3 meals or 6 meals a day for faster fat loss

There is so much debate on eating more meals per day vs less meals. So who is right and how does it affect fat loss?

So lets take a 2000 calorie diet that contains carbohydrate, protein and fat and divide it into 3 meals or 6 meals to see the difference. Firstly, there is no difference in calories so the dieter is still consuming the same amount whether on 3 or 6 meals so in this repect there is no difference.

But, lets take a look at the insulin response. The 3 meals per day diet is going to result in a much greater insulin release rate to bring the blood sugar down because more food has been consumed so more carbohydrate (in the form of glucose) is released into the blood. Amongst many different functions insulin increases fat formation or storage by encouraging fatty acids to enter the lipocytes where they are converted to fat for storage. The more insulin in the blood the greater the transfer of fatty acids being converted to fat. Also, high insulin causes the fat burning process to slow down.

With 6 meals a day the insulin response rate is not so great because with less food the less insulin needs to be present to convert excess glucose from the meal into stored glycogen. Also, less insulin means less fatty acid conversion to fat storage. This means it is easier to burn the free fatty acids without them building up.


Increasing meal frequency when the total calories is constant is beneficial because insulin reponse rate is not so great so i/discourages free fatty acids from being converted to fat and ii/does not slow down the fat burning process as much.

However, this is generally not realistic because people tend to eat a lot more when they have smaller meals. Not feeling full tends to make people snake a little more so total calories generally increase when peopleeat smaller meals - thus gain weight.