Whats better for gaining muscle, eating 6 meals a day or 3 meals a day?
I know that there is some research out there that suggests 3 meals a day is as good as 6 meals a day. In my experience I have found that for any opinion you may hold, you can always find research backing you up. Research is rarely conclusive, it merely suggests. Its really hard work to eat 6 meals a day so its natural for people to look for reasons why they dont need to do it. From personal experience I can tell you that when I went from 3 meals a day to 6 meals a day, my yearly muscular gains doubled. Completely anecdotal I know but I was at a stagnant plateau before and the change in nutrition brought me out of it without any accompanying changes in workout routines.
Here is what I suggest. Dont believe that 6 small, well balanced meals a day each with 1/6 of your daily protein needs is better than 3 meals a day? Try this one year experiment! Its completely free, safe, and it might just add you a bunch more muscle.
- measure your body composition at start of experiment
- for 6 months eat 6 small, well balanced meals a day each with 1/6 of your daily protein needs
- measure your body composition again and see how much muscle you gained and fat you lost
- for the next 6 months eat 3 meals a day (do not change workout routine)
- measure your body composition again and compare results to first 6 months