6 meals / day for a super charged metabolism ?

[monkwhy]

NOTE: Now i dont mean to cause any arguments over right or wrong.. just putting forth my opinion. thanks :)

Ok. I came across a guy named Tom Venuto who wrote a 300 page ebook called "Burn the fat feed the muscle". And i put his sports diet into action with amazing results with incredible health. so ill go through some basics.. its almost identical to the RMAX nutrition plan but 6 meals a day. Not MORE food, greater meal frequency.

Its the same as RMAX in the way of,
1. all high nutrition foods, no supplements or protein powders..
2. no sugars, caffeine or chemical drinks.
3. high water intake and every thing else to do with what you put is, is what you are..
Tom also coped allot of flack from "health supplement " companies for his out spoken views of the existing fitness practices.

now where it differs is the 6 meals a day. 2 and a half to 3 hours apart.

This does NOT mean higher food intake. just higher meal frequency.
The reason being and i quote " it takes 2 and a half hours to digest a meal, and 3 hours for all the protein in the meal to be used within the body" .

Your still eating the same calories, just split up into more meals.

Then the other thing is calorie tapering.
Biggest meal for breakfast. 4 equal meals throughout the day and one smaller meal at night.

Now i know its hard and he says that in the book, but i have lived by this, feel great and my metabolism is on fire. droped from 85kg 20% body fat to a maintained healthy 75kg 8% body fat in 12 weeks.. (not to forget i was training 4 days a week at the time. )

Now a bit more detail..

Each meal can be worked out to a specific calorie % according to your body type, body fat, and amount of exercise you do, and at what time of the day you do it.

this is different for every one but the basic start point is the
40,30,20 plan.
40% carbs, 30% protein, 20% fat.
now bare with me.. this sounds wrong at first.
these are not worked out on food weight % but on caloric %.
(what the food does to our body)

1 gram of carbs = 4 calories
1 gram of protein = 4 calories
1 gram of fat = 9 calories.
so the amount of carb/ protein / fat can be calculated this way..

its quite hard to do for us normal people with normal lives, to go calculating everything, so i stuck to it as close as i could for a while and after 2 months i got used to what allot of food ingredients contained so i could make meals with an educated guess. Ill also mention here i tried to stick to organic free range meat, and organic veg.

Along with all the calculations he reinforces the "foods with the highest nutritional value."

The rest of the diet is hard to sum up considering the book is 300 pages. and is not a "diet" as such but a way of changing your eating habits forever. Toms definition of a "Diet" is something that is started and will be stopped.

So hope this helps get across what im living by..
Your opinions welcome please??
;)
PS. Im not a salesman for this method. i just like it is all..
Also he states body fat levels lower then around 8% (in men) for long periods of time is not health and quite dangerous.

[James Boelter]

(Monty Python)
Michael Palin: "What is this??? I came in here for an ARGUMENT!"
Graham Chapman: "Oh. No, this is ABUSE. Arguments are down the hall, first door on the left."
================================================== ===

If it works for you and you are pleased by your results, that's great.

But (as PeeWee Herman once opined, "Everybody has a big But..")

The thinking here tends to run counter to the "6 meals a day" philosophy, which is regarded as a "bodybuilding" approach. RMAX/CST is not about bodybuilding, but rather about health and performance.

If I have it right, eating every 2-3 hours tends to keep a person in "sugar burning" mode, but people who are not bodybuilders and are primarly concerned with performance need to be in "fat burning" mode as much of the time as possible. Much forum space has been devoted to the topic (as you can imagine), and I won't reinvent the wheel here. Or flog a dead horse.

Quality of your diet is still extremely important, though, so I am sure everyone would agree that you are still doing a lot of things right.

[monkwhy]

Awesome James.. that is the sort of info im looking for.. since the only real info i had to go on was that book. And even though it is working for me im interested in the RMAX/CST way as much as possible. And since the 6 meal thing is really hard to do with a busy schedule .. My wife and i have all the right food in the house , guess its just a matter of working out new meal plans. thanks! :)

[Connie Brown]

What James said.

