How Often Should I Eat

With all the fads, diets and trends that the world has to offer these days, its hard to keep track of what is false and what is true. If you are trying to lose weight, gain muscle, or you just want to be healthy, fit and happy, one of the questions you might be asking, is how much you should be eating on a day to day basis. There is a lot of conflicting research out there, especially on the internet so its really hard to tell fact from fiction. Most people say that you should be eating 6 small meals a day to get the metabolism going. Others say you should only be eating 3 small meals. While even more, others are saying that breakfast should be the biggest meal and lunch and dinner should be the smallest. So what IS the truth? According to a lot of doctors, it doesn’t matter how many meals you are eating. What matters is the calories consumed and exhausted. Losing weight or gaining muscle is not a one size fits all time of method. Its more of a “what works for you”. And its also defendant on what you can stick with. Not everyone can eat

6 meals a day, either their bodies wont allow them, or they simply don’t have time to stop and eat every 2-3 hours out of their hectic day. Most doctors will tell you that depending on how active you are, you should be eating between 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day. Another tip is that if you stick to minimally processed foods, and stay away from junk food as much as possible but only limit them to 20% of what you eat daily in terms of calories, you can eat as many or as little

meals as you see fit.

Big Meals versus Small Meals

Another common medical question that revolves around food, is what is better; smaller meals or larger meals? Chances are you’ve heard that if you want to lose weight or gain muscle you need to eat more often. Perhaps you were told to eat five to six meals per day. Or maybe you were told that eating big meals is bad? As one author put it “The reputed benefits of eating frequent small meals as superior to fewer meals has not been scientifically validated, although there have been studies that have tried.” The real question shouldn’t be big versus small but rather does eating often burn more calories? One thing to remember is that every time you eat, you burn those calories. Essentially

your body or the digestive system in particular is like a big engine. It needs to work really hard to convert that food into energy and to break that food down. Everything from chewing to swallowing to digestion all takes a lot of work. Some of the energy is used to digest your food, and the other energy helps you to walk, think, build muscles, burn fat and more. What food is not used as energy is simply left over. However, even then it takes time and energy to transport that food through your digestive tract. The different amounts and types of foods we eat will burn different amounts of energy or calories. One of the most metabolically expensive foods you can eat is protein. It costs more energy to chew, breakdown and digest protein than any other type of food. This is another reason why protein diets are so popular and so great! The more protein that you consume, the more calories you burn.

Protein Absorption

Another thing you should be thinking about is protein absorption. Many people say that the body cant absorb more than 20-30 grams of protein in one sitting. Others say that this is untrue and that all of the protein you eat can be utilized. But what exactly is protein absorption? Its actually quite complex; when you eat something like protein, your stomach uses certain enzymes and acids to break those proteins down into building blocks called amino acids. The molecules are then transferred into the bloodstream by special cells that help line the small intestine and once they go through this process they are then delivered to the different parts of the body. Your small intestine only has a few of these special transporter cells which means your body is limited to the amount of amino acids that can be impregnated into your blood every hours. The whole protein absorption method talks about how quickly your intestines can absorb those amino acids into the blood. Now, different people have different outlooks on this. Some people say that its bupkiss and protein absorption doesn’t exist in terms of limited amounts, While

others even more, say that you only have limited resources, such as the notes 20-30 grams above. The fact is that this is different for different people, while the average person can only absorb 20-30 grams of protein at a time, some people may be able to absorb more protein; other factors can also play a role here, such as the source of the protein, dairy products versus meat or protein powder.