That just won’t work for me, as the program I was on had significant leg work three days per week. Doing all of that work combined with 3-4 days of soccer would just equal massive overtraining issues. There’s just a limit to how much stress you can place on your body, especially if you’re looking for significant strength gains. There wouldn’t be enough rest time, and rest time is one of the most important parts of a good lifting regimen.

However, I did start a new routine that I will detail soon. Been doing it less than a week, and I already love it and hate it at the same time.

-Drew

That part of the experiment was a success, but the eating was just as difficult as the lifting, if not more so. Forcing yourself to eat when you aren’t hungry never feels good. And many times, I ate junk food just to up the calorie count a bit.

As far as calories burned, that was even tricker to calculate. I definitely had to estimate there. I can’t wear a heart rate monitor when playing soccer (for safety reasons), and recording your heart rate during weight lifting sessions rarely produces an accurate calorie burn count.

So, both my calories consumed and calories burned were off. However, it is abundantly clear from the before and after photos and measurements that there were definite changes.

Not all the changes were good ones

On to the numerical results:

My measurements changed a lot in the upper body, but hardly any in the lower body. That was a bit unexpected, I must say, considering I ended up moving a lot more lower body weight than I usually do. However, I suspect that the relatively high weights I was using in my previous program on just one leg helped build a lot more muscle than I knew.

Chest:

Started at 38 inches around, ended at 40 inches around. That’s significant gain not only in the pectorals, but also in the back muscles.

Waist:

Started at 32, ended at 34. Ouch.

Shoulders:

Started at 46, ended at 47.

Arms:

Started at 14 inches, ended at 14.5.

Legs:

Started at 25, ended at 25.5.

Calves:

Started and ended at 17. No change.

So, there were some fairly good increases in some areas, while others remained unchanged. However, as you will see from the percentage increases below, the gains in inches did not correspond with the gains in strength. Even though my squats and deads went up the most, there was no change in muscle mass for the corresponding muscle groups.

Too much added fat

Now, keep in mind that I calculated my starting “max” weights extremely conservatively, so the poundage and percentage increases might be a bit overstated. However, they definitely exist and went up significantly.

Bench:

20% increase, +30 lbs

Squat:

25% increase, +42 lbs

Row:

22.5% increase, +35 lbs

Military Press:

22% increase, +25 lbs

Deadlift:

26% increase, +60 lbs

What now?

Well, now I’m going to take a week or so off from lifting to let my body recover a bit. I’m a little beat up from all the heavy lifting. I’ve already begun to significantly cut my caloric intake. I will keep the calories to a reasonable level, and cut my daily intake of protein to around 120g per day.

I need to get back to this, taken one week before I started this program

Then, I will continue on the program to see if I can continue to gain strength and size on fewer calories and less protein. Hopefully, I will cut out all this excess fat I gained. Looking good for summer starts early! Plus, competitive outdoor soccer starts in just a month and a half. Time to up my power to weight ratio.

-Drew

I haven’t missed any of the lifts on the schedule, even when I felt like I was too tired to be at the gym. So, that’s good. I was out of town for an extended period of time, but found a gym there and was able to stay on schedule. My diet has still been filled with excess empty calories, like pies, cakes and cinnamon rolls. While I was out of town, it was exceptionally difficult to get to 225g of protein per day, so I didn’t quite hit that goal for that time period. But, since I was still able to hit all my lifts, it didn’t negatively affect my lifting.

Fat accumulation has not been as high as the calorie counter says it should be. That tells me I’m still either under-reporting calories eaten, or underestimating calories burned. I still have pretty good ab definition, despite eating nearly 3,500 to 4,500 calories per day. Certainly nothing that a couple of weeks of 1200 calorie days won’t take care of.

That’s all I’ve got for updates, but I promise more articles will be coming soon. That’s not a New Year’s Resolution; it’s just a statement of fact.