A really good thread is "Retraining your cells to burn fat instead of sugar"

http://www.rmaxinternational.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9443&highlight=overfat

I kinda like Venuto myself. He comes from bodybuilding and people in that age group, hence he's working from what worked for him (and LOTS of his successful clients). He advocates whole foods too and no BS.

One more thing to mention - no one comes into a diet with a "clean slate" any more than we do with movement. So, YMMV.

RMAX goes more for, eat, work, rest, repeat. But if you're working hard the CST guidelines say every 4 hours too. Just depends on where you are.

[monkwhy]

What James said.

A really good thread is "Retraining your cells to burn fat instead of sugar"

http://www.rmaxinternational.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9443&highlight=overfat


Wow.. so much... ive read all of that thread now. but its a little overwhelming. got the link for one book "Natural Hormonal Enhancement by Rob Faigin " but was wondering if there is somewhere to look for a more summed up approach to this type of diet. and some sort of list or cookbook for these ideas ? ive just gone into information overload is all..
Also whats PnP ? and ...

So YMMV. ? :confused: Sorry.. whats YMMV ?
thanks.. sorry for all the questions. i really what to change my diet and be as health as i can possibly be. But there is so much to read through i just dont know where to start. Im going to try and cut dairy. now i suppose thats "A" start .but its not going to be easy since i have so much of it.

thanks for all the help.. love this forum. :)

[Chuck Kechter]

PnP= Potatoes Not Prozac by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph. D.

YMMV = Your Milage May Vary

[Connie Brown]

But there is so much to read through i just dont know where to start. Im going to try and cut dairy. now i suppose thats "A" start .but its not going to be easy since i have so much of it.
You can break that big task up into smaller ones. One I like is to clean up a time period at a time. For example, get the dairy out of the breakfast-to-lunch time zone. Next, lunch-to-dinner. Finally, dinner-to-breakfast. Voila! dairy free days.

Incremental is the key. Baby steps are fast.

I sure had no respect when I started for how big a transformation it is. Restructuring nutrition is a huge uber skill made of hundreds of smaller skills. Different shopping, preparing, planning, and timing.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of just ONE approach to baby-stepping this job. This was from a really early exchange I had with coach Sonnon where I saw a parallel in food, with our movement ladder of form first, then volume, etc. It's basically what PnP does.



Incremental Diet Progression

1.
Form = Steady Fuel
Get consistently on schedule. Adequate protein, browns, and greens. No crashes or starve / blow-it cycles. Keep your treats.

2. Sophistication = Cut the Junk
When you have the good stuff consistently, decrease junk food. In its place, put in regular supermarket good food.

3. Volume = Organic Whole Foods
When junk food is almost gone, go from regular to hiqh quality: grass-fed meat, whole grains, whole fruits and veg, organic, unprocessed, fresh.

4. Intensity = Detox
When food is consistently high quality, go clean: detox from whites, sugars, alcohol, chemicals. The reason detox comes last instead of first is because it's easier to detox from a well-nourished base, than it is to detox, expose the underlying malnutrition, and then madly backfill the missing good food. This is one reason why people fail over and over by quitting junk first - they don't have nutritional strength to withstand it.

5. Density = Master of Your Food Domain
Fine-tune muscle & fat.

[monkwhy]

Coach Brown.. ok thanks. that helps quite a bit. thanks

[seinna023]

Thanks for asking these questions. It helps me a lot.

So, what about dairy products? Why is it preferred to be not eaten? Is it specific products or is it dairy all together?

If so, what other alternatives for calcium?

Annie Sayo

[monkwhy]

If so, what other alternatives for calcium?

Annie Sayo
thanks for mentioning that, i was about to ask the same question.. Calcium alternatives please ?

i found alternatives to milk in this thread http://www.rmaxinternational.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12031&highlight=mylk
about soy, and found mentioned almond milk or Coach Sonnon mentioned OAT milk. I will give the almond milk a go but whats the process for making Oat milk ?
thanks..
Also Annie , ill let one of the Coaches answer the why no dairy ? question, in case i give misinformation. :)

[monkwhy]

one other thing.. how do you feel about the books on this web site
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/paleo_books/
worth a read ?

[Connie Brown]

Speaking just about me personally....


Thanks for asking these questions. It helps me a lot.

