Research has shown that eating five meals a day rather than the traditional three (or two, for those who unwisely skip breakfast) is optimal for maintaining healthy and stable insulin levels.
When I attended the University of Toronto years ago, my professors included Dr. David Jenkins and Dr. Thomas M. S. Wolever. Those names may not mean anything to you—and if they do, then I’m proud of you—but they did to me. You see, Jenkins and Wolever were two of the world’s leading active glycemic index (GI) researchers. In fact, it was they who created the glycemic index—the system that measures, on a scale of 0 to 100, the body’s blood sugar response to carbohydrates. They also suggested eating smaller meals throughout the day—“grazing” instead of gorging. A few years after that research was published, I was lucky, and honored, to study under both of them. They have had a profound influence on me, both personally and professionally. They’re the reason you’re holding this book.
“I wanted to lose my belly, but I was completely unmotivated to work out because most programs looked too long and complicated to start. I found 5-Factor to be well structured and extremely easy to maintain. In just eight weeks, I lost approximately 16 pounds and have managed to keep it off!”
Yvon Brunet AGE: 48 WEIGHT LOST SO FAR: 16 lbs.
It started the day I decided to put my professors’ theories to the test. At first I tried eating six meals a day, but I found it didn’t feel very natural because I was used to eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Trying to squeeze in six meals felt like I was stuffing myself. Five meals is a lot easier and more sensible to maintain. I had my regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner and added snacks in between. As soon as I stuck with 5 meals, I felt—and saw—the results. From there, I researched ways of making my 5 meals even more effective at fighting fat, building muscle, and improving my overall health. The result is the 5-Factor Diet.
By following this 5-meal-a-day plan, you are changing the way you eat and the reasons why you are eating. If you eat on a schedule, rather than waiting until you’re hungry and must eat, you become proactive with your diet instead of reactive. You are in control of what—and how much—you consume. Once you’re in that driver’s seat, you get to control how your body looks, feels, and performs.
When you stick to my 5-meal-a-day 5-Factor Diet, you’ll benefit from five important changes to your body that most diets simply can’t offer.
Eating 5 meals a day—and eating the right combinations of foods—can prevent your body from releasing excess insulin into its system. By eating 5 normal-size meals instead of the usual two or three big meals, you tend to eat less food at each meal. Eating less food at each meal means you naturally end up eating less sugar. As a result, less insulin is released and you store less fat.
Keeping your insulin levels low all day long isn’t important just for losing fat. It’s also necessary if you want to avoid the dangerous medical condition hyperinsulinemia, which occurs when you have too much insulin in your blood too often. This condition is harmful to your long-term health. It also affects you daily by lowering your concentration, diminishing your memory, and causing headaches and dizziness. Sticking with the 5-meals-a-day rule of the 5-Factor Diet prevents all of the above problems, so all you have to do is eat instead of worry.
Despite all the other health benefits of the 5-Factor Diet, my guess is that your main goal is to lose weight. Following my system certainly will make that happen. But what really gives you an edge over other dieters is the enormous amount of energy you’ll have on this plan. Eating 5 smaller meals a day keeps a nice, steady stream of calories flowing, so you feel more energized and less sluggish. Eating larger meals less often has the exact opposite effect—Thanksgiving, anyone?
You also get an energy boost on the 5-Factor Diet because you’re eating protein at all 5 meals. Here’s why: One of protein’s most important amino acids is tyrosine, which can increase your mental alertness and energy by elevating the brain chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine. By eating protein 5 times a day as opposed to two or three times a day, you release these chemicals twice as often for extra energy all day. That’s a nutritional secret many fad dieters—and even the general population, for the most part—never take advantage of. How many times have you seen someone snack on pretzels, fruits, or other carbohydrates without eating anything else with it? When it comes to staying energized, that’s a big no-no.
What you decide to do with your newfound energy is up to you. Maybe you’ll use it to exercise more effectively. Or maybe you’ll use that extra burst to get more done at work or focus on a relationship. Whatever you do, I promise you’ll have energy when you need it—always.
Did you know that you burn more calories eating than when you’re at rest? It’s ironic but true. Every time you eat, your body uses up a certain amount of energy—and calories—digesting, absorbing, metabolizing, and storing your meal. In fact, about 5 to 15 percent of your total calories is spent on digestion alone. It’s called the “thermic effect of food” (TEF): The more often you eat, the more often your metabolism revs up as your body processes the food. That’s yet another scientific reason why there are five meals spaced throughout the day in the 5-Factor Diet.
