How Many Meals Should You Eat a Day?

Interesting question. Too often the truth behind this is assumed in the fitness community. The common knowledge goes as such: Somewhere back in the 60s some flawed observational studies reported an inverse relationship between meal frequency and bodyweight. The common understanding behind this was that increased meal frequency could “stoke the metabolic fire,” essentially suggesting an increase in metabolic rate solely due to consuming more meals.

Before diving into a few key studies to get a more proper understanding of this matter, let’s make clear some of the side conversations going on here. First, no, the fact that you’re literally getting up and cooking/microwaving/physically removing from the pantry three more meals a day in the standard 6 meal-a-day model than you would be in the conventional 3 meal-a-day model does not count as evidence for more meal frequency leading to greater weight loss. If that is your argument, then why not spend that time being active in some more productive way than cooking? That simply does not cut it as serious reasoning, nor would this actually add up to a significant amount of energy expenditure.

Let’s get to the studies!

The first study I want to look at was conducted by Alencar et al. and published in Nutrition research in 2015 (“ Increased meal frequency attenuates fat-free mass losses and some markers of health status with a portion-controlled weight loss diet.”).

The study put 11 obese women on either a 2 meal-a-day or 6 meal-a-day dietary intervention. FFM (essentially, muscle mass) decreased by 3.3% in the 2 meal-a-day group and increased by 1.2% in the 6 meal-a-day group. So, 1 point to the increased meal frequency crowd?

Not so fast. Firstly, you’d need to hand over some money to look at the full study (I hate that so much), so I was not able to look at all of the details beyond the abstract.

HOWEVER, two things I actually could find in the abstract did stand out to me. Firstly, HDL-c (high density lipoprotein cholesterol; the “good” cholesterol [transporter]) increased on the lower meal frequency diet, which could maybe be explained by the arguments that intermittent fasting (IF) groupies push, regarding the heart-healthy benefits of fasting (which, in my opinion, are dubious at best). However, the second thing I found interesting was the vast number of clinical markers that did not change at all despite the different meal frequency protocols. Insulin, glucose, total cholesterol, LDL-c (the “bad” cholesterol [transporter])… no difference.

Most important, however, is the fact that they only looked at eleven participants, and only watched them for 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS. That’s not enough time to make any sort of assertions on weight loss whatsoever. So why did I report on this one? Well, as of the past two years, this was a little controversial in the nutrition science field, as it is one of the only contemporary studies (I know of) that show increased meal frequency conferring a weight loss benefit.

On to the next one.

A study done by Cameron, Cyr, and Doucet, published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2010 (“ Increased meal frequency does not promote greater weight loss in subjects who were prescribed an 8-week equi-energetic energy-restricted diet”) took 16 obese adults and randomized them to either 3 meals + 3 snacks a day (high meal frequency, or HMF) or just 3 meals a day (low meal frequency, or LMF).

What happened? The study authors reported no statistically significant difference between the two groups, in terms of adiposity or even hunger hormones (remember the ghrelin and neuropeptide Y I mentioned in my last article?). Both groups lost weight at an expected rate, but nothing else changed.

Where this study one-ups the previous one: Caloric intake was equated (both groups were placed in a 700 kcal deficit from TDEE), and the study was conducted over the course of 8 weeks. Could the study have benefited from a longer time frame? Sure. However, in these randomized controlled trials (RCTs), finding the funding or participant willingness to extend studies much past this timeline would be a hard sell. So, 8 weeks is just fine for this. Maybe if we were tracking something more slow-moving than bodyweight (take, for example, systemic inflammation markers), we might want to see this extended past 8 weeks.

Takeaway from this study? There was no difference between high- and low-meal frequency. Let’s move on.

In a study by Verboeket-van de Venne and Westerterp, which was published in the International journal of obesity and related metabolic disorders in 1993 (I don’t like using older studies, or ones where only the abstract is available, but this one carries some important information), 14 adult females were placed on 1000 kcal diets, divided into either 2 meals a day or 5 meals (“Frequency of feeding, weight reduction and energy metabolism.”).

The study was rigid and used 36 h stays in a respiration chamber to test for 24 hour energy expenditure and dietary-induced thermogenesis (think: the caloric expenditure associated with chewing/metabolizing/absorbing/excreting ingested food).

What did it find? Again, remarkably similar rates of weight loss and, beyond that, contributions of FFM to that weight loss.

There simply is no reason to believe that increased meal frequency would confer any serious benefits in terms of weight loss, whether via attenuating loss of FFM or directly boosting one’s basal metabolic rate (BMR).

So, what meal frequency is the best for weight loss? The one you enjoy and the one that works in tune with your hunger (for further explanation as to why, please see my previous article, on why “eating less” is an ineffective means of achieving weight loss).

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