*- Speaking of New Year’s Resolutions, I can’t be the only one that both loves and hates them. I love the fact that people want to get in shape, but I hate the fact that I’ve never met anyone that actually followed through with their weight loss or fitness goals simply based on a resolution. It’s one thing to set a goal for the year if you’re already a frequent gym-goer, but it seems to be entirely different if you are perpetually inactive.

*- If you can’t do push-ups, you shouldn’t be benching. If you can’t do a prisoner or body-weight squat, you shouldn’t be trying to squat. Work on flexibility and some core strength and then try to start working on the weights.

*- Beware of misinformation. It comes in many forms. If you aren’t sure about whether or not to take a certain supplement, don’t simply look to internet discussions to get your information. They can be valuable tools to point you in the right direction, but if you want to avoid wasting your time and money, look at the underlying science and accompanying studies. Good science will tell you far more than anecdotal evidence.

-Drew

So far, my experiment is going well, but as I’m just into the 4th week of the program, I’m just now getting back to my previous maxes in each lift (per program design).

I’ve been eating like a horse — close to 3,500 calories per day. I’m not entirely sure what my average estimated calories burned is, because FitDay seems to be screwing the calculations up. However, I have gained little, if any fat. So, either I’ve been overestimating calories consumed, or somewhat underestimating calories burned. I’m not too worried about it right now, though, as my lifting is right on schedule.

On to the random thoughts:

5. Any piece of exercise equipment that claims to cut the time you have to exercise won’t do what it claims. Shake weights, ab machines, and the like, I’m looking at you. Workouts are supposed to be hard and demanding. Easy shouldn’t be a word that you use regularly when describing your regimen.

4. How anyone can get a workout done while listening to the music they pump through the speakers at regular gyms? I heard a Michael Bolton song in between songs this afternoon. Thank God for iPods.

3. It never ceases to amaze me how many people completely skip their warm-ups and cooldowns. Tip: If you don’t have time for a proper workout and a proper cooldown, you don’t have time to work out. Period.

2. If you want to be good at something, you have to train for it. There’s only so much progress you can make with general fitness preparedness. If you want to be good at football, your workouts must resemble what you’ll be doing on the field. If you want to get good at long distance running, you’re going to have to suck it up and run long distances. Your training should mimic your goals.

1. If you’re not having fun at the gym, you’re doing it wrong. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, and it won’t be the last time: It is imperative that you find something you enjoy when trying to stay fit. If you don’t like running, don’t force yourself to do it. Find something else. If you don’t like lifting weights, do something else. If you don’t like either of those things, find a sport you enjoy. Human beings are genetically programmed to enjoy doing physical activity. You just have to find out what you like.

Have you ever just done a long sprint after a long period of inactivity? I love the endorphine rush it gives. So amazing. I know that it is impossible to capture that kind of euphoria with every workout, but you should at least leave the gym feeling good about what you just did.

-Drew

Before

Up to this point, I’ve been following the principle of eating more on days that I exercise, and compensating by eating less on days that I don’t. Usually, that is accomplished by intermittent fasting. I generally average about my BMR of 1800 calories in terms of intake and expenditure. This has kept my body fat at a low level, year-round.

During the soccer season, I keep leg work at a minimum. The reason for this is that I play so much soccer, doing a lot of squatting or deadlifting would be counter-productive (not to mention painful).

But soccer season is winding down, and I will be cutting back to playing only 3-4 times per week, instead of 5-6. This will allow me to do a lot more leg work, and hopefully, prove some points.

The Theory

Conventional wisdom says that one must eat 500 calories above maintenance to build muscle. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that eating this amount of calories will cause me to pack on some fat pounds along with the muscle. We will see.

It also says that in order to really build your chest and back, doing heavy squats is a must. Supposedly, it’s the release of growth hormone from leg exercises that benefits the upper body. Needless to say, I’m skeptical, and do not believe this position to be supported by science. But, in the interest of my experiment, I’m willing to be wrong. Now, I have nothing against squats. I love them. But I don’t believe them to be necessary pieces of building an upper body. Building your upper body requires lifting heavy weights with your upper body, not just your legs. I am not particularly interested in gaining a ton of muscle mass in my legs. Some strength is always nice, but I don’t want to put on a ton of mass in my legs.

