Reply To: Meals
Hi team,
I have a question. I’d like to preface it by saying that I signed up for this challenge only to learn about food and nutrition requirements when weight training. I’ve learned a lot and see where my shortfalls were and why I was building muscle very slowly on my own – my macros were quite off. Anyway, since I’m not in this to win the challenge or to achieve max results in 6 weeks (but longer term), my question is:
1. If I follow the training program (which I do), and if I’d like to eat around 550 cal for dinner (which I really would), will this completely throw off any progress and hinder muscle building for me long term? (I am basically wondering about long-term following this plan and making it sustainable – in which case I’d like to have half of meal 3 at its scheduled time and the other half of it with dinner so that it’s somewhere around 540 cal. In your experience, do you think that would hinder me from making progress, or would that be okay to do in terms of seeing results?)
Note: my meal plan is the 359 cal per meal one, corresponding to 5’6 height – 1696 cal per day
You can eat two meals at one time, or a meal and a half at one time, then disperse the rest however you want to. It will not affect your results overall. In general, as long as you meet your calorie and macro goals by the end of the day, that is what is most important. We have some participants who follow an intermittent fasting protocol and eat all their meals within a 4-6 hour window.
The spreading out of the meals every 3-4 hours or so is just what is most common for people in preventing hunger/cravings and feeling satiated and fueled for the workout and for recovery, but do what works best for you 🙂