http://examine.com/faq/do-i-need-to-eat-six-times-a-day-to-keep-my-metabolism-high.html
I found this article and I must say I am a bit taken aback. Could some more enlightened minds clarify what is being said here? Because I have always understood it to be fairly well-established that frequent feedings increased metabolic rate. My (admittedly probably weak) understanding of what I read here tells me differently. Do frequent feedings increase metabolic rate or not?
Not sure if I count as “enlightened”, but it seems a pretty good review to me, FWIW. There are those out there who have made “definitive” claims on both sides of that fence (alternate day fasting is key; frequent snacking is key) and their review seems balanced – meal frequency correlates with other behaviors (and may even influence other behaviors) that impact weight and body composition but likely has little to no direct impact on metabolism itself. It also makes the point that frequent eating may help with muscle mass. The review in no way informs about time of day of eating, a whole different item.
This off topic but I think it will be well worth your time if you’re health conscious. Tricks food play. The article is mainly about the link between the linoleic acid in soy bean oil and the endocannabinoid system but there is a lot more. It’s not a journal article either - well written.
An increased “metabolic rate” may be a false idol. Less fancifully, I would submit that what counts is the effect on diet of things like its effect on promoting, or inhibiting, atherosclerosis and other undesirable health outcomes. When you take that as the objective, small frequent meals are likely better.
ETA: Here, in my opinion, is the first, and seminal article in the area.
So is the commonly-touted advice given to people struggling to lose weight that their body has reached a plateau and they need to eat more food and more frequently in order to boost the metabolism actually unsound advice? Or only partly true?
The only thing I feel confident in stating is that for any fixed number of calories, if they are ingested intermittently over an extended period (i.e. frequent, small meals as opposed to two or three large meals), there is a more salutary effect on things like cholesterol, glucose, and insulin.
Two thousand calories spread out over the course of the day as six snacks and/or frequent nibbling leads to a healthier metabolic profile compared to ingesting the two thousand calories in the form of three meals.
To lose weight requires taking in fewer calories (and/or burning off more with exercise). As far as I know, the effect on weight of frequent small meals versus a few larger meals is about the same.
My point in the earlier post was that people may be better off focusing on attaining a beter metabolic profile for whatever weight and caloric intake they’re at, and approaching weight loss as a separate issue (and approached by eating less, not more often).
I think the issue about plateaus is a different one, one that supposes some of the apparent plateau is fluid responding to stress hormones evoked by the prolonged significant energy restriction … the idea is not increased frequency but easing up on the degree of energy restrction some.
In my experience the main utility of multiple small meals is behavioral in reinforcing appetite awareness and appetite control if you are trying to lose weight and get more fit. Eating larger meals (again in my experience) also tends to make people more sensitive to blood sugar levels more sluggish and lethargic post meals. If you are working out on regular basis this is a huge negative.
I’ve found prepping and planning multiple smaller meals for yourself generally requires more hands on awareness and involvement in what you are eating. You focus on making each meal balanced and high quality more so (IMO) than you would with a larger meals.
In the end it’s mainly about calories and individual metabolisms, but for people who have weight control issues forcing this awareness and involvement with what they are eating often yields better nutritional awareness and discipline.
And my experience with my body is exactly the opposite - I’m not hungry in the morning, and if I eat breakfast anyway, I’m ravenous all day long. If I eat small frequent meals, it’s much harder to keep my total daily caloric intake something resembling reasonable. If I skip breakfast (except for a glass of Emergen-C and psyllium fiber with my morning cinnamon and gymnema supplements), I’m not hungry until about 2, at which point a medium sized apple or orange or small salad gets me through until a moderate dinner. If at any point other than that I start snacking, I’m insanely hungry the rest of the day.
So, yes, to emphasize your last point: I think people need to experiment and find out what works for them. I think the reason there’s so much contradictory evidence is that our bodies aren’t all the same, and we don’t know enough yet to accurately separate study groups into “grazers” and “monomeals” and “three squares”.
I spent way too many hungry obese years believing that I had to force myself to eat breakfast and small frequent meals because that’s what the magazines told me to do. Dropped 50+ pounds when I just started eating when I’m actually hungry, even if the magazines say I’m doing it wrong, and have kept it off for almost a year.
I’m doing the same thing. I’m just not often that hungry in the morning. It’s seems a bit daft to force oneself to eat if one’s trying to lose weight.