For building muscle, should you be lifting more of these...

The Method

I’m going to use madcow’s 5×5 Intermediate program. Now, I really love this program. It’s proven and it works. And even if I weren’t doing the caloric experimentation, I would be doing this routine, anyway. It’s that good.

That being said, it’s not strictly a hypertrophy routine. That is, it’s not designed to build the maximum amount of muscle mass possible. That’s not the point. This is a strength routine. But, you cannot get stronger without getting bigger, and 5×5 routines are also proven mass-building routines.

Tracking the Changes

The first thing I did was to record some of my vital statistics:

Chest: 38

Waist: 32

Shoulders: 46

Arms: 14

Legs: 25

Calves: 17

Starting weight: 172 lbs

I will be tracking all of the changes weekly.

I also started a public FitDay journal to track my calories, activity and macronutrient ratios. It can be viewed here:

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/PublicJournals.html?Owner=FitXcel

According to “conventional wisdom,” I need 1.5g of protein for every lbs of lean body mass I have. I have no idea what my actual body fat is, so I’ll just round it up and guess 10%. With a starting weight of 172 lbs, that means I would need a whopping 225g of protein every day, plus a significant amount of calories. Sheesh!

I will also be tracking my strength changes. At the end of the soccer season my maxes in these specific lifts began to decline, but ended at roughly:

Bench: 225×5

Bulgarian Split Squat: 225×5

Deadlift: 315×5

Incline Bench: 175×5

Rows: 245×5

Now, I know these numbers will be going up. These aren’t the highest numbers I’ve ever had, but strength always seems to be at a low point for me by the end of the season. This is due to such a large amount of activity, combined with an inability to really focus on my strength training. I expect a rather substantial increase in these numbers.

...or more of these?

So, What Happens After?

After a few months of this, I will re-evaluate. I will see how much muscle I’ve gained (as measured by muscle measurements), and also how much fat. Whatever percentage of fat is gained around my midsection will be subtracted from possible muscle gain to negate the possibility that my arm measurements may go up because of fat increases and not actual muscle increases.

Then, I will go back to a lower-calorie routine, making sure I don’t gain any fat (and lose any that I have gained). I will then be able to measure whether my strength and muscle growth continues to increase at the same rate. I have my own hypothesis about what will happen, but we will definitely see.

I hope that if you are considering doing some experimentation with your fitness routine, don’t just guess. Be detailed. Keep a log. Track your changes. That way, you will have some hard data about what programs work for you and what programs don’t. Something that is effective for you may not actually “feel” effective at the time. It is only by really keeping track that you will know.

-Drew

"Workout nutrition? I got it nailed."

I’ll be honest — I really hate talking about this stuff. Not because I dislike it, but because it seems to be largely pointless. Popular internet myths have so pervaded the fitness realm that it is nearly impossible to convince someone that the way “they’ve always done it” isn’t necessary.

Well, that’s not entirely true. If you have something revolutionary or cult-esque to sell, it can be easy to convert people (like the Cult of Carbs Are Evil). In comparison, this kind of stuff is relatively boring. But, it can have a large impact on your everyday routine, as well as your wallet.

For this particular post, I’m going to focus primarily on proteins and amino acids, rather than other concepts like “carbo-loading” for endurance events.

What’s the Goal?

When we talk about nutrition in the context of a workout, the goal is fairly straightforward: Maximize anabolism, and minimize catabolism. What do these things mean? Well, they are different processes in the body that are regulated by hormones.

Anabolic processes are processes that build up, rather than break down. This can be the building of tissue, organs, bones, etc. In terms of working out, we are usually talking about the building of muscle tissue. Testosterone, estrogen, growth hormone, and insulin are some of the anabolic hormones in our body.

Catabolic processes, on the other hand, break down cells, fats, or other molecules, usually for energy. They are regulated by hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and glucagon (glucagon is the opposing hormone of insulin).

