Why Eating More Often and
Eating Breakfast is Making You Fat
The Short Story
“The more often you eat, the greater chance you
have at gaining muscle tissue, also NOT burning fat. The less often you eat,
the greater chance you have at losing muscle tissue BUT also burning the most
fat. If your goal is to gain muscle tissue, eat 3-5 meals a day. If you goal is
fat loss, it might benefit you more to look at an intermittent fasting
protocol. If that’s your forte, check out http://www.leangains.com.
At the end of the day, your body won’t see breakfast,
lunch or dinner. It sees peaks and valleys, rises and drops. Don’t get caught
up in how often you eat, when you eat or anything like that. Concern yourself
with eating for your goals, hitting your calories, proteins, carbs and Fats.”
The Full Story
Have you ever heard the myth that eating more often will “stoke”
your metabolism? When I first started in the fitness industry I was also
spoon-fed this lie with the analogy of a burning fire. When you throw in an
abundance of wet logs in the fire, it lowers the overall heat of the coals for
some time. However, if you were to feed these wet logs in one at a time, space
more frequently, it would keep the fire burning hot all day. Unfortunately, a
human metabolism isn’t a fire and food is not a wet log.
They myth of increased meal frequency leads to increased metabolism probably
stems from the 1985 K. R. Segal study. 1 This studied various
increases in metabolism due to consumption of food. It is true that eating food
does increase your metabolism temporarily due to raising core temperature and
stimulating organs for digestion of food. However, studies show that this is
roughly 10% (varies on composition of food ingested) of intake, regardless of
whether or not your meals come from one sitting or several. Remember, 10% of
2000kcal meal is also equal to 10% of 5 meals at 400kcal apiece. Simple math
saves the day again!
The “myth” of breakfast being the most important meal of the day is also a
horrid misconception. In a recently published article by WSJ entitled, “Eating
Breakfast Could Save Your Life,” researches at Harvard claimed that older men
who regularly skipped breakfast had a 27% increase in risk of a heart attack.2 What
the study failed to mention, is that these men also had a greater tendency to
smoke, drink, eat poor quality of food and have lack of sleep. This is a great
example of “correlation does not equal causation.” This is much like saying
that since wings enable birds to fly, all wing-possessing bi-pedal, beak having
creatures fly. What about a turkey and an ostrich? They have wings; they must
be able to fly, right?! Just because you can make a correlation between
something, does mean it has causation.
I will say however, if you have metabolic issues in regards to low
testosterone, adrenal fatigue, excess cortisol production, eating breakfast
could benefit your hormones! That is, however, a tale for another time.
It is important to note that meal frequency and timing is not best discussed as
a blanket statement, rather a specific protocol for your specific goals. In
this case, I am going to be talking about a typical American who wants to lose
body fat and maintain or increase lean tissue.
Let’s take a look at Fig. A1. If we think about physiology and our body’s
response to food (most notably carbohydrates or meals large in amino acids), we
notice some differences in a few variables. MPS, or Muscle Protein Synthesis,
is responsible for building or maintaining lean tissue. Increases in MPS will
increase lean tissue. Decreases in MPS will be catabolic towards lean tissue.
In simple, we will lose muscle. Looking at the figure, we have three scenarios.
In 1), we have four (4) meals a day, 2) eight (8) meals a day and finally in 3)
we have 1 meal a day. Any curve above the 0 line represents an increase in lean
tissue. Any curve below the 0 line represents a decrease in lean tissue.
Supported by a recent study from Dr. Layne Norton, we see that a meal frequency
of about four meals a day (or doses of protein) increases MPS the most.3
Having a meal frequency of six or more actually produces a refractory response
where the curve of MPS is not as high as in example 2) in Fig. A1. Eating one
meal a day has the most detrimental effect on MPS, however, studies are lacking
in showing how high the MPS response is on one meal a day feeding and also the
degradation of lean tissue.
Gaining or maintaining muscle is a sweet deal, but that is just one piece of
the puzzle. If we take a look at Fig. B1, we can see the relation between meal
frequency, insulin levels and fat oxidation. Chances are, when MPS is
stimulated it is due to higher doses of amino acids (protein). If you’re a
regular person, you’re probably eating a whole meal and not just protein, which
includes carbohydrates. When a high dose of amino acids and/or carbohydrates is
ingested in the body, it turns to glucose in the blood steam, which then
stimulates the release of insulin. Insulin, often called a gatekeeper hormone,
stimulates storage of glucose in the blood, also blunting fat burning (or
oxidation of fatty acids). You can see there is an inverse relationship between
MPS/Insulin levels and fat oxidation. The more often you eat (specifically high
doses of amino acids or carbohydrates or a combination of the two) the less
often you burn fat.
If we look at Fig B2 we see that eating only two meals a day definitely has a
greater impact on fat loss. Anything above the curve on the chart “FatOx” shows
fat burning. The moral of this story is, the less often you eat, the greater
the chance you have at burning fat.
Take Home Message
But wait a minute; didn’t you say that 3-5 meals a day was optimal for
stimulating MPS, or gaining muscle tissue (or maintaining)? Yes I did. This is
also a story of give and take. The more often you eat, the greater chance you
have at gaining muscle tissue, also NOT burning fat. The less often you eat,
the greater chance you have at losing muscle tissue BUT also burning the most
fat. If your goal is to gain muscle tissue, eat 3-5 meals a day. If you goal is
weight loss, it might benefit you more to look at an intermittent fasting
protocol. If that’s your forte, check out http://www.leangains.com.
At the end of the day, your body won’t see breakfast, lunch or dinner. It sees
peaks and valleys, raises and drops. Don’t get caught up in how often you eat,
when you eat or anything like that. Concern yourself with eating for your
goals, hitting your calories and Proteins, Carbs and Fats.
1. Segal, K.R., “Thermic effect of food at rest,
during exercise, and after exercise in lean and obese men of similar body
weight.” Jclin Invest. 1985 Sempteber; 76(3): 1107-1112
2. Layne, Norten Et. Al. "Leucine content of
dietary proteins is a determinant of postprandial skeletal muscle protein
synthesis in adult rats>"
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