6 meals a day much different than 5?

[Ezskankens]

5-6 meals a day thing is complete and utter nonsense. If all you're ingesting is whey protein shakes, then yes, they'll be in and out of your stomach in 20 minutes. Then you can even "eat" 50 times a day if you'd like

Look, if you eat a good meal with chicken, veggies, rice, etc., you're body will be digesting that meal for the next 4-6 hours. Eating every 3 hours, all you're doing is piling more food on top of previous partially digested food.

interesting.

 

[John89231]

Anybody have stats? And I wouldn't say any of this is small stuff. Diet is the most important thing when it comes to gaining muscle.

 

[Zyglamail]

While generally speaking the key is caloric intake BUT the number of meals does have an effect but it goes hand in hand with the content of the meal as well.

If your cutting you want to keep the glycemic impact of your meals low. The major contributor to the glycemic impact of a meal is the makeup of the meal itself but overall calories consumed during that meal will also have an impact. For example a low glycemic meal thats say 500 calories will have much less of a glycemic load on your system as a 1000 calorie meal with the same macro breakdown. Following that reasoning your better off eating many smaller meals while cutting.

When bulking there is less concern about gaining a little fat and many would argue the extra natty insulin produced by a higher glycemic meal is actually beneficial to mass gains.