How many meals per day should you eat? Does it matter?
So you want to diet? You have read all about what to eat, how much to eat, and how many meals a day you need to consume. The question is does the number of meals per day really matter?
I personally have heard it countless times, you have to eat 6-8 small meals per day to keep your metabolism boosted. Oddly enough you hear the same thing when you are researching how to gain weight. The latter may make a bit more sense just because it’s hard to fit all those calories in just a few meals.
Science can help us answer these questions by actually measuring the metabolism of people on various feeding schedules. Special tools such as room calorimeters can be used to do this. A room calorimeter is a sealed room a human can live inside. In this room everything and I mean everything is measured from a person, their urine, stool, and various gases. These measurements are subjected to formulas to determine an individual’s metabolic activity.
In these scientific settings feeding patterns from 2-7 meals per day have shown little difference in metabolic rate. One thing that I did find that was interesting is that some people who had lower meal frequency did have about a 10% higher PYY (peptide tyrosine tyrosine) level. PYY is signaling peptide in the gut that helps make you feel full. This is interesting especially with all the faddish craze behind intermittent fasting lately. I know intermittent fasters must get this question constantly. Don’t you feel hungry all the time? Maybe this is one way our body wards off hunger when were not eating frequently.
Our metabolism may not change but most scientific evidence shows that very low or high feeding schedules can decrease lean mass and lead to increased hunger. You won’t likely see much difference in your performance or function with a moderate number of meals (3 to 6 meals per day.) Just ensure that you get a moderate amount of protein with each meal, at least 20g.
What this evidence leaves us with is flexibility. We can intake food the way thats most convenient for our lifestyles. We can focus more on getting the right amount of calories and macronutrients rather than when we get them.
Sources for how many meals per day to eat:
Intermittent fasting does not affect whole-body glucose, lipid, or protein metabolism.
Protein feeding pattern does not affect protein retention in young women.
Protein pulse feeding improves protein retention in elderly women.
International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: meal frequency