Anabolism gone "mutated freak"

Contrary to popular belief, you can be both anabolic and catabolic at the same time. This myth probably started because some people erroneously believe that anabolism and catabolism are constrained only to muscles. One example of this is that your body might be catabolic in breaking down fats for energy, but simultaneously anabolic in building muscle.

In order to build muscle, you need to be more anabolic than you are catabolic, so it is true that your muscles won’t be both anabolic and catabolic at the same time. Instead, they exist on a sort of continuum. They will be anabolic or catabolic to a certain extent, but whichever process has the most force behind it is what will drive either hypertrophy (growth) or atrophy (shrinkage).

How this influences nutrition

There are a ton of different theories on nutrition pre-workout, post and even during a workout. So how should you eat around your workouts? Well, there’s not one single correct answer that works in every circumstance.

We know that endurance athletes require more protein. This has been well-confirmed by a lot of studies. Endurance running has been shown to use up more protein than just lifting weights. There are many theories as to why this is.

One is that the body wants to become as efficient as possible, so it burns up more muscle trying to decrease the amount of weight that needs to be moved. Another is that the body uses the muscle as the glycogen stores are used up. Additionally, it appears that as your body becomes used to lifting weight, the more efficient at using available proteins and amino acids it becomes. Whatever the real reason, we know that endurance athletes need more protein, and tend to carry less muscle mass than non-endurance athletes.

You don't need this much food to build muscle

So, nutrition for an endurance athlete should include a higher than normal protein intake. What is “normal?”

Well, in this study, bodybuilders required 1.05g of protein per kilogram to maintain muscle mass. For me, at 172 lbs, that would equal about 82g of protein per day. However, since I play a lot of soccer, which is considered to be an endurance sport, I would need 1.67 times the base amount, which is about 137g per day. That really is a lot of protein, but pretty easily attainable.

Pre-workout nutrition

There are countless theories as to how one should eat or not eat before a workout. Personally, I don’t eat before a workout. I can’t stand it and generally feel like I have a brick in my stomach, even eating 3 hours out. However, I know people that eat sandwiches just an hour before, or protein shakes 15 minutes before.

There is a study that shows that a protein shake before a workout increases amino acid uptake in muscle cells. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t actually mean that the muscle cells grew more. However, many people cite this article as a proof that you should drink a protein shake before a workout. This so-called proof is inconclusive at best, and speculative at worst. (Thanks to Bryan Chung at Evidence-Based Fitness for discussing this study in-depth.)

So what should you do? Well, experiment with some different techniques and see what works for you. Maybe you don’t need a shake before a workout.

However, if you do drink a shake before, but aren’t gaining fat, and are continuing to get stronger and build muscle, it doesn’t really matter, does it? In the same vein, if you are continuing to stay lean and get stronger without it, then who is to say that strategy isn’t optimal for you?

Yeah, eating before and during a workout makes me sick, too

Post-workout nutrition

Still even more people say you need to get protein in your system immediately after a workout, or you’ll miss some kind of “window of opportunity.” But is this really true?

Most studies I have seen show that there is increased protein synthesis when ingesting a protein shake after a workout. Protein synthesis is often cited as evidence of hypertrophy (muscle growth). However, this is not necessarily the case. There can be protein synthesis without muscles growing. But we are interested in growing muscles, not just increasing protein synthesis, aren’t we?

Intra-workout nutrition

Should you be eating during your workout? Again, the answer is “it depends.” If you’re running a long distance and depleting your gylcogen stores, absolutely. If you’re working out for a relatively short period of time (45m-1.5h), then probably not.

Glycogen depletion seems to be a topic that is way overblown. Your body has a lot of glycogen storage potential. Giving a conservative estimate of about half a day’s worth of energy storage potential, that’s about 1000 calories for the average person. In short workouts, you’re not going to need to replenish this glycogen, because you’re not actually going to run out.

