The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs & Protein Prejudice

[crappler]

The "eat five times a day" myth has been around for quite a while, but I don't buy it. The first thing that bothers me about it is the effect it must have on blood glucose levels. How exactly is the body supposed to respond to being forced to stabilize blood sugar levels five times every day? I found this article http://www.leangains.com/2011/01/bet...ower-meal.html

Summary

The authors of the paper sums up the results:

The present study is one of the first to investigate glucose and insulin excursions in response to altered meal frequency and macronutrient composition in healthy young adults over a 12 h period. Our primary finding is that consumption of 6 frequent meals in 12 h resulted in higher blood glucose levels over the course of the day than the consumption of 3 meals, although there was no difference in the insulin response between these two conditions.

The implication here is that it seems insulin was able to do its job better, that of lowering blood sugar, with less meals.

There has been considerable promotion both by the medical community and the lay press to consume 6 meals per day for weight loss or for glycemic control but our data indicate that the glucose AUC is 30% higher over the course of the day with a frequent high carbohydrate feeding than when consuming 3 meals per day.

This is just a nice way to say that mainstream diet advice is a bunch of bullshit.

This could potentially have profound implications for individuals with glucose intolerance or those with type 2 diabetes, and should be studied further in this population.

[legomepanda]

The site's kind of a mess, I can't find a link or reference to the actual study. And the words "frequent high carbohydrate feeding" concern me. If the goal is weight loss wtf are we carb loading for?

Personally I don't think the number of meals you eat in a day matters that much compaired to your diet overall. As in eating healthy twice a day is way better than eating 6 meals a day and only 2 healthy ones.