvious facts here: If you are eating often (say ever 2 hours or so), it really doesn’t give your body a chance to trigger any hunger signals… even if you miss one out of the 6 meals. But on the other hand, lets say you have a big breakfast that carries you over to lunch at which point you realize you are short on time so you eat something light. Fair enough.

But you’re not eating often and therefore your last meal, dinner, is like 6 hours away. I can pretty much guarantee that your stomach will begin making some nasty noises as you trek your way home. Last time I checked, no one really likes this feeling and the noises are quite embarrassing. So eating frequently will at the very least… prevent  you from looking like a noise maker.

On a side note: I’ve noticed that over time your body will adapt to the type of eating method you choose. Since my body expects food every 2 hours now, it automatically bitches if I haven’t fed it in due time. It’s like having an auto alarm clock… and this is awesome. I usually don’t have to think about eating, I just get hungry every 2 hours. So for those douchebags that keep telling me that eating 6x a day requires too much effort… think again. It requires effort only up until the point your body adapts and it becomes a habit.

Does this seem like a contradiction? Yes and no. Actually probably yes. To be honest, your body’s eating “habit” is a much more important factor. Most people who switch from 3 to 6 meals a day generally don’t find themselves feeling hungry, and that’s just speaking from feedback. Specially when they adhere to my meal plans where are more protein heavy, a fact proven by this study. What you’ll notice in that study though, is that those obese subjects felt more hungry when they 6 meals a day, yet had lower BG levels (a contradiction to the study in #2). So what data should you believe? Let me make it simple…

Switching form a low frequency eating to high frequency eating while increasing the ratio of protein consumed will, from my experience, help you feel fuller for longer while resulting in lower BG levels.

If you feel like you’ve been taken for an information ride, full of U-Turns and Round-Abouts then you’re absolutely right. Bite me. It’s what I do

4. More options

This one was a revelation for me… an elusive obvious I never even picked up on until I decided to write this article. I realized that ever since I started to eat frequently, my cooking skills have improved which has led to me eating and trying out a variety of different foods. I mean, if you have to eat 6 different meals… why would you eat the same shit over and over? It’s boring and pathetic.

[Try something new]

I have so many options now and I look forward to grocery shopping and preparing my quick meals. When I was like the average person eating 3 times a day, my daily food log looked boooring. There was no real variety unless I went out to eat. Having 6 slots to fill will literally force you to come up with or look up different foods. Your pallet will expand and you will be introduced to stuff you never thought you would like.

5. Most people end up eating LESS when meal frequency goes up!

This one really nails the coffin on the “you don’t need to eat frequently” bandwagon. From all my data and experience that I have, I found that clients who were eating less frequently were actually consuming MORE calories. At first it may sound confusing… I mean, doubling the amount of times you eat food should increase your overall caloric intake right?

Wrong.

It’s psychology my friend. If your goal is to lose weight, and I told you that you just HAD to eat 6 times a day… guess what would happen? You would automatically make damn sure that each meal was balanced and light so that you don’t overeat and get bigger (at least after a bit of guidance and training you would). Let me give you a sample breakdown from a client’s log.

I won’t reveal any personal details since I practice strict confidentiality.

Breakfast: 600 calories

Lunch: 550 calories

Snack: 300 calories

Dinner: 700 calories

Total: 2150 calories in a day

Now after discussing their goals, training level and their weekly activity level, I found that their actual daily caloric requirement was only 1700. So you can see why they were over weight. I’ve always said that caloric math isn’t 100% accurate, there are too many real-world factors to make fat loss a simple number crunching venture, but it’s still a decent way to get an overall picture of the problem at hand. Below is what their new meal log looked like.

(Note: This was during the first week without much push from my end. I didn’t even tell them the amount of calories to aim for, just gave them the macronutrient break down and it resulted in awesomeness)

Breakfast: 300

Snack: 250

Lunch: 350

Snack: 200

Dinner: 300

Snack: 250

Total: 1650

Hmm… isn’t that interesting? I told this person to eat more times in a day, yet they really ended up eating less. It’s not only the caloric deficit that resulted in their successful fat shredding, it’s also the macronutrient breakdown… which was properly adjusted this time around by moi!

[not exactly what I had in mind when I said high-frequency eating…]

And it’s not only fat loss, those who want to get bigger and pack on muscle… eating 6 times a day is the fucking standard. STANDARD. I know many guys that compete and none of them eat less than 6 times a day. Some even chow down on food 8 times a day… which is frankly a bit much for me but hey, these guys compete and putting on mass is of major importance to them. This is the beauty of the high frequency method – it can be effortlessly adapted to your situation. Just adjust the calories and the macronutrient ratios and off you go.

6. Because I said so…

Couldn’t really think of a sixth reason but I had to come up with something to stay loyal to my catchy-ass title. So I figured this was as good a reason as any. If all else fails and you hard-asses are still contemplating why you should eat frequently… it’s because I fucking said so!

You can also mention it to your friends.

“Dude, why the hell are you eating so often?”

“Becuz man… FJ said so!”

It will get you instant respect, a raise from your boss, loyalty from strangers and you’ll get laid way more often. How can you argue with that?

- FitJerk

Discuss: Do you practice frequently eating? Let me know in your thoughts below. This is a free country, express your freedom of opinion or go live somewhere where they love you for keeping your lip shut

Also, be sure to check out the brand new Social Fitness Site called Fitmarker!

Originally Written By FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – Content not to be republished without author consent.

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