Art De Vany: Four Meals a Day

Four Meals a Day

July 5, 2005 12:24 PM

A lot of people eat four or more meals a day. My trainer does and my former golf teacher does (he had been a competitive body builder). People who snack all the time eat at least four times a day.

Such eating is claimed to maintain a moderate level of insulin, to prevent insulin spikes, and to mimic what hunter-gathers did. It is also supposed to keep you in positive nitrogen balance if you are trying to gain muscle.

I think it is a pretty bad idea for several reasons.

1. It is a hassle. It is hard enough to eat three meals that you prepare well with fresh ingredients. Four is just too hard to do.

2. It is so time-consuming that you are always rushing meals. This gives you no leisure at your meal time to enjoy the meal or your company. Usually, you have no company when you eat like this.

3. You will eat poor foods. It is too demanding to do otherwise. You will end up eating protein drinks and bars and all manner of other poor food. Too little fiber, too few plant-based phytochemicals, and your meals will have a rather high glycemic index.

4. While it is important to avoid insulin spikes (they are by far the most damaging) it is not so good to have a continuous infusion of insulin in your system. They can produce atherosclerosis in lab animals by infusing insulin continuously. Not a good thing for your blood vessels I suspect.

5. Your basal insulin level will rise as a consequence of maintaining a constant level in your blood stream This is not good at all.

6. You constantly have food in your stomach. How can you do anything demanding in this condition? You can't. And your stomach suffers from not having a break from continuous work; the mucosal lining breaks down and this is sometimes called diabetic stomach since some diabetics have to eat often to maintain their blood glucose levels.

7. You never experience hunger, a powerful trigger of gene expression that turns on DNA repair and heat shock proteins. So, your maintenance program is seldom activated.

8. You will, in general, have more fat mass than if you ate every other day and maintained the same body weight.

9. There isn't any evidence that this form of eating promotes health or the growth of lean muscle mass.

10. You weaken the growth hormone response you get from exercise and when you fall into REM sleep.

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online at September 12, 2006 2:17 AM

Prof. De Vany,
Thanks so much for your website, I am learning things all the time, and it makes me think allot. As someone going to nursing school, I find people asking me questions all the time, and I hope to be able to help people with what I learn from you. With randomness ruling the day, Breakfast should no longer be considered the most important and sacred of meals?

Posted by: Steven Herndon at July 6, 2005 2:05 PM

Lots of comments to this post on Four Meals a Day.

Intermittent fasting does no harm to the brain and actually protects it. Chronic fasting or undereating is harmful to the brain; anorexics lose 20 to 40% of their brain mass, the latter figure usually spelling death. I think it is these instances that cause people to think intermittent fasting is bad for the brain. Chronic fasting is, intermittent fasting is not and even confers benefits.

Intermittent fasting releases ketones, which become the brain's primary source of energy during fasting. Other neuroprotective elements are released that are beneficial to the brain. Intermittent fasting also protects against epiliepdic seizures.

Sure, you can gain muscle mass on intermittent eating. For one thing, it increases your insulin sensitivity so that you make efficient use of what you do eat. Second, it releases growth hormone, one of the most important growth elements. Three, it seems to do this curious thing which is to lower insulin and raise IGF1 (insulin-like growth factor). A great combination. There is something about the intermittency that makes insulin go down, GH and IGF1 go up. Usually insulin and IGF1 move together. More in the book.

On the other hand, if you want muscle mass don't think so much about what you eat as what you do. Get strong and the rest will follow.

I like those clever randomization schemes. I just sort of do it, without any of these techniques.

Thanks Mike for that very interesting comment on Nomads of the Long Bow.

Posted by: Arthur De Vany at July 6, 2005 1:07 PM

Art
I'm glad you posted this.As you know the whole bodybuilding PC crowd for years have said you have to eat five six seven meals.I bought into
it for a while and a few years ago I changed.
My guess is that a lot of what they say is junk
science.
And like you said three meals is hard enough.
Barry

Posted by: barry bocchieri at July 6, 2005 12:17 PM

Art,

I found an interesting book at a used bookstore this weekend called "Nomads of the Long Bow" which touched on so many themes from this blog.

