Scott Markey | Downtown News

Eating six meals a day boosts energy, builds muscle, and sheds pounds, but due to our busy lifestyles, not all of us can accomplish this. It can be done, however, or at least you can come close in my opinion, by preparing your meals for the upcoming day.

Simply take your meals with you in a cooler or if you work in an office setting, you should have a small kitchen with a refrigerator and a microwave. As you can see, if you really want it, you can do it! You will also be saving money by eating this way, which we can all agree is a good thing.
Some things in our lives are sadly predictable; take extra winter poundage, for instance. Or holiday binges … or the 2-3 o’clock carb-crash or slump, which seems to happen every day if your insulin levels do not stay fairly level.

Here is a happier prediction or solution: eat more often and you will avoid all of those problems. Spreading out five or six meals throughout your day operates on the simple principal of satisfaction. Frequent meals control that constant state of hunger, and ward off eating too much in one sitting, which will once again throw off your insulin levels (not good).

The Secret? Each mini-meal should blend protein and fiber-rich complex carbohydrates. Protein and fiber give you the feeling of satiety and keep you from feeling hungry.

Controlling hunger shrinks your stomach. In one controlled study, a group of overweight men and women were given five small meals, then were free to choose a sixth meal. A second group ate a single meal containing the same number of calories as the total of the other group’s first five meals, then later had a free-choice second meal. The six-meal group ate 27 percent less food at their last meal than the two-meal group did at their second.

Constant eating will also keep your protein levels high, helping you build muscle and burn fat. The challenge to all of this is to keep your small meals small. It’s critical that at the end of the day, the calorie content of your smaller meals does not exceed what you would eat in three larger meals.

On a slightly different topic, and one in which I feel is not written or talked about enough is “FAT.” Just the mention of the word sends both women and men running for the hills! Fat, or “good” fats, are vitally important and essential for your body in so many ways. Not just for hair and skin health, but for body-fat loss, as well. That’s right … body-fat loss! Some of us are carbohydrate-sensitive and do not even know it. Throughout my years of experimenting with “good” fats, or non-saturated fats, I have achieved some of my best physical condition and shape for my magazine cover photo shoots. By simply lowering my carbohydrates a little, and raising my good fats, I got leaner than when my good fats were lower. I felt better, too.

Here is what I call a performance fact: “Fat that can make you lean” research shows that taking Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), an omega-6 fatty acid, can make a workout more effective. In a study of 37 men and women on a 3-day-a-week training program, those who consumed five grams (G) of CLA a day built three pounds of muscle mass, compared with 0.5 pounds for those not taking the supplement. The CLA group also burned more fat. CLA turns on genes that are responsible for elevating metabolic rate and muscle-cell replication.

So there you have it. Take your “good” fats for all of the reasons I stated. Most of all, take them for better health.

Scott Markey has over 25 years in the Fitness and Health industry. He has graced dozens of magazines covers and specializes in physique management, training, and nutritional consultation. You can find him at PureFitness Downtown, on Facebook or reach him at [email protected].