I don’t know who originally said that you should surround yourself with people than you are but it was probably someone smarter than me.

I’m lucky enough to have some great people to discuss ideas with. The latest topic came to us via our strength coach, Ron Dykstra, who came across this article online.

The author disputes a common nutritional argument, that people should eat several small deals per day. He cites a list of academic citations thicker than the phone book to argue that frequent meals will not lead to faster metabolism, as is commonly thought. What he learned is that the number of meals people are given a day (bear in mind, these are relatively controlled research situations) doesn’t really change anything, assuming the calories are the same.

Six 300 calorie meals? Two 900 calories meals? Same difference?

Below are some thoughts from myself, Kyle Byron and Krista Scott-Dixon. I’ve edited them for a bit more cohesion.

KSD: There’s more to this than numbers. The body is a visionary and a big-picture thinker rather than a bean counter.

GG: The impact of diet and lifestyle habits (not including exercise) might account for 10% of calories burned outside of exercise. For example, a sedentary person may have a resting metabolism of 1500 calories a day (bear in mind that this is outside of exercise). Absolutely revving up their metabolism may bring this up to 1650. While this is significant, an extra doughnut will erase that advantage.

KB: It doesn’t matter unless we reduce cravings and improve recovery and energy levels.

GG: Those cravings are key because a feeling of deprivation will create them and that’s where we get into trouble.

KSD: Hormones are pretty significant as well. Low blood sugar can create an adrenaline rush after cortisol levels drop. This feels like panic to people.

So now we have poor decision making plus low blood sugar plus an adrenaline freak-out. Thrown on top of a stressful day and a big pile of messy life habits and you’ve got the perfect storm

GG: Exactly. One of the most significant ways that people mess up is by waiting too long to eat and then going ape-shit on whatever they can find the fastest (namely, carbs and other nonsense with low nutrient density). Coming back to that original example, over-shooting by 160 calories is easy to do when you’re in this situation.

There may not be a hormonal cascade created or circumvented if we eat dinner before hitting the grocery store but I’ll bet that sated people are less likely to leave with a Halloween bag full of Twix than hungry people.

The science here is right, but it doesn’t factor in the psycho-social aspect of things.

Frequent feedings:
* manage the panic reaction that people have
* force them to plan better in general
* counter the weird deprivation/guilt combo that so many people have

We all agreed and then, later, high-fived.