He didn't win without intra-workout nutrition, but it was definitely carbs, and not BCAAs

What about BCAA supplementation during a workout? Some people say it helps performance, especially if you’re working out fasted or in a low-glycogen state. I mean, it sounds reasonable. Your body uses leucine, a branched-chain amino acid, and other BCAAs during workouts. So, supplementing seems to be a no-brainer.

And there are studies that support the use of BCAAs. This one shows that athletes using BCAAs prior to squatting reduced muscle soreness and fatigue. Other studies, though, have found there to be no significant effects.

However, it may be that increased leucine usage may simply occur as a result of having more of it to use. And in this study, BCAAs had no effect on exercise, either on total work done, oxygen burned, or even blood pyruvate (a marker of available energy in the body). And this was in a low-glycogen state, simulating either when you are fasting or have previously expended the muscle’s glycogen stores through exercise.

Is this something of which you should be aware? Yes. If you “hit the wall,” you’ll know it, and your performance will suffer dramatically. But for every day, short lifting workouts? I wouldn’t worry about it.

However, the previous caveat remains true: If you’re doing it, and not gaining fat, and still reaching your goals, then, by all means, continue. At worst, you’re just wasting money. That’s only really bad if you don’t have the money to waste. Personally, I like to spend more time making my workouts challenging than worrying about finishing my nutrition drink as I’m finishing my last set.

Takeaway message

It seems that simply concentrating on your total intake is sufficient. This is similar to the idea of “calories in vs. calories out” when trying to burn fat; It isn’t when you eat, but how much of it you eat.

I feel like emulating this guy after a lot of my workouts

After all, we know that resistance exercise on very-low calorie diets is enough to preserve and promote lean body mass.

So, ensuring that you consume adequate protein for your specific needs really seems to be enough when it comes to that aspect of workout nutrition. The rest of what you eat is determined by your goals. If you want to build muscle, lift heavy and eat enough so that you aren’t gaining fat, but are still building muscle. This value will be different for everyone, so you can’t just say “I’ll eat 500 calories over maintenance and build muscle!” It may take more than that. It may take significantly less.

But as for workout nutrition — don’t worry about it too much. Do what you want, and what works for you. There’s no need to over-complicate it. Eat when you are hungry. The body is pretty good at telling you what it needs and when it needs it.

-Drew

Trying to move a little extra weight?

The Problem

If you’ve been lifting for any amount of time, you have no doubt hit a plateau. What this means is that you get stuck within a certain weight range and just can’t lift any more weight. Most people react in one of two ways:

1) They switch exercises. They believe that the reason they can’t gain any more in one lift is because they aren’t fully developed in another.

or

2) They simply keep doing what they have always done, never making any progress, but hoping for change, anyway.

Now, it may be that being underdeveloped in one lift could contribute to your failings in another. However, if that were the limiting factor, at some point, that other lift would go up or the other muscle would grow in response to stimulus. Doing what the same thing and hoping for progress anyway is just wishful thinking. It’s not gonna happen.

The Plateau

A bench press plateau might look something like this:

185 x 8

190 x 6

190 x 7

190 x 8

195 x 6

195 x 6

195 x 5

Your progress shouldn't look like this . . .

This person has hit a plateau at the 195 lbs mark. You can see that the goal for this program is to hit 8 reps, and then move up in weight. But, they haven’t been able to go up in reps or weight for 3 consecutive workouts. That’s the definition of a plateau.

The Solution

The solution is simple: Drop the weight and increase the reps. 10% should do it.

So, for our example bench press, the person would want to drop 19.5 lbs (but let’s make it 20 lbs just to make it easy to calculate). Since this particular scheme is based on 8 reps, we’ll need to go past this mark in order to move up in weight. Every workout, you’ll want to do one more rep than the previous week, until you get to 2 over. Then, up the weight by about 5%, and start over.

What this would look like is this:

175 x 8

175 x 9

175 x 10

180 x 8

180 x 9

180 x 10

185 x 8

185 x 9

185 x 10

190 x 8

190 x 9

190 x 10

195 x 8

But it SHOULD look a lot like this!

