Are you eating often enough?

Frequent eating can help you stabilize blood sugar, prevent cravings and increase your metabolism. 

Eating frequent meals is one of the habits that we teach here at Precision Fitness. You can read more about it here.  It consists of eating small meals 5 to 6 times per day or every 2 to 4 hours.

Eating in this manner assures your body will have the nutrients it needs when it needs it. This provides your body the environment to increase metabolism, allowing you to get better results from your program.

How does this happen?

The popular theory is that by eating frequent meals you convey to your body that it will not starve. Knowing that it will not have to go long periods of time with out eating the body then feels safe enough to burn up calories rather than conserve them. 

According to Dr. Dan Benardot, a professor and Head Division of Nutrition Director at Georgia State, “There is an enormous amount of research that shows eating smaller meals more frequently through the day results in a leaner, more muscular body”.

One of the earliest studies supporting these types of results involved two groups of boxers.

The two groups of boxers ate the same amount of calories and performed the same workout routines. The only difference is one group ate the calories in three large meals and the second group ate 6 smaller meals.

The 3 meal a day group did not change much, neither losing body fat nor gaining any muscle. Can you guess what happened with the 6 meal a day group?

They lost more body fat and even gained lean body mass.

All this on the same amount of calories.

So what happened? Same calories and same training yet two different results. It’s an example of increased metabolism in the group that ate 6 times per day.

It’s easy to see why eating frequent meals remains the foundation for good nutrition. It’s a habit that I strongly recommend especially if your goal is increasing your metabolism.

If you have any questions on how to implement this habit or need more information on how to create habits that can improve your health, fitness and performance please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Eat Well ~ Live Better

Edward Scaduto