- Weight Loss = 3 (breakfast, lunch & dinner)
- Weight Maintenance + Fat Loss = 3+ (breakfast, lunch, dinner and maybe 1 snack)
- Weight Gain, Muscle Building and Performance = Divide Awake Hours By 3, is a guideline.
Weight Loss - 3 meals / day Dr. Thomas Halton, the author of The Weight Loss Triad, answered this question with his plan to eat protein, fats and carbs @ every meal. Eating these 3 macronutrients, reduced the likelihood that you'd be hungry between meals, thereby negating the need to snack between meals. He found that eating between meals only increased the chances of putting on weight, because of the excess calories consumed. Goal here is to see the scale go down!
Weight Maintenance + Fat Loss - 3+ meals / day The goal here is to see the scale stay the same and see your body fat % decrease. People in this category have found a nice balance between caloric output and input and usually have trouble keeping weight on without reducing their weekly activity. Since most don't want to do less exercise, they need to eat a bit more to maintain weight and decrease body fat%. So it's 3+ meals for these people. Some people are good with 3 meals, others might need a pre, peri or post workout meal to keep the weight on, fuel performance and decrease body fat vs losing lean muscle to wasting.
Weight Gain, Muscle Building and Performance - divide awake hours / 3 This is the fun category. This is where most kids live because they tend to not have reserves of stored energy, so what they consume fuels both growth and activity. Adults in this category are so active that they have trouble keeping weight on, building muscle and performing at a high level, unless, they make time to eat 4-10 meals per day. That's a lot of eating, but if you're metabolism is racing, you'll make time to sit for 3 square meals and day and to snack at other times. Plus liquid calories are super helpful in this category as are high glycemic load foods that digest rapidly because you need quick calories to help you fuel performance and recover quicker because you don't have the energy reserves that someone looking to see the scale go down does.
Guidelines vs Absolute These meals / day frequency suggestions are guidelines vs. absolutes. Many situations are different, so there is some compromise. People with weight loss goals, who train in the evening before dinner, might perform better and do better overall if they have a snack / meal somewhere between lunch and the workout or a snack / caloric beverage ~30min before workout.
Other people with weight loss goals, who like to exercise early in the morning, might need to have something to eat or drink before exercising, but not a full breakfast. This too would negate the 3 meal rule, so the number of meals per day you eat can both have guidelines to aim for and individualization.
Nutritional Periodization Plus, you may eat more on higher activity days and eat less on lower activity days (like I do with my carb focused strength days and my bean focused cardio days), or the opposite, maybe your higher activity days are so full, that you can't eat more meals per day or starch based meals, so your lower activity days become the days you eat more (carb days) and your higher activity days become the days you eat less (lean days).
Either way, you might already know what's best for you, so if you listen to your inner voice, it may have the answer and if you take the advice and map it out on paper, you'll have a plan.
If nutrition is the keystone piece to your accelerated change and you're ready to do something about. Reply and let me know.
Tomorrow we'll aim to cover body types (Somatotypes, nutrition and exercise) and Friday, splurge meals.
Until then, game the system so you can win.
Showing up,
Coach Mike
p.s. need help with your nutrition? reply and let me know.
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