And then you’d keep going with this progression scheme until you hit another plateau, where you can’t hit the prescribed reps for 3 consecutive workouts, and can’t go up in weight any longer. Drop it by 10% and go again. But, you might find that during this progression cycle, you’ll have one or two workouts when you can’t hit the number of reps you’re supposed to, but you increase it on the 2nd or 3rd attempt. That’s okay. It’s normal. Everyone has off days. But after 3 consecutive days of not reaching the prescribed reps, you need to drop the weight by 10% and start again.

Caveats

It will be very, very tempting to shortcut the process. For instance, when you drop the weight, you might be able to easily do more than the 8 reps. You might be able to do 12 right off the bat. But do not do this. Doing the lower weight at the prescribed reps is an important part of the strength-building process.

Focus on the form. Focus on how it feels to lift the weight a certain number of times. Just remember that there are no shortcuts to getting stronger. Even though you’re lifting lighter weights, you’re still working on your ability to lift more. And you being stronger means you being bigger.

Also, you don’t have to use an 8 rep scheme. You could do the same thing for a 10 rep scheme, by going up to 12 reps. I personally use it with both a 3 rep and a 5 rep scheme for different lifts. For instance, my bench press right now is an 8 set, 3 rep scheme, focused on strength. But, in order to move up in weight, I’ll need to go up to 5 reps on my maximum lift before upping the weight. For the 5 rep scheme, I’ll go up to 7 on the maximum lift before upping the weight.

Hopefully, you can use this to help you blow past your strength plateaus, and get bigger, faster and stronger!

-Drew

Doing more work isn’t necessarily bad, but you must be really careful when increasing your total workload. One of my good friends at the gym has been talking about how he needs to gain ten pounds. So, his response to this need has been to spend 2.5 hours in the gym every day, lifting weight. He drinks weight gainers so thick that they are like trying to drink pudding. He’s been doing this for 3 months now. The results? He’s still talking to me about trying to gain 10 pounds. He has made zero progress despite significantly increasing his workload and time expenditure.

Precautions for Weight-Loss

Watch these two videos from Turbulence Training creator Craig Ballantyne, Adonis Effect creator John Barban, and Eat, Stop, Eat author Brad Pilon.

The important thing to note in these videos isn’t so much the ridiculous difference between diet and exercise, but how many calories he’s actually burning via exercise — it’s not that much. And the level at which he is exercising in the videos is not sustainable over the course of the entire workout. You can’t go full-throttle the entire time, every single day.

But most importantly, increasing your exercise generally makes you hungrier, which can throw off weight-loss efforts. This is especially true as you get into the single digits of body fat. So, no matter how much extra exercise you are doing, you are extremely likely to have significant hunger issues that cause you to offset whatever extra you burned via increased food intake.

Overeating is dangerous; wear a helmet

For instance, I just played an hour and a half of soccer, and followed it up with 45 minutes of lifting. After resting a bit to recover, I got a huge craving for tortilla chips and cheese dip. Luckily, I don’t have those things in the house. If I did, they’d be gone, and I’d have offset the calories burned.

Precautions for Increased Lifting Frequency

Where do muscles grow? It’s not inside the gym. Muscles grow with rest after they have been broken down via exercise. They need at least 48 hours to fully recover. However, just because your muscles have recovered doesn’t mean the rest of your body has. Your joints, tendons and ligaments are all also being challenged whenever you exercise. They need recovery, too. Increasing the frequency of lifting to 6 days a week is going to start putting major stresses on the body without giving it the time it needs to repair itself.

That backache won't go away if you lift every day

This can lead not only to overtraining, but also to increased susceptibility to injury. Running the body down like that, especially during winter, is also bad for the immune system. It can make you more prone to getting sick. Getting sick can not only stall your weight loss, but hamper your muscle-building progress, too.

It is very difficult to find a program that allows you to work out 6 days per week while giving your body, the muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments, the time it and they need to heal. Healing is what makes the muscles grow. For instance, even if you do chest and back on one day, and then biceps and triceps the next, you’re still working overlapping groups. Your triceps play a big part in lifts like the bench press, and the biceps do the same for back work. It’s impossible to completely isolate the body parts.