I have the same problem - if I eat in the morning, I’m hungry all day. And the thought of food in the morning - blech.
From my early teens through mid-thirties, I ate once a day, in the evening. There towards the end, I did start having some problems with coming home ready to axe-murder anyone who breathed. I eventually figured out it was a blood-sugar thing.
Everyone tells you to eat breakfast and eat more often, so I worked on finding things I could eat for breakfast and started having lunch and snacks. And I feel crappy and hungry all the time. Except on weekends, when I tend to get busy and not eat. And I’ve gained huge amounts of weight. 
Now I’m trying to figure out how to switch back.
I think the problem with all of the diets and studies and methods is that they do all work - for some people. And not at all for others.
I’m pretty much exactly the same way re my appetite clock (and I suspect many people with weight problems are in the same category) I have relatively little appetite in the morning unless I am very seriously restricting calories. Eating big in the morning is (again IMO) not hugely necessary unless you have a serious workout near that time and need the energy reinforcement. I do find that hitting some oatmeal in the morning is useful. I do want a late lunch and a decent dinner, but the real problem comes in the later evening where somehow minimal physical activity combines with a huge surge in late evening appetite, especially for carbohydrates.
Under the typical multiple small meals plans eating after dinner later into the evening is strongly discouraged under the theory that food consumed just before bed will not be burned efficiently and more readily turn to fat. I can see how this is intuitively appealing because it “sounds” right, but who knows if this assumption is metabolically valid. I find saving a micro meal for the late evening will help crunch this appetite surge.
Beyond all this, everyone has a different way of losing weight. I do think the multiple meals assist in that and keeping track of calories or otherwise tracking consumption somehow (points etc) is necessary for most overweight people to get a handle on their weight.
Based on my experiences in using a personal trainer who works me like a rented mule 3x a week for an hour at a time I do find that I have to eat ahead of time for that workout. Unlike office work or 99% of the rest of life that does not involve very strenuous physical activity I can’t get by just on baseline energy levels and not eating anything substantive until 2 PM. I suspect the many small meal advice is more relevant and effective behaviorally when you are seriously working out vs just doing moderate occasional exercise.
I don’t buy into all the paleo-diet woo but I do wonder what our eating patterns were a hundred thousand years ago. Most mammals, in the wild just can’t always wake up and start eating. I guess if they’re a grazing animal and they slept in a field of clover but, in general, the food has to be hunted down first or at the least, found first. Wouldn’t the normal pattern be sleep, then exertion followed by feeding?
I’ve also heard some interesting claims (longevity, weight control, insulin balance) about so-called Intermittent Fasting which includes the 5:2 diet (where you fast two days a week). Anyone know the straight dope?
And this makes me wonder…are the studies which show slimmer women eat breakfast (which are usually interpreted by reporters as telling us to eat breakfast if we want to be slim) correlation or causation studies? I could certainly imagine that slimmer women without so many, uh, “bodily reserves” (or maybe a different hormonal milieu) might eat breakfast more often because they’re hungry in the morning. They’re not slim because they eat breakfast; they eat breakfast because they’re slim!
Dunno. But I wonder.
Throw this other wrinkle into it: in this study those who usually eat breakfast lose more weight by starting to skip and if those who usually skip you lose more by starting to eat it.
Then there is the observation that Type 2 DM risk, for the same BMI, is greater in those who skip than those who eat breakfast.
Honestly, I am not even so sure as KarlGauss is about the metabolic effects, as I can find studies on both sides of that question too.
Definitely correlation. We can go into attributes such as breakfast means more time, which means less stress, more income, etc etc.
I’m from Examine.com, so I thought I would quickly clarify just a bit.
The act of eating increases your metabolism. Your body has to “work” to consume/utilize that food. The more you eat, the more your metabolism will stay elevated.
So, at the end of the day, whether you have 10 meals or 2, the amount your metabolism increases is the same. For those that remember their math, the “area under the curve” adds up equivalently.
In regards to food absorption - I am loathe to bring up evolution/ancestors, but not eating for an extended time was a frequent occurrence. The food doesn’t rush from your stomach to your colon - it can “sit” in your small intestines (as chyme). So if you take a major meal, it just sits more.
There is no notable physiological advantage in 3 or 14 meals (there was a study explicitly studying 3 vs 14). There are psychological advantages for different reasons - you should eat as many “meals” as it works for you.