Why Eat Six Small Meals a Day?

There are several reasons why eating six small but healthy meals is ideal for anyone who wishes to maintain a healthy body, especially those who seek to build & maintain muscle mass. First, eating regularly increases one’s metabolism which enables the body to burn more calories in the long run.

When one eats six meals a day (which amounts to eating every 2.5 to 3 hours), the body tends to burn more calories in the long run.  Eating healthy and high-protein foods particularly helps in boosting the body’s metabolism, making it highly efficient at burning off those calories. Eating food on an irregular basis causes metabolism to slow down.

Studies Show that Six Small Meals A Day Is Ideal. Various studies have also proven that eating six small meals a day allows a person to build & maintain muscle, which in turn results in an even faster metabolism. Eating frequent, small meals regulates the amount of insulin in the body and provides an ideal amount of amino acids going to the muscle cells, promoting the growth of muscles in the process.  Eating small and frequent meals likewise promotes the efficient utilization of vitamins and minerals in the body.

Why Not Eat Just Three Meals A Day? Unfortunately, your body can only assimilate a certain number of calories at each meal. For our weight gain purposes, eating three meals per day is not beneficial. If you had to eat 3,000 calories per day, then you would end up eating 1,000 calories at each meal. The average person can only use a portion of those calories. The excess calories will be stored as fat or removed from the body.

To enable your body to actually assimilate and use the 3,000+ calories you will ingest, you have to reduce your meal size and increase your meal frequency. Splitting your calories into smaller, more frequent portions will enable food absorption and utilization of nutrients.

If you ate only three meals per day, then your body would be without nutrients for about six hours between each of those meals! This is unacceptable for skinny people! Without food, your body will quickly begin to breakdown muscle tissue for energy. You must never go longer than three hours between meals. This is where planning comes in. Make sure that you know where your next meal is coming from in advance. Don’t wait until the last minute. The only time you will ever go longer than three hours without eating is when you are asleep. This is unavoidable, unless you wake up in the middle of the night just to eat or drink a protein shake. I set my alarm for 3 a.m. most nights, which is mid-sleep for me, in order to fit in a 16 oz glass of Lactaid milk. Read GOMAD: Gallon of Milk A Day to Gain Weight and Lactose Intolerance.

Plan Your Meals!

Six Meals A Day Isn't Easy, But It's Worth Your Health & Muscle Gain Goals. The dilemma most people encounter with the six-small-meals-a-day setup is that it can be very tedious to plan a diet. It is difficult for some people to plan and prepare six meals in one day due to their work, the kids, or other life issues. Regardless of other things you have going on, you need to find a way to make it work.  It is absolutely crucial to controlling your weight, whether your goal is weight loss or weight gain. Master eating six small meals a day and you will be on track to mastering the shaping of your physique.  Hardgainers especially MUST eat every 3 hours!  Wanna know my dedication?  I set an alarm for 3am to consume a 16 oz glass of milk to reach my high calorie goal for muscle gain! Follow my muscle gain progress on Twitter @ ALGetsBig.

Dieting for muscle gain is simply a matter of eating. You must eat more calories than your body burns off. The amount of calories that your body burns depends on your metabolism, which you can calculate here, and your bodytype.

Bodytypes

Most people who visit this site are hardgainers, or ectomorphs, like me, ALGetsBig (on Twitter). Ectomorphs have high metabolisms, which means that we naturally burn many more calories than other body types (endomorphs and mesomorphs). Ectomorphs are characterized by long and thin muscles & limbs and low fat storage. Most skinny people are ectomorphs.

Ectomorph	Mesomorph	Endomorph

Mesomorphs are people with large bones, a solid torso, low fat levels, and wide shoulders with a narrow waist. These are the lucky bodytypes! Endomorphs are people who are characterized by increased fat storage, a wide waist and a large bone structure. Endomorphs struggle primarily with fat loss and us ectomorphs struggle with muscle & fat gain. However, each body type has tough struggles if a muscular AND low-fat physique is the ultimate goal. Still, the key for all body types is eating regularly so that the body is consistently provided with nutrients and does not opt for fat storage unless you want it to (by eating a high calorie diet).  So, endomorphs who wish to stay "low-fat" should stick to a certain daily/weekly calorie level and hardgainers who want to achieve or maintain a certain size should aim for a higher calorie level.

Fitday.com is the absolute best way to track your calorie intake online or on your home computer with incredibly simple software. FitDay tracks all major nutrients with a HUGE food database and does so much more including tracking weight, body measurements, and activity levels. I use FitDay every single day to make sure I reach my calorie & nutrient goals.

"I Tried Everything to Gain Weight & Couldn't But Finally Gained 24 Pounds with Muscle Gaining Secrets."

Prepare meals in advance if necessary. For six small meals a day to work, you need to prepare your meals in advance so that time is saved. The key to this is to cook healthy and nutritious meals ahead of time. It is advisable to cook foods like chicken breasts in advance, portion them out, and then refrigerate them for convenient eating. The George Foreman Grill is the best tool for preparing foods like turkey burgers, salmon patties, and grilled chicken breasts. I use the Foreman grill several times a day, every day.

Canned fish are excellent sources of protein. Make use of canned foods that are rich in protein such as tuna and salmon. Not only are these foods rich in protein necessary for building muscle and improving metabolism, but they are also very easy to prepare. Taking nutritional supplements should also go a long way in helping to promote faster metabolism.

Cut Out the Junk Food! The six small meals a day should not be junk food! That means do your best to remove from your diet doughnuts, fast food, sodas, pizza, and everything else that you know is JUNK!

If you are hooked on junk food, try gradually replacing junk food with good food.  Eventually, you may be like me, who eats no junk food – there's no room in my healthy muscle building diet for junk food! I love ice cream, but I can't fit it in, and frankly I don't need to! It does nothing for me except please my taste buds.  All of my eating is to feed my body and my muscles and to make sure that my body performs at its highest potential.   Read the diet to build muscle for some great food options.

Eating Right Takes Discipline – So Get Some! Make no mistake about it – it takes a lot of discipline and motivation to eat six meals a day.  Anything worth doing in life has a price.  Eating six small meals a day is what it takes to ensure a healthy future for you and your loved ones.  And if you seek weight & muscle gain, you especially had better eat six meals a day! YOU CAN DO IT!  I went from 117 pounds to 155 and I am on way way to 170! Follow my progress on Twitter @ ALGetsBig.

Follow ALGetsBig on Twitter: A Former 117-Pounder On His Journey to 170 POUNDS!