So, what about dairy products? Why is it preferred to be not eaten? Is it specific products or is it dairy all together?

They are a mild allergen for me. Make me puffy and trigger cravings. Ghee is okay but the milk protein (casein) and milk sugar (lactose) - don't need em, don't want em. Also, all the things I liked with dairy, were foods that are not my friend because I liked it with white flour and sweet things (pizza, sweetened yogurt, quesadillas on white tortillas)


If so, what other alternatives for calcium?
For me:

- leafy greens
- nuts
- fish bones (like in canned salmon)
- bone broths
- supplements

The USDA has a document specifically for calcium. You can go down the list of that one too. It's a bit of a pain for me because it has so much processed food that I had to skip over to get to the whole foods, but still.

USDA web site for nutrient lists (http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=9673) (per nutrient like calcium)

[Connie Brown]

one other thing.. how do you feel about the books on this web site
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/paleo_books/
worth a read ?
Yes, I like Cordain's work too.

Pause reading and start doing! There's so much information you could get yourself into analysis paralysis.

[seinna023]

Oh, thank you both for all this information! I am really trying to be food conscious and it is a bit difficult b/c I really don't know of any of these things people are talking about. So, questions always help me. Things like Agave,carbo, stevia... what are those things? Where do you get them? What are their significance?

So, basically, regular milk that is at the grocery store has lactose, which is sugar in milk, so that is not good b/c it may trigger some desires that are not so healthy? Did I understand that right?

Annie Sayo

[seinna023]

Oh, Coach Connie...

What about Vitamin D? How do we get that if not from regular milk at the local grocery store? Again, this is all sooo new to me, so I have no clue.

In advance, I thank and my household thanks all of you for helping us TRY to be more health conscious and figure out a way for us to improve what we buy at what grocery store.

Thank you,

Annie Sayo

[Coach Bentz]

Hi Annie,

My own personal preference is cod liver oil for a Vitamin D supplementation. I don't tend to take it so much when there's plenty of sunshine to be had, though.

[seinna023]

Coach Bentz,

Thanks for the tip. Cool, can't wait to get that sunshine!

Annie Sayo

[James Boelter]

thanks for mentioning that, i was about to ask the same question.. Calcium alternatives please ?

i found alternatives to milk in this thread http://www.rmaxinternational.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12031&highlight=mylk
about soy, and found mentioned almond milk or Coach Sonnon mentioned OAT milk. I will give the almond milk a go but whats the process for making Oat milk ?
thanks..
Also Annie , ill let one of the Coaches answer the why no dairy ? question, in case i give misinformation. :)

Dark green leafy vegetables are good. Kale (and other "hard greens) and spinach for instance, are very rich source of calcium sand other minerals. You just have to learn to make it palatable. I contributed a recipe for "Roman Fish Soup" to the Recipes section a while back that uses kale as a main ingredient.

You can Google "recipe oat milk" or similar terms and get a quick selection of ways to make it. I would also look it up in a resource like "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon.

[seinna023]

Oh, ok... good. I've been getting more calium more than I thought!

Nice...

Annie

[onealjn]

Proper nutrition is very simple.

If you want to lose weight, eat good, whole foods containing less calories than you eat right now.

If you want to gain weight, eat good, whole foods containing more calories than you eat right now.

The problems are that most people have no idea how many calories they are currently eating, people find eating to achieve their goal uncomfortable, people get caught up in wacky diet programs that use unverified mumbo-jumbo and occasional anecdotes to "prove" their diet.

The good news is that people have and do flourish under myriads of conditions, so your diet does not have to be perfect to achieve results.

There are not "bad" foods. Dairy is fine. It is a staple in many cultures' diets. Carbs are not bad. Fat is not bad. Variety is not needed in a good diet, but is more pleasant in the long run. So you can eat like an Inuit, if you want, or a Masai, but I would try to make do with what is readily available in your culture.

As to frequent small meals, they work. Not just for elite athletes, for everyone. If you are in calorie restriction and want a snack, it is nice not to have to "enjoy hunger". Losing weight is hard enough without trying to tie it to some spiritual quest.

John Berardi is a brilliant sport nutritionist who is the most honest man working in the field. He does not want a dime of your money until you follow his "Seven Habits".

