Energy consumption and use: Do we need to eat THAT much when lifting? page

[jalthouse2]

Fellow primal eaters,

While reading "Beyond Brawn" I noticed that the author makes mention of the need to eat 5 or 6 meals a day for "usable" caloric intake. One thing that he mentioned was that in order to build muscle, one must eat more than daily maintenance amounts in order to build muscle. This makes sense, but haven't we learned from IF that the body can supply all of the energy that it needs for proper functioning on its own via fat reserves? I understand that adding lots of protein is necessary in the equation for building muscle, but if I were able to ingest 1g or 2g/lb of body weight in protein without going over the 2700 calories or so that I burn in a day, would my body not supplement the rest? Why not just eat a ton of meat and veggies, come in at a bare minimum of calories, and allow fat stores to take care of the rest of the energy needed for hypertrophy?

On a separate note, does it matter how much we're eating in a single sitting? "Beyond Brawn" intimates that for the macro-nutrients of a given meal to be "usable", they must be eaten over several smaller meals. If my day's amount of my protein/carbs in in one meal, he seems to be saying, then some of it would go to waste. Doesn't that fly in the face of IF? Martin Berkhan always sings praises of this book, but the leangains approach seems to not match up with the dictates of "Beyond Brawn"...

Thanks for your time,
Jeff

[Knifegill]

As my own experiment has shown - in this one body of mine - one giant meal (2500 to 3500 calorie, high-fat, high-protein, a little veggie) a day with fasted work-outs is a good path to adding muscle while dropping fat. One-armed chin-ups don't lie.

[Gadsie]

As my own experiment has shown - in this one body of mine - one giant meal (2500 to 3500 calorie, high-fat, high-protein, a little veggie) a day with fasted work-outs is a good path to adding muscle while dropping fat. One-armed chin-ups don't lie.

How do you make a meal so big? I mean, I regularely eat that in an hour but it's usually a little beef, then some yogurt, then some butter, then some cheese etc. you know, the grazing. For some reason I never manage to make a really big "meal"

[Apex Predator]

Fellow primal eaters,

While reading "Beyond Brawn" I noticed that the author makes mention of the need to eat 5 or 6 meals a day for "usable" caloric intake. One thing that he mentioned was that in order to build muscle, one must eat more than daily maintenance amounts in order to build muscle. This makes sense, but haven't we learned from IF that the body can supply all of the energy that it needs for proper functioning on its own via fat reserves? I understand that adding lots of protein is necessary in the equation for building muscle, but if I were able to ingest 1g or 2g/lb of body weight in protein without going over the 2700 calories or so that I burn in a day, would my body not supplement the rest? Why not just eat a ton of meat and veggies, come in at a bare minimum of calories, and allow fat stores to take care of the rest of the energy needed for hypertrophy?

On a separate note, does it matter how much we're eating in a single sitting? "Beyond Brawn" intimates that for the macro-nutrients of a given meal to be "usable", they must be eaten over several smaller meals. If my day's amount of my protein/carbs in in one meal, he seems to be saying, then some of it would go to waste. Doesn't that fly in the face of IF? Martin Berkhan always sings praises of this book, but the leangains approach seems to not match up with the dictates of "Beyond Brawn"...

Thanks for your time,
Jeff

It depends on your goals. Most people reading "Beyond Brawn" want to pack on serious muscle- 20-50+lbs. You need *a lot* of calories to do that- generally many thousands a day. You can't pull that much from body fat, plus you need a host of other things good food provides. But if you want to drop a couple pounds of fat and gain a few pounds of muscle over a while, then yeah, you'd be fine.

[Knifegill]

I consider all food eaten within an hour to be a single meal.

[Caveman_chris]

As my own experiment has shown - in this one body of mine - one giant meal (2500 to 3500 calorie, high-fat, high-protein, a little veggie) a day with fasted work-outs is a good path to adding muscle while dropping fat. One-armed chin-ups don't lie.

Very interested in this. Can you throw some links me way please?

[jfreaksho]

I consider all food eaten within an hour to be a single meal.

Truth.

Also, one-arm chins!!?!! Nice!

[McconnellSilva]

You can't pull that much from body fat

[Alex Good]

One thing I've never gotten: If your body can only absorb so much food at once then wouldn't eating several meals a day be more likely to make you gain weight? Since, you know, more absorbed = more in your body = more to be stored as fat.

[Wanderlust]

The theory is continual eating raises the rate of metabolism.

BTW sumo wrestlers eat one meal a day. Regarding how much to eat, etc. etc. a lot of it comes down to rate of change. If you eat a lot, lift heavy you'll gain muscle MORE quickly. If you eat less and lift heavy, you either will under eat (minimizing muscle gain) or gain muscle more slowly. So it's not so much a matter no gain vs gain, it's a matter of "rate of change."