When I talk to most general population individuals who aren’t very involved in the fitness industry about how much they eat, they will describe their eating habits as eating 2-3 meals per day. Then when I converse with them a little more, they also tend to eat snacks here and there throughout the day as well. As I move to a conversation with someone who is more involved in fitness, such as bodybuilders, coaches, and fitness enthusiasts, they will describe their eating habits as eating 5-6 meals a day.
So even though this sounds like 2 completely different protocols, where one group is having 2-3x more meals in a day, when you define what a “meal” is, the two groups look a lot similar.
For purposes of explanation only, here is my take on what a meal is; food consumption that includes an ample amount of protein (15+ grams dependent on the individual if I had to put a number on it).
A lot of people in the fitness industry follow either this, or something pretty similar. Others may like to see more protein or specify how much other macros are included. But like I said, this is a definition to help with explanation and bridge the gap between general population and fitness industry.
If you start thinking about a meal like this rather than a typical breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it turns a lot of things that people would consider “snacks” into “meals”.
On the extreme end of the spectrum, something as little as a protein bar would be considered by most a meal. Most are a few hundred calories and have around 20ish grams of protein. Or you could even just add a protein shake to have along a lot of snacky foods. A piece of fruit, bag of cut up veggies, or a serving of nuts along with a protein shake make for a great small meal. The shake only adds 6-8oz of liquid so it’s easy to take down, but it supplies you with 20-50 grams of protein.
Protein powder/bars aren’t the only way to create an easy small meal either. There are tons of great options to create a protein source. Some of my favorites include cottage cheese, greek yogurt, and rolled up lunch meat. You can buy all of these pre-packaged for ease and they are also super easy to measure out yourself. Fruits pair really nicely with the cottage cheese and greek yogurt. Then cut up veggies or string cheese goes really nicely with rolled up lunch meat. A bag of chips, some pretzels, or a granola bar would even work to pair with one of those protein sources. It doesn’t always have to be super clean options, I just like to use mostly clean items for examples.
Eating multiple meals throughout the day not only makes it easier for you to hit your protein goal, but it also helps by allowing your body to utilize all of the protein being digested. Many fitness professionals acknowledge that your body can only effectively utilize so much protein at a given time. So even though there are times when you do what you gotta do and take in mass amounts of protein at once, it’s definitely beneficial to split your protein feedings up into multiple meals.
I have recently been playing around with eating 4 meals per day; 2 larger meals and 2 smaller ones.
Since I am currently working a 9-5 desk job and don’t get to train until around 7-7:30pm, I started eating my first meal around noon. I used to have at least a protein shake in the morning, but because I am pretty inactive during the morning I started adjusting my meal times.
So my first meal around noon is a larger meal. It’s what most people would consider a normal lunch. I typically have a half a sandwich, fruit, and whatever other sides I chose for that day. Sometimes I’ll bring left-overs from the night before if the macros fit nicely into my day.
My next meal I have between 2-3:30pm and it consists of a double scoop protein shake and piece of fruit.
Then at about 5:30pm I eat another larger meal that would be considered a typical dinner. This widely varies of what I am actually having, but this meal consists of a protein source, a carb, and a healthy size portion of vegetables. Since this also acts as my pre-workout meal, I pay attention to make sure I don’t consume too much and then subsequently full/bloated for my workout. Trust me, it’s not fun trying to squat or deadlift when you feel like your stomach is gunna bust lol.
My last meal of the day is when I get home from the gym, so it is usually between 9-10pm. This is another small one consisting of a shake and some other sort of small snack. Sometimes it’s simply some fruit and other times I will have a super small portion of left-overs. It all depends on what I am feeling that day.
Overall protein for the day is broken up pretty evenly. My post workout meal will a lot of times have a little more protein compared to the other meals, but overall the amount is spread out pretty well.
For someone that likes to eat breakfast, that’s an easy way to add a fifth and even sixth meal in. If I took a few calories away from my two bigger meals, I would be able to have a decent sized breakfast and small meal in between breakfast and lunch. There’s endless options on how to split up your meal timing. It is important to get some nutrition in pre and post workout. For pre-workout, depending on the size of the meal, it can be 30 minutes before training or up to 3 hours before training. But other than having at least a pre and post meal schedule, you can split up your meals in any way that best fits your schedule. After you start to eat this way and make it a habit, you can then dive a little deeper and look into meal schedules that would be “optimal” for you. Spacing your protein feedings out and getting good pre/post meals will allow you to obtain some awesome results and be sufficient for most general population individuals.
So the next time you hear a fitness enthusiast talking about eating 6 meals a day, you don’t have to freak out because you think they mean eat 6 full portioned dinners. A meal is really just a simple and more normal way to say protein feeding. It can be as small as a protein bar or it could refer to a 5-course sit down meal.