What is fractional nutrition

What does fractional nutrition mean?

The terminology varies from dietitian to dietitian, but now fractional nutrition is considered to be dividing the entire daily diet into 4-5 or more meals. Of course, each meal becomes smaller in volume, especially for people with a small daily calorie intake.

Sometimes it is recommended to divide meals depending on the products chosen. For example: carbohydrates in the first half of the day, and proteins in the second and in the evening. The fractional nutrition diet does not imply such manipulations. The main and only principle is to reduce portions and increase the number of meals. The more, the better.

Why 5-6? In practice, according to the theory put forward, 10 meals will be several times more effective than 3-4, but it is problematic for a modern person to create suitable conditions. After all, you will not be distracted by food every 45-60 minutes. In addition to food, a person has a number of other concerns, at work or in everyday life, so an average number was chosen - 5-6, which suits many losing weight.

Fractional nutrition for weight loss

The main argument that makes people eat 5-6 times in small portions is to speed up metabolism. Supposedly, by speeding up your metabolism, you will begin to actively spend subcutaneous fat. Small meals force the body to spend a lot of energy on digestion and absorption, which, in addition to speeding up your metabolism, also uses up your calories. Simply put, you spend more energy on digesting food than you receive.

Ideally, it was assumed that fractional nutrition would teach your body to quickly and effectively digest small amounts of food, and at the same time would not reduce the metabolic rate. You would begin to lose weight much faster, even with the same diet.

Of course, reality is noticeably different from such advertising statements. It is very easy to assess the quality of any dietary theory. If the scheme/method/principle/advice does not take into account the client's weight or calorie deficit, then most likely you are dealing with a marketing scam. You will be promised weight loss even without taking into account the calorie content of your diet. Allegedly, you will burn more calories while eating the same food. How true are such promises?

How does it work?

First things first. First of all, it should be noted that some acceleration of metabolism after a small meal does exist. Scientifically, this effect is called TEF – the thermic effect of food – the amount of calories needed to digest the food consumed.

After each burger, plate of buckwheat or any other food eaten, the body spends energy on its assimilation, and at once and quickly. The amount of energy spent (TEP value) directly depends on how much food you ate. This is not about the volume or literal amount of food, but about the final caloric content of the meal.

The lower the caloric content of a meal, the lower the TEF. The opposite is also true: the larger the meal in terms of calories, the higher the TEF.