I like to think of the metabolism as a pinwheel—you know, the toy that looks like a mini fan on a stick that spins when you blow air through it. Your metabolism is like a pinwheel, and you want to keep it spinning. The faster and longer you can make it spin, the more calories you burn.
Each time you eat a meal, it’s like blowing air on a pinwheel. If you wait too long before blowing again, the pinwheel starts to slow down. To keep your metabolism constantly spinning, you must time your meals so that just as your body begins to slow down, more food arrives to revive it. Eating 5 meals a day keeps these breezes flowing and your metabolism spinning.
5-FACTOR DIET BENEFITS
My diet gives you even more of a TEF advantage because of the foods you eat at each meal. Protein has a TEF roughly twice as high as that of carbohydrates and fat. That’s why simply raising the amount of protein you eat daily from 15 percent of your total calories (the amount most people eat) to 35 percent (the amount I want you to eat) will increase your TEF by 21 calories daily. That number may seem tiny, but remember, the effect is cumulative.
Have you ever felt agitated, depressed, or irritable during the day, but you couldn’t pinpoint what was causing it? It might be from eating less often than you should—something eating 5 meals a day can fix.
I’ve explained that eating less often and having bigger meals raises your insulin levels so you end up storing excess calories as fat. There’s also an emotional downside to this situation. When you eat less often and have larger meals, your body not only releases insulin but also overcompensates by releasing too much insulin, just to be sure it’s doing its job. The result is that your body removes more blood sugar than necessary, causing a net deficit in your body’s supply of glucose. Having less energy leaves you feeling less happy and more miserable, no matter how happy you normally are. Eating 5 smaller meals a day can prevent this and improve your mood—unless you have a good reason to be angry or upset!
On the 5-Factor Diet, you’re also protecting yourself from mood swings by eating a low- to moderate-glycemic carbohydrate at every meal. Research performed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that eating less than 50 grams of carbohydrates daily can cause a significant drop in the chemical serotonin, which your brain releases to help regulate mood and appetite.
When your serotonin level dips, you’re more susceptible to feeling depressed and anxious. Getting enough serotonin on a regular basis raises how much of the chemical your body produces. Eating 5 meals a day—with carbs at each meal—keeps your levels steady so you never encounter the kind of emotional highs and lows you may have felt on other diets.
The 5-Factor Diet and 5-Factor Recipes also incorporate plenty of foods that are rich in folate—a mineral that helps lower homocysteine, an amino acid that’s been shown to cause depression at high levels—as well as healthy fats and essential fatty acids, which have been shown to help naturally treat depression.
John Mayer GRAMMY-WINNING SINGER AND SONGWRITER
“5-Factor is not a diet, in the sense that there’s nothing to fall off of. There’s nothing to say good-bye to, and nothing to long for. It is almost too good to be true!”
Eating is important for a reason most people don’t quite understand: It’s a time to relax and put your life on pause for a moment. A meal is a time for reflection for many people—or at least it should be. It’s a time to rest and think.
I want you to look at each meal as “your” time. No matter how stressful your day is, or how angry your boss is making you, I want you to use your five mealtimes to simply pause and ponder, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Taking a break isn’t just healthy for your mind; it’s also beneficial to your body. Taking the time to make a meal, then sit down and eat it, forces you to do something that you might not do otherwise during the day.
As a workaholic, I made a New Year’s resolution a few years ago to find a balance in life. I wanted to speak to my parents more often. I wanted to read more. I wanted to spend more time focusing on me instead of all the work that was always piling up around me.
I used my 5 meals a day as a no-excuse way to live up to that promise. They gave me five opportunities in the day to reach out and say hello to my mother or read a chapter in a book. They helped bring balance to my day. I felt calmer and less stressed by the time each meal was over.
Studies have shown that the more stressful your life is, the higher your odds of being overweight. A study performed at the New York Academy of Sciences found that most women who face chronic stress suffer from a condition called stress overeating, caused by the hormone cortisol, which your body releases when under stress. Not only is cortisol toxic to your immune system, but it stimulates appetite, which may be why the study’s subjects overate during stressful times.
A study from Yale University found that women dealing with stress typically may develop excess fat around their waistlines and surrounding their organs. The study theorized that there are more cortisol-sensitive receptors within fat cells in your belly than any other areas of your body. That means stressing out about your belly could keep you from losing it—if you don’t find the time to unwind, that is.
Exercising regularly and adhering to a healthy diet can lower your stress and help keep your cortisol levels low. Of course, those are both things you’ll be doing naturally when you follow my 5-Factor Diet. Taking the time to reflect with each meal can help curb your daily stress even further, helping you keep off the fat.