Originally published in 1940 as a PhD thesis by a young anthropologist named Allen Holmberg, it is a meticulous chronicle of one the world's most remote and technologically unsophisticated hunter-gatherer tribes - the Siriono of Bolivia. It's a dry read but the theme and detail is extraordinary and it lists everything from daily movement patterns, diet, rituals, etc. Items pertinent to your ideas and this site:

- constant anxiety over food but never starvation
- intermittent protein intake (nothing to a few ounces and sometimes up to to 1 lb/day when available) from numerous animal sources
- activity patterns ranged from little movement to hiking upwards of 40 miles / day out on the hunt - sometimes to no avail
- "work" on campsites, etc., itself was not a virtue but being on the hunt was what all males aspired to.
- they didn't have muscular bodies but there weren't any fat people either
- survival weighed almost exclusively on their dexterity with the hand-crafted long bow

Great work on this project.

Mike

Posted by: Mike at July 6, 2005 9:30 AM

Art writes "I am beginning to think the very best way to eat is to eat every other day or randomize a day off from eating. It has so many benefits that I will explain in the book."

This is attractive to me, since one thing I have noticed personally is that it's easier wrt minimising feeling hungry for me to not eat at all than to eat a relatively constrained portion size. (Lots of other people don't seem to have this proble.) However, one thing that does worry me about this is questions like that raised in the article discussed here:

http://bestofcr.com/node/view/725

Ignore the calorie restriction elements in the surrounding context and looking just at the cited study since (to my understanding) fasting muslims don't eat less than they normally do, they just pack it into much shorter time. Does Art or anyone have any views/pointers to literature about how intermittent fasting affects higher mental functions and ideas what's a good strategy if you aim don't want an noticeable mental drop from your EvFit style of eating. Many thanks,

Posted by: david tweed at July 6, 2005 9:12 AM

Due to the nature of our family schedule(work, kids, etc), we as a family eat when we can, and if we are hungry. Our kids will sometimes not want a meal when we do, and they eat very randomly. Two are teens, the other 6 years old, all are lean. Sometimes dinner is at 8 pm, sometimes at 6. We find by not following the "3 squares" rule, it takes away the stress of eating at a certain time

Posted by: Audley W at July 6, 2005 7:39 AM

For Jason:
My experience with our son suffering diabetic 1 and also my own experience with his glucose meter tells me that 6-10 servings/day of fruit on a regular basis is too much. Provided your servings are the size of your clenched fist. Remember that fruit contains lots of sugar, sure, it's fructose with fiber and therefor enters the blood-stream at a fairly slow rate, but still it's sugar. And when you eat big amounts the ratio between GI (glycemic index) and GL (glycemic load) becomes smaller and your insulin response increases.
Maybe I'm not using the right words but I hope you get the point. Do some research on GI and GL.
And don't eat fruit after your meal too often. Eat it alone or befor a meal.
You certainly can't go wrong eating 6-10 servings of veggies. I know, it's not that appealing.

Posted by: Roland R. at July 6, 2005 1:56 AM

Two things

(a) this idea of randomness really interests me. I tried it for a while with playing cards assigning a different type of exercise - sprints, weights, long run rest - to each suit but never really committed to it.

(b) interesting article on the BBC News site about diabetes / insulin resistance http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4652521.stm

Posted by: Chris H at July 6, 2005 1:55 AM

I love to eat fruit and am wondering if there are any consequences to eating so much fruit. (On average I have 6-10 servings per day -- on the days I eat, that is.)

I'd love to see some ideas from Prof. DeVany on building muscle mass with paleo intermittent fasting. Is it possible to eat this way and be a recreational bodybuilder? Or is excess muscle anathema to the sleek hunters we're emulating?

Posted by: Jason Berger at July 5, 2005 10:18 PM

As a performance coach this is the one area where I have to convince people that mutlitple meals a day is not optimal. I have individuals coming to work with me that have been told to eat 8 and 9 meals a day! It's not the best for all the reasons Art mentioned. I would add that when your eating many meals a day you become a "food addict", and set yourself up for reactionary hypoglycemia.You're constantly thinking about food, driving around with a cooler, with your nice little meals in your tupperware always trying to position yourself throughout the day for another meal. Thats not normal nor convenient in this day and age.
I don't agree with three squares necessarily @ 7am, 12pm, and 6pm either, as this comes from the industrial age and the meal schedule for factory workers.I think it's also a custom we've all fallen to. Well we're not in the industrial age nor are we factory workers...most of us.
A bit more chaotic, some meals more than others , some days more than others depending on the metabolic work, and certainly not at 7, 12 and 6, would be more in tune with chaos theory and would probably be better for us all.

