Does eating more meals increase your metabolic rate?

Steve Jones
4 min readFeb 1, 2019

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What is metabolism?

Metabolism is a term that is used to describe a biochemical process. A biochemical process involves energy production. Many of you think that your body weight might increase if you eat many small meals each day. However, people who eat many small meals throughout the day tend to lose weight faster. They are even more likely to maintain weight loss longer. The main reason behind this is not a heightened metabolism rate.

Eating less is certainly not equivalent to losing weight. When you eat too little, you might even face a metabolic slowdown. This usually interferes with weight management. When you are eating enough calories at predictable intervals, it tends to help boost a metabolism that has stopped. When you try to take in more calories than you use in a day, it does not boost your metabolism. In fact, it makes you gain weight.

Why is your metabolism important?

The various processes in your body are important to keep you alive. These processes make up your metabolism. Such processes include breathing, pumping blood, digestion and exercising and many more. These body processes are fueled by calories. These calories are obtained from food. The metabolism needs to be boosted so that you can burn more calories to undergo weight loss.

Some of the common weight-loss strategies require the person to lower the number of calories you eat. He needs to increase his metabolic burn rate through an increased rate of activity. At such a state, your body burns its fat stores to make up the difference. In case your metabolism is higher, this deficit happens easily. Some of you might not feel the need to lose weight. Even then, boosting your metabolism indicates that you can take in more calories without gaining weight. So, it is a healthy sign.

Low calorie intake gives way to metabolic slow-down

You might be working hard to lose weight. You might feel that the less you eat, the faster you are getting outcome. The reality is that if you take in low number of calories, by following a fad diet or by skipping meals, your body might go into survival mode. In such a state, your body becomes more efficient at maintaining your basic functions. This is because it doesn’t want to waste energy. Your metabolism might even slow by as much as 20 percent when you eat too few calories.

In general, your body interprets a greatly reduced caloric intake as a possible famine. That is why it holds onto fat stores to heighten your chances of survival. Your body muscle takes more calories for your body to support than fat. In case your food intake is pretty much reduced and you’re highly inactive, your body might break down muscle and use it for energy. Thus, it tends to keep stored fat. This is when your metabolism drops even more.

Eating is important if you wish for a strong metabolism

It is very important for you to find the right calorie level. This is because eating an adequate number of calories helps keep your metabolism running moderate which is good. This is a good thing even when you are looking forward to lose weight.

You are required to determine how many calories you need daily to maintain your weight. You can use an online calculator that takes into account your size, age, gender and activity level.

You are bound to lose fat slowly. However, you won’t negatively affect your metabolism. This slow and steady weight loss is will be sustainable for the long term. You should make sure to do exercise along with your diet. This will offset the possible slowdown of your metabolism from the calorie restriction.

When you do exercise, it helps you hold onto muscle mass. Since muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, having it helps your metabolism remain strong. You are also required to eat enough to feel energized for your workouts. If you are finding it difficult to maintain your exercise routine on a daily basis, you might need to heighten your calorie level a little bit. You can visit a dietician for the same.

How does eating frequent small meals help?

When you follow a controlled diet, you need to eat smaller portions more often. You might go ahead skipping meals. However, it is not a healthy way to go about it! This practice creates hunger that may lead you to eat too much at your next sitting. It slows your metabolism as well.

You should plan to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. You can go for a smaller snack between each of the meals and just before bed. Try to include more lean protein at these meals too. It is a total of about 0.6 grams per pound of your body weight per day. This is specifically when you are trying to boost your metabolism and lose weight. When you get sufficient protein, it heightens dietary thermogenesis.

Small Meals also prevent gorging

There are many people who eat breakfast when they first wake up in the morning. The last meal of the day is pretty much consumed after work in late evening or night. This conventional pattern of eating indicates that most people have a gap of about five to six hours between meals.

When you eat several small meals throughout the day, you are less likely to overeat. This is because they stay relatively satisfied. The feeling of intense hunger does not develop. This pretty much prevents people from gorging because they are simply not hungry enough to overeat.

However, what matters is not how many meals you eat. It is the amount of food you eat per day that makes the difference. You need to take care of the total amount of calories you consume since it directly determines the amount of energy expended during digestion. Three high-protein meals give way to greater appetite control as compared to six low-protein meals!

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