Reasons not to eat 6 times a day

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #21

My guess is that the “eat every couple of hours” business was started by a sugar-burner who kept getting hungry and didn’t know how to control the cravings. Now that I’m fat-adapted, I’m just not interested in food most of the time, and sometimes when I think I am hungry, it’s just cravings, not real hunger.

The old cliché about filling up on Chinese food and being hungry again an hour or two later was certainly true for me, and the reason was all that rice, combined with the enormous quantity of sugar in the sauce (yes, even in sauces that don’t taste all that sweet!). I was consuming an inordinate amount of glucose, my insulin was spiking, and then my glucose level was dropping precipitously, so I felt hungry again.

When I was a sugar-burner I could literally stuff my stomach so full it was about to burst and still be hungry. These days, I sometimes can’t finish a meal and have to put it in the fridge for later. My belly never comes anywhere near being full anymore, and I can still go for hours without wanting to eat, because my glucose and insulin levels are no longer spiking and crashing.

(Doug) #22

Amen, Paul. :neutral_face: On my own in my first apartment, boiled enough potatoes to feed several families, cut them up and ate them with a lot of butter and salt. Ouchstarchouch…

(Renee Slaughter) #23

It was Dr Eric Berg on You Tube who explained why 6 meals doesnt benefit me as TD2. I do not have a study or a reference. Just my experience. It didn’t work for me at this point in my life. Paying more attention to my actual hunger cues did.

#24

Some people suggested skipping breakfast, but I get hungry in the mornings. What about eating a big breakfast and skipping lunch?

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #25

Folks who follow an IF protocol would not be supportive of that, as it doesn’t fit the 18/6 style fast/feed protocol or whatever is it. They’d probably suggest skipping dinner, then, and keeping calories higher for the breakfast and lunch.

(Solomom A) #26

This Study says 3 meals per day with a heavy breakfast better than 6 meals. Participants were uncontrolled diabetics.

(Adam Kirby) #27

Very interesting, does the study explain or speculate the mechanism behind 6 meals providing better insulin sensitivity?

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #28

Try an n=1 experiment, you can’t know what works for you without giving it a try. With lots of good fats in the breakfast, you could do it. Or try having breakfast and lunch and skipping dinner so you can get in a good Intermitten fasting stretch. I have a vegan friend who found this was her sweet spot, she lost even more than her goal. I do better skipping breakfast and having two meals between noon and 6. That works great with an occasional 36 hr. fast and a once a month over 72 hr. fast, to help me maintain my weight loss.

I have a hard time fitting 3 meals into a day, because I am just not that hungry. YMMV

Good luck sorting yourself out.

(Jay Patten) #29

If you want to be fat and diabetic, then yes, eating six meals a day is great. :grin::joy:

The next time someone says to eat 6 small meals you be sure to let them know that doing so is a surefire way to keep your insulin levels high all day, which a) causes fat storage/ blocks fat access and b) hardens the arteries, which leads to heart disease.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #30

Some ketoers do eat breakfast and lunch and skip dinners. As long as the eating window hours fit. This link gets deep into circadian biology.

(Vanessa) #31

My breakfast is 16 oz of a really fatty bulletproof coffee only. I bring lunch to work with me but I’m usually so satiated from the coffee that I don’t feel the need to eat until I get home around 5 pm.
This works for me so far.

#32

I have been feeling this way lately as well, able to skip lunch but feeling hungry for breakfast- I try to put it off and try to stop eating dinner early enough so that my insulin has as much time to drop while I’m sleeping as I can get, because I am totally distracted thinking about when I get to eat if I skip breakfast

(Tina Emmons) #33

Sorry, old thread but my “now.” Just started weight training yesterday with a competitive female body builder. I was SO excited, and I still am about the workouts, but I got her recommended meal plan today and I’m not sure exactly how to handle it. I was actually kind of surprised cuz I thought getting down that lean, it would be common these days to be keto and fasting in the body building community. She doesn’t believe in IF. I didn’t even get to my EF’s. Doing 4:3 with 40-42 hr fasts. She says she tried IF and gained ten pounds. It’s six mini meals, protein and veg for the first three and then adding fats toward the end of day. She will “support” my IF by an 8am-5pm window so that’s not horrible but the rice and fruit and egg white? Please. I did tell her about my IR and reversing it but she obviously doesn’t know the “new” science. I think I’ll just start out telling her I need to talk to my doc and see if we can align our plans somewhat. I can totally pull from her food list and just make it one meal or even two(when I’m not fasting for 42 hours). It is just a bit hard to argue with her when she looks how she looks and I look how I look. I mean, part of the reason I chose her is she must know something about how to look like that!

