Meal Frequency - A Evidence to support 6-8 meals while gaining...

**Frosty** · 06-05-2009, 03:12 PM

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/30/5/712

I thought this was interesting. There seems to be quite a lot of support for at LEAST 5 meals per day for staying leaner, but this article seems to support even higher frequency being beneficial. On page 3 of the PDF file you can see a graph showing meal frequency and adiposity. For men it seems to suggest benefits of 6-8 meals. The pieces of data that don't really fit the trend, like the 1 meal per day and the 8 meals per day, may be indicative of a small sample group because not many were at these frequencies. However you notice a general trend downward from 6-8 meals per day.

I know Palumbo advocates 7-8 meals a day when gaining, and this seems to support this level of frequency in keeping you lean while trying to gain weight. This seems to support the idea that to gain weight it might be better to add a meal or two instead of eating more at each meal to support lean gains.

**Mudpro69** · 06-05-2009, 03:15 PM

Interesting. I was following Dave's keto diet to a T until last week where I upped the portions and dropped a meal.

I might have to rethink that....

**Frosty** · 06-05-2009, 03:27 PM

Originally Posted by Mudpro69

Interesting. I was following Dave's keto diet to a T until last week where I upped the portions and dropped a meal.

I might have to rethink that....

I'm not really sure what difference you might see with dieting. I've always done 6 meals because when I tried 5 meals I got too hungry between meals. However I never tried 7 meals or more when dieting.

This was targeted more towards lean mass gains where you're taking in more food and there's a higher possibility of fat gain. The goal of course is to keep fat gains to a minimum when trying to gain weight for a number of different reasons.

My theory is for the majority of gym-goers, eating 7-8 meals per day and eating low carb for most of the meals is the way to keep fat gain to a minimum while putting on muscle. I say this because probably 3/4 of guys aren't really suited to a carb type diet, especially the guys that have always battled with their body fat levels. If they could stay leaner eating 7-8 meals per day of low carb/high protein meals to gain weight, their weight gains would be much more modest but so would their fat gain, and they could stay on a gaining phase for much longer while not getting fat, which increases estrogen and aromatase activity, destroys insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake in muscle tissue, and increases inflammation.

Plus they wouldn't have to diet as hard and for as long, and would eventually reset their body's set-point if they could stay under 12% year round even when gaining. Hell if you only gained 2 lbs a month, if your diet and training keeps you leaner, you could stay on a gaining diet for a year, which would be 24 lbs of muscle. I know muscle gain isn't that linear, but I think it's more conductive to bodybuilding for most people than getting very fat 15%+ when gaining, and then having to diet so much longer instead of putting on mass.