I'm sorry bro, ate enough for you and me at my graduation party.
Cool. Eating 1 meal is not optimal.. pretty much what it sounds like your doing. (From the post above and if im wrong sorry, but if you eat till you feel sick and fast 20 hours) then yeah you may be a little SOL on spacing out meals)
About 0 research to back its very effective for overall muscle protein synthesis and seeing your on your younger years, 3+ meals is shown as effective for overall MPS (muscle protein synthesis) and optimization of protein.
While IF is great and something i utilize as well (even if my window stretches to 9 hours due to work schedule) you should still make the most of it as martin does outline on the webpage. I could link you to Layne/Alan and their stance on IF as well and how MPS would decrease on less meals and larger intakes spread so close to each other (say 4 hours and 2 meals) you dont give the body long enough to allow itself to reset to protein refractory stages/levels to be spiked again for optimal amount of protein synthesis.
Sure you "Can eat a lot in 1 meal" and you seem to do it often, but is it really optimal for physique and MPS? not so much. ANyone can meet their kcals in specific ways, but most people negate proper macro nutrients and MICRO nutrients (first and foremost) not pointing fingers just talking about the majority of individuals in this world. While like you i can eat the world (as you have seen) we sometimes have to realize what is "optimal" and what needs to be limited.
Id rather see you make more progress in and out of the gym than eat a massive amount of food.
My interview with Alan Aragon:
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"s for the other end of the spectrum (2-3 meals per day), this is obviously more realistic for regular people. This works out well, since the importance of muscle retention during dieting varies according to the population. The more overfat & deconditioned someone is, the greater the proportional & net loss of fat vs. muscle is when dieting. Further along the progression, the leaner & more conditioned someone is, the more muscle they stand to lose as they continue to diet. So, can low meal frequency work for competitors? Yes, it can. Is it optimal? Well, that’s a question that so far doesn’t have a definitive, science-based answer, and it might never have one. For advanced athletes in a dieting situation, the objective is to retain as much muscle as possible while losing fat, since muscle loss at this point is a more urgent threat than it is for guys coming straight off the couch. Nitpicking for advanced athletes, I‘d speculate that anything below 3 meals (technically, 3 protein feedings) per day is not optimal, regardless of program phase."
Layne:
" I think intermittant fasting has helped a lot of people with a diet they can stick to, however I also see many people use it as an excuse to binge, and that is never healthy. One of the other problems with it is my PhD thesis research demonstrated that if you eat low protein throughout the day, you cannot make up for that lack of anabolic stimulus earlier in the day by eating a huge protein meal later in the day because their is an 'anabolic cap' to each meal, so to stimulate muscle protein synthesis maximally it's wise to consume multiple (probably 4-5) meals rich in high quality protein. You want to make sure