#34

Just the mere idea of eating six small meals a day now blows my mind. It hasn’t taken long, less than a year, for me to forget how it feels to be hungry so soon after a meal. I wouldn’t go back to that, no matter what a weight-trainer says. To be that controlled by your hunger again, plus the added damage of keeping insulin elevated? Has this person ever dealt with weight-loss problems? If not, then she doesn’t understand the role insulin plays in gaining fat and isn’t an authority.

#35

Genes will come into play there - some people are born to do certain sports :slightly_smiling_face: She’d also be training a great deal more than most people.

(Carl Keller) #36

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and back then, people ate 3 meals a day and snacking wasn’t really a thing and diabesity wasn’t a thing either. I can remember being told I can’t have this or that because it would ruin my dinner.

Processed foods and fear of dietary fat changed everything.

Some people are genetically blessed with insulin sensitivity… meaning they can eat a lot of garbage and not gain any weight. While others with insulin resistance can look at a donut and automatically gain 2 pounds. I was insulin sensitive for most of my life and stayed thin while everyone around me grew bigger and bigger but I didn’t have a clue what eating right meant.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #37

At least she’s not telling you to eat carbohydrate, that’s something. I would ignore the six meals a day business, since you know that you need to keep your insulin down. The exercise will help you regain your insulin sensitivity, and so will the intermittent fasting. Just explain to her that you are in a different situation from her, and that you need to eat in a time window. Or maybe not even that; perhaps just nod and smile and go do what you know you’re going to do anyway, lol! You’ve been on these forums long enough to have read plenty of posts by people who find they do their best workouts while fasting.

Calling @Dread1840. Do you have anything helpful to add? You lift fasted, don’t you?

(Chris) #38

@PaulL Every day.

@cwemmons are you paying this person? If so, give her plan a shot and see if it does anything. If not, maybe some further looking would be good.

I will say that in contemporary competitive bodybuilding, usually the athletes are using performance-enhancing drugs. I’m not accusing your trainer of juicing, she could compete in a natural federation. But it exists in the mainstream arm of the sport.

That being said, in natural athletes that old science has pretty much been put to bed. If you’re not competing there’s no eating window you really need to stick to, just get in the food you need to get in.

As far as cutting and using rice, fruits, etc. again, if you’re paying for this, try it out. I’ve seen some mention of use of these in sparing amounts in such books as the Vertical Diet (Stan Efferding). I won’t fully discount the use of carbs, though. I can’t be that closed-minded.

(Tina Emmons) #39

Thanks! So this is really what I’m asking about, like maybe there’s actually something TO her plan. What I’m doing isn’t working for weight loss(until starting 4:3 in Jan) so perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to try it her way for a bit. I should be insulin sensitive now(4.4 in Aug) so with the muscle building…What I don’t want is to be not getting the results we expected and then have to tell her I didn’t try the meal plan yet. I AM paying her and I really, really like her. My second session was this morn and she was pretty chill about the food. I am back n forth. So…more specifically, the plan: start at 8am, first three meals one protein, one “carb” so I could easily do an egg and handful of berries, all legal, then second three meals are one protein(lean but whatever) one non-starchy veg and one portion of healthy fat(one Tbs EVOO, 1/4 avocado, almonds or 1 Tbs PB). Last meal by 5pm(to support my IF)Actually, now that I write this, it doesn’t seem so bad, lol! I just got kind of freaked out with the rice and fruit and the six times a day. I’m sorry. I’m figuring this while I reply! I’d be doing about 24g of carbs in the berries and 15-25 in veggies. Not keto but close enough I could try and not feel I’m abandoning all I believe in. This is, by the way, a means to a short term goal, not forever. I have a special vacation planned in 5 months with girls half my age in thong bikinis all around me. Just want to look n feel the best I can by then. I think now I’ll give it a shot. Thanks @Dread1840 for “weighing” in!!