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/7habits.htm

The thing is, this program will work for most anyone.

The biggest drawback to frequent meals is that you have to plan a lot of your meals ahead of time (boring).

It would also help if you used a food scale for a while to see exactly what "real" portion sizes are. People have no idea, especially Americans.

One last tip. Learn to cook just one new dish or prepare (properly) one new fruit or vegetable every one or two weeks. Own that dish or vegetable. Within a year you will be an amazing cook and will be able easily manage your diet with delicious foods for the rest of your lifetime.

Good luck!

Jason

[Connie Brown]

Jason, oh ptooey. Did you read this thread? CST nutrition says meals are 4-5 hours apart and in the giant thread "Retraining to burn sugar" we talk about how 6 meals a day can be a problem for the energy demands of RMAX athletics.

And even Berardi doesn't buy the calories in = calories out stuff. It's the quality and quantity of nutrients and the hormonal response as well as "energy" in the form of calories.

[monkwhy]

Im off the 6 meal thing now because of this thread, found i was a mixed metabolic type, only eating 3 meals a day, no sugar, and top quality high nutrition foods and ive dropped the body fat %, not hungry, And more energy. Just getting to that point where i leap out of bed every morning and jump into the Warrior wellness drills.
Yeay! Thanks Connie.

[onealjn]

Connie,

Actually, if you read Berardi's work, he is a calorie counter. He does not believe that *simply* lowering or increasing calories is the answer for *elite* sport nutrition.

I read the CST thread on nutrition. If it works for people great, but there are many ways to achieve proper balance in nutrition and what many athletes use (CST not really unique in energy demands) is a frequent eating protocol.

There is a reason frequent eating is recommended throughout the literature, it works. It is not like anyone is making a ton of money off the idea. It allows many people a degree of comfort and energy when dieting.

The biggest drawback to frequent eating is that is can be a pain in the rear, unless you have the kinda time most professional athletes have to concentrate on rest and recovery.

By following the seven habits of Berardi's just 85% of the time, I lost ~20 pounds and 4" off my waist the beginning of this year in about 8 weeks. (I also didn't following the macronutrient combining, that is the wacky part of his diet.)

Cheers!

Jason

[Connie Brown]

Okay Jason thank you for sharing.

But please remember this section is for people to understand and apply CST nutrition principles. It's not for advocating things non CST. There are reasons that Berardi's nutrition program is not the one recommended here, and every single reason, every detail of difference matters and is hard-fought and hard-won by people doing CST athletics.

I'm glad you have something dialed in for you - heaven knows that's not easy. But this is not really a general discussion nutrition forum.

[onealjn]

Are you serious? I thought the original post concerned whether frequent eating could be a viable dieting method. It is. The title of the forum is "Diet, Nutrition, Biochemical Addiction Recovery." I mistakenly thought is was nutrition discussion.

Oh well. I've been using and following Sonnon's stuff for over 6 years and have recommended his products and ideas to many others. It is a shame that when people try to contribute here, even with solid conventional information, if it falls outside the party-line an iota, they get called out.

I was just stopping to see what has happened in Rmax world since Scott began working with Valery and I wanted to try the Running DVD.

I leave you to your pond,

Jason

[Scott Sonnon]

CST is a movement health and fitness system. We offer general nutritional suggestions, but CST does not, cannot and will not espouse a nutritional approach, since healthy nutrition is completely relative to the individual: what is healthy for one person can be contra-indicated for another. Therefore, RMAX invites all approaches to be discussed here (except for idiotic ones like the "champagne and cigarette" diet. :headwall: )

Please feel free to keep posting Jason. This forum section is just a side-bar for RMAX members to have discussions.

[Connie Brown]

Jason, you're right, sorry, my bad. Please do continue - and I will go read the difference between guidelines and ....

[monkwhy]

The 6 meal a day thing DID work well for me.. however.. eating 3 meals a day is also working well if not better then 6 meals. The reason 6 meals was working for me, i now know, was not because of the meal frequency, but because of the percentage of carb, protein, fat i was eating, which was correct for ME, now that i know i am a mixed metabolic type. It all makes sense now.:) The Metabolic type test answered hundreds of questions.. :)