https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPZM3d9zMEQ
I have a question here from Jonathan. He asks me, “Jesse, how oftentimes a day do you eat? What is your eating schedule like?”
What I like to do is intermittent fasting where I will push off my first meal up at about 6 hours in my day, so if I wake up at 6:00 AM, I won’t eat my first meal until about 12:00 noon. I have an 8-hour or 9-hour feeding window where I’ll stop eating after 8:00 PM or 9:00 PM.
If I get hungry on those first 6 hours, I’ll drink some coffee, some caffeine which will stave off the hunger pains, or if I get really hungry, I will just pretty rare, I’ll have a little bit fruit mixed with apple sauce or some berries. That will usually stave off the hunger.
What I like about that is if I’m eating breakfast and I’m trying to lose weight, go until caloric deficit. For example I need about 2,700 calories a day to maintain my weight, if I want to go on 15 percent, 20 percent caloric deficit, I might be shooting for 2,200 calories so I can lose half a pound per week of body fat while still lifting heavy weights, of course.
To be able to do that, if I eat breakfast, it makes up much harder to maintain that 2,200 and not go over. If I just skip breakfast and push my first meal back, I can have a massive lunch, I can have a massive dinner, and have very satiating meals that fill me up and make me feel good, and I can still maintain a caloric deficit without feeling hungry throughout the day, without having to draw on willpower.
Usually in the mornings, I’m very active. I don’t eat breakfast. Actually, eating breakfast kind of makes me feel weighted down, makes me feel heavy. It’s just as good to be skipping it.
The Problem With Many Small Meals
Now what I used to do is eat 6 to 7 small little meals throughout the day, 300-calorie meals. That did not work out well for me at all simply because you eat 300 calories tiny little meals and you still don’t feel satiated, you still feel hungry.
Now you’re drawing on your willpower. You still want to eat more, and you’re like, “But I can’t! I got to wait 2 to 3 hours for my next meal.” Because you’re having 6 or 7 little meals, you’re drawing on your willpower 6 or 7 times a day and it just grinds you down. You can’t. It’s very hard psychologically to maintain that even if technically it could work.
Another problem with eating 6 or 7 little meals throughout the day is you’re always thinking about food preparation. It’s like, “Okay, what’s my next small meal going to be?” Food is always on your mind. Every 2 or 3 hours, food…food…food…food preparation.
If I’m just eating two large meals a day with intermittent fasting, I just prepare a large lunch. I feel satiated, and I don’t have to worry about food again until dinner. I don’t have to worry about food at all in the morning, so it’s just a lot more time efficient.
When you’re eating 6 or 7 meals throughout the day, you have a lot of things to do. You got to work. You have chores. You have errands. Maybe you have playtime. You always have to be working in food every couple of hours. It’s a big pain in the ass.
It really wasn’t something that I could easily maintain.
That’s why I like intermittent fasting. That’s why I push my first meal back 6 hours and have two big meals because it’s just super convenient. It doesn’t draw a lot of my willpower. I feel very energetic in the mornings.
Actually, not having food in my stomach doesn’t make me feel weighted down.
I don’t know, it helps with my energy a lot, and it’s good for losing weight. It’s good for maintaining a caloric deficit. I’ll do a little bit of cardio in the morning while I’m in the fasted state. I’ll often lift my weights while I’m the fasted state, I want to be cutting and it makes eating easy. I don’t have to think about it. I could do other things with my day.