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If you’re getting your “three solids” a day, I’ve got some unpleasant news for you.  You’re doing it wrong – that is, of course, if you’re working out actively and are on an intense fitness regimen.

That advice that your grandmother gave you to make sure you’re eating three meals a day may have come from a good place, but it doesn’t fit your situation well.  The fact of the matter is, if you’re waiting more than three or four hours in a day to eat, you’re not optimizing your body’s ability to build muscle and lose fat.

In crafting your nutrition plan, your goal should be to provide enough nutrition to your body without going overboard, causing the excess to be stored as fat.  The key here is to have several small meals per day.  Depending on your metabolism, you should be eating anywhere between 300 and 500 calories every two to three (maybe four) hours.  The current prevailing guidelines are that men should be eating about six meals per day, while women should be eating five meals per day.

I know this may sound extreme, but believe me, if you do it right, it works out perfectly.  With relatively small meals every few hours, your body is constantly supplied with nutrition at the right times.  It takes a few hours to properly digest protein, but once that protein has been processed, it doesn’t stay in your system (unlike carbs).  That’s one of the main reasons you should be continuously supplying your body lean proteins from chicken, turkey, ham, fish, and other animal sources (or soy and whey if you’re a vegetarian).

Another big reason to eat every few hours is to ensure you’re avoiding starvation mode, which I described in a previous post.  With a steady stream of nutrients, your body knows that food scarcity is not an issue, so it won’t try to hang on to every last calorie that you provide it.  By constantly eating, it can metabolize your food and keep you going through the day efficiently and effectively.

By eating small meals throughout the day, you’re (presumably) also limiting your carb intake, which helps prevent insulin spikes and subsequent crashes.

You want to be a grazer instead of a hoarder.  Think of the lean horse vs. the stumbling bear.  Be the horse.  Take in a limited amount of calories, enough protein, and some whole grain carbs every three hours and you’ll optimize your metabolism and turn into a fat burning, muscle building machine.

In future articles, I’ll go over how to know exactly how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat you should be taking in, and I’ll also go over some more complicated eating techniques to help you get rid of those pounds of fat.