Blaming the client in the Weight Watchers case, still didn't answer the Weight Watchers dilemma. What does the fitness professional do?
Assuming one is working the Weight Watchers program correctly, they're not eating 3000 kcals of cheese cake. Because if this is the case, we have more issues than just weight loss. We now have to teach the client what correct nutrition is and what it looks like. I just happen to like weight watchers because it took my mother and 12 of her friends from obesity down to a normal weight and body fat level. We're assuming that by going on Weight Watchers that we're creating a life style change through diet and exercise. But you can either tell your client, "sorry, you're done with eating for the day...let's look at ways we can make improvements for tomorrow." Or since 1day does not a bad nutrition intake break physical changes, you clean up the rest of the day and look at ways to make improvements the following days. However, it's still not necessary to eat every 2 hours. At a minimum, we're looking at 4 hour breakdowns of amino acids and this is considering they're eating nothing but straight protein. With the combination of carbs, fats, and fibers, we're looking in the 6-8 hour or more range.
Here is an article that cites numerous studies on meal frequency:
Look, I'm not saying that a person shouldn't eat every X amount of hours. And I'm not saying fasting is the way to go (I don't follow fasting). All I'm saying is it's not necessary to eat every 2 hours. For most people it's not practical and would lead to burn out for most people.
You provided one OPINION of ONE internet physiologist, about ONE antiquated study (12 years is an eternity in the world of biochemistry), about the effect of meal frequency on metabolic rate, NOT as it pertains to the entire gamut of wellness and weight loss. Ideally, we'd all be strapped to IV bags feeding us constantly at an incredibly slow rate. Constant source of readily and constantly available energy=better results. It's not rocket science.
Yes and true. But he has a ton of more articles and research on his site that you can look at. But, for the most part, if sensible macronutrient intake is set up, meal frequency is just not that big of a deal. Sure, 4 meals is better than 1 and etc but 4 vs 6 really isn't and etc.
Lastly, I work with tons of doctors, nurses, nutritionists, dietitians, athletic trainers, physical therapists, coaches and other trainers, and have never had any one of them recommend not eating for 18 hours. Even on a cleanse, the body NEEDS calories. Fasting for religious purposes is one thing, but fasting for physical benefit is just pure ignorance.
Okay. You work with tons. I'm going to assume that tons means more than a few dozen that are up to date on current nutritional physiological research in terms of both performance and aesthetics.
I've had 2 doctors tell me my kidneys were going to explode due to having 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. My wife is a nurse and her nursing friends told me that creatine could kill me and would lead to anger issues. I had several of my nutritional professors tell me that my cholesterol must be sky high because I eat 6 eggs a day. I guess what I'm saying is the medical community doesn't impress me when it comes to nutritional advice. I do like listening to my nephew that's an athletic trainer when it comes to rehabilitation and prehab stuff for athletes.
There really aren't many studies done on intermittent fasting and there definately aren't really any good ones. Until we get studies that take the same people and have them follow the same training cycle and sleeping patterns and caloric intake and then redo it with the exact same set up except their meal frequency is set up within the intermittent fasting protocols, we won't have any scientific data. And just so you know...I'm discouting the advice of the medical community, I'm just saying to be careful where you get your nutritional advice from. I'd sure listen to Lyle MacDonald over my family medicine doctor when it comes to dietary changes for physique change purposes.
And I'm not referring to fasting in terms of don't eat for X amount of days. I'm referring to intermittent fasting (IF) in which your meals fall in an 8 hour window instead of a 24 hour window.
And, by the way, again, I don't follow IF. However, I think to conclude that because a handful of people that are unfamiliar with different fasting protocols call it stupid, does not stupid it make.
Meal frequency interesting stuff:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985?ordinalpos=&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.SmartSearch&log$=citationsensor
Here's an excerpt from the full text:
here's some highlights from the fulltext version of that study;
"...The premise underlying the present study was that increasing meal frequency would lead to better short-term appetite regulation and increased dietary compliance; furthermore, it was hypothesised that these predicted beneficial effects of increased meal frequency could have resulted from more favourable gut peptide profiles, potentially leading to greater weight loss. Under the conditions described in the present study, all three hypotheses were rejected."
"...We had postulated that increasing meal frequency would enhance the compliance to the energy restricted diet thus leading to greater weight loss, an effect possibly mediated by increased fullness. The present results do not support this hypothesis."
"...According to the present results, increasing meal frequency did not change the daily profiles of peptide YY or ghrelin, nor did it favourably impact appetite parameters."