Posted by: Jorge C. at July 5, 2005 8:18 PM

Prof. De Vany,

I've been reading your information for some time and would like to pose a question; would it be the hunter-gather way to eat minimally on a training day and eat regular H/G meals on non-training days? In my opinion, this would simulate the hunt (training) as well as the fact food might be scarce causing the need for the hunt (minimal eating). Non-training days would be leisurely (no training) but the extra caloric intake would simulate the results of the hunt. As CC stated, it is possible that hunts may fail so eating may be minimal for many days in a row followed by over-eating after a successful hunt. Any feedback or comments would be great.

Posted by: Rob at July 5, 2005 7:41 PM

Prof. De Vany

How many meals a day should a person eat? How many calories should there be in a meal? How many reps should one do in a set? How many sets should there be in an exercise session and how much weight should one use? Should I have a protein shake first thing in the morning or last thing at night? Are these really proper questions? Did paleo hunters ask themselves these questions?

Years ago, I noticed that many of my gym buddies were in poor health after years of eating like bodybuilders. I didn't have their problems only because I just wouldn't take steroids. But taking steroids wasn't the only problem. Intuitively, I just couldn't accept their diet and exercise patterns.

Then, I read your thoughts on Evolutionary Fitness, in particular, your thoughts about Non-Linear Systems, Ancestral Dynamic Patterns and Metabolic Fitness from Chaos. I began to think about what a Paleo mans' activity and eating patterns would have been like day to day, week to week and, even, season to season.

To make a long story short, I decided to introduce randomness to my eating and exercise patterns. I did this by having jars of poker chips, each chip having a number on it corresponding to an instruction. These jars contain a number of variables. Satisfaction of hunger begins with walking leading to trotting and/or sprinting followed by very brief and very heavy lifting - or not. This was to mimic the hunt. If my hunt was successful I would eat my fill. But not all hunts are successful. Sometimes you would only get a minimum of meat or no meat at all. When the hunt was not successful (and I only get to know the success of "the hunt" after exercise) I would only eat a few veggies or some berries. All of this was the luck of the draw from the jars. One time I had no "hunting success" for five straight days. But, c'est la vie. Man, was I famished and getting weaker by the hour. But then you connect and eat like a pig and life is wonderful.

This random pattern of eating/exercise suits me, it's probably not good for everyone. Of course, exceptions have to made for social reasons although my friends are very understanding. To put the kindest face on it: they think I'm slightly eccentric.

I'm 63, weigh 230 @ 15% bf, resting pulse 56, bp 115/75. I'm quite fit, very strong, and life agrees with me. I might not have been if I hadn't read your fitness essay those many years ago.

I am looking forward, to say the least, to your book.

Posted by: carniverous canuck at July 5, 2005 5:42 PM

I don't think there is an optimum, how could hunter-gatherers plan on three square meals a day, or any other number.

Do read my Living LIFO to see a discussion of the frequency of meals.

I tend to eat three a day, because of custom I suppose. But, I may have little at some and a lot at others.

I am beginning to think the very best way to eat is to eat every other day or randomize a day off from eating. It has so many benefits that I will explain in the book. That means on other days you more or less feast so that your total calories over, say, a week keep your body mass and composition where you want them.

The notion that you must balance calories and nutrients with demands on a daily basis is not right and could only be something you could do in this modern, affluent world.

Posted by: Arthur De Vany at July 5, 2005 5:14 PM

This is my first comment on your blog and first of all I'd like to thank you for providing so much valuable information. I remember reading your articles on evolutionary fitness years ago on your faculty website and looking forward to your book ever since.

Now for my question. If four meals a day is a slight excessive, is three meals a day optimal? If I don't have time to prepare and eat three healthy meals a day are two meals sufficient. I guess I'm wondering what is the difference between eating 1, 2, 3, or 4 times a day and which quantity is best.

Posted by: zak at July 5, 2005 2:24 PM

Four Meals a Day

July 5, 2005 12:24 PM

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