Workout smarter, not harder

Just about the only way you could do it, and do it in a semi-sustainable way, is to alternate upper and lower body days, 3 days per week. However, you will most likely find that you cannot last doing serious lifting like this, simply because the ligaments, tendons, etc., take longer to heal than working them out every single alternating day will allow.

Closing Comments

More work done is a good thing, generally, but there comes a point when it is just extraneous. If you want to do more work, do it all on the same day. Keep the lifting portion of your workout to around 45 minutes. Work in antagonistic exercises (working an opposing muscle group while the other is resting) and supersets instead of increased rest time between sets.

If you do too much, you will keep the muscles beaten down and they won’t have a chance to grow.

-Drew

It all comes down to to the golden rule of weight loss: Eat less calories than you burn, and you will lose weight.

It isn’t what you are eating; it’s how much.

Ever seen a fat vegetarian? I have. They eat lots of breads, olive oils, fruits, beans, and of course, lots of green vegetables. Maybe even some cheese. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. But they don’t lose weight, despite eating “healthy.”

By the time you add in the chicken, cheese, olives, fats, and some dressing, this healthy looking salad could be packing more than 1,000 calories.

The cheese and oils are loaded with fat. Fruits are very high in sugar. It doesn’t take very long for all of those calories to add up.

So, even if you aren’t a vegetarian, think about what you’re eating. Many people think they’re doing so good by eating an apple and some carrots for a snack that they end up overeating later. Maybe they consume too many calories at dinner. Maybe they eat just a little more dessert than usual.

I’m of the opinion that if you are planning on eating “healthy,” you need to keep an even closer eye on your calories. If you eat fast food, you are keenly aware that you’re eating a lot of calories, and try to be careful, generally. But eating “healthy” can lull you into a false sense of security, so that you drop your guard about just how many calories you’re taking in.

Don’t fall into the “healthy” eating trap. Just eat less. You could lose weight eating nothing but Oreos and ice cream, provided you kept the calories low enough.

-Drew

Let’s start by examining what your metabolism actually is. It’s not some crazy, uncontrollable number. It’s simply the sum of the metabolic processes of your body’s lean tissue. This doesn’t slow down simply because you haven’t eaten in a couple of hours, as your brain is still working, lungs are still breathing, heart is still beating, tissues regenerating, bones repairing, etc. Your body is still going. It takes a prolonged, sustained caloric deficit to really get your metabolism to slow down. This won’t happen in a couple of hours, or even a couple of days.

Is there such thing as a metabolism engine?

If you’re like me, then you frequently hear “Eat frequently to keep that metabolic furnace burning!” But, the body is a phenomenal micro manager. It takes what it needs, when it needs it. It can compensate appropriately for a variety of situations. When we speak about metabolic rate, it is something that is used as a guideline based on a variety of factors spread out over the course of a day. This is why it is largely irrelevant when you consume your calories.

What determines your metabolic rate is your weight, the size of your organs, and to a very small extent, your muscle mass.

Even muscle doesn’t burn that many calories. Contrary to most bodybuilding myths, muscle only burns around 5-7 calories per day. If muscle burned 50 calories per day, as many sites claim, then everyone’s BMR would be far more than it is. The average person wouldn’t burn 1,800 calories — it would be closer to 3,000. And we know that’s not true.

Let’s get back to the meal timing myth, though. First, let’s look at what a couple of studies say:

Webber J, Macdonald IA, The cardiovascular, metabolic and hormonal changes accompanying acute starvation in men and women. British journal of nutrition 1994; 71:437-447.

Zauner C, Schneeweiss B, Kranz A, Madl C, Ratheiser K, Kramer L, Roth E, Schneider B, Lenz K. Resting energy expenditure in short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in serum norepinephrine. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1511-5.

Can you really do this to your metabolism?

These studies found that a high meal frequency does not boost metabolism, nor does a low-frequency feeding schedule, or fasting, slow the metabolism down. Even after three days without food, subjects did not show any change in metabolic rate. Other studies show that even alternate day fasting does not impact metabolism.

There are a lot more studies that examine this, as well.

Verboeket-Van De Venne WPHG, et al. Effect of the pattern of food intake on human energy metabolism. British Journal of Nutrition 1993; 70:103-115.

Bellisle F, et al. Meal Frequency and energy balance. British Journal of Nutrition 1997;, 77: (Suppl. 1) s57-s70.

Small meals just don't appeal to me

The first one fed one group seven meals per day, and another group only twice per day. Both groups received the same amount of calories and nutrients. They came to this conclusion:

“A gorging pattern of energy intake resulted in a stronger diurnal periodicity of nutrient utilization, compared to a nibbling pattern. However, there were no consequences for the total 24 h energy expenditure (24 h EE) of the two feeding patterns (5.57 +/- 0.16 kJ/min for the gorging pattern; 5.44 +/- 0.18 kJ/min for the nibbling pattern). Concerning the periodicity of nutrient utilization, protein oxidation during the day did not change between the two feeding patterns. In the gorging pattern, carbohydrate oxidation was significantly elevated during the interval following the first meal (ie from 1200 h to 1500 h, P less than 0.01) and the second meal (ie from 1800 h to 2100 h, P less than 0.05). The decreased rate of carbohydrate oxidation observed during the fasting period (from rising in the morning until the first meal at 1200 h), was compensated by an increased fat oxidation from 0900 to 1200 h to cover energy needs. In the nibbling pattern, carbohydrate and fat oxidation remained relatively constant during the active hours of the day.”

Scientifically speaking, gorging doesn't mean turning yourself into this

That basically says that the group eating frequently burned the carbohydrates from food right away, while the group that ate infrequently dipped into fat stores to cover energy needs when food energy was unavailable. This shows that fat stores are easily utilized during the day to cover energy needs. You don’t need to do anything crazy to get your body to burn fat. It burns fat quite easily if it needs to. You just have to give it a reason.

What about the second study? They found that “studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging.” So, another nail in the coffin for meal frequency and timing.

In this final study, diet-induced thermogenesis was included in the metabolic observations. You may have heard of this phenomenon. Mostly, people refer to it as the “thermic effect of food,” where eating causes you to burn calories simply through the digestive process.

The thermic effect of food has nothing to do with how spicy it is

“There was no significant effect of the feeding frequency on the rate of weight loss, fat mass loss or fat-free mass loss. Furthermore, fat mass and fat-free mass contributed equally to weight loss in subjects on both gorging and nibbling diet. Feeding frequency had no significant effect on Sleeping Metabolic Rate after two or four weeks of dieting. The decrease in SMR after four weeks was significantly greater in subjects on the nibbling diet. 24 h Energy Expenditure and Diet-Induced Thermogenesis were not significantly different between the two feeding regimens.“

Hmm. So, it appears that all the research fails to support the idea that you should eat a lot of meals frequently. It just doesn’t matter.

So, why did this phenomenon come about? It could be that eating meals more frequently can help you appease your hunger more often. But, at the same time, it’s very easy to overeat when trying to eat a small meal, because you rarely feel as full as when you eat a larger meal.

Even wild animals don't eat all the time, but they never over-eat

I’m just not convinced. I’ve done it all. I currently do a lot of fasting, and don’t worry too much about when I eat, but rather focus on the quantity. I’ve done the 6-7 meal per day thing, and that worked, too. It all works, but only when I paid attention to the calories. I currently get 60-70% of my calories at night, before bed, and stay lean.

Again, that may not fit everyone, but it works for me. And it’s backed by a lot of good science, so even better.

I don’t really care how many meals you eat in one day. Do what works for you. If you want to eat 24 meals in one day, or 6, or 1-2… research suggests that it really makes no difference. I’m not here to tell anyone how to eat. Eat how you want. The only thing that matters is calories in vs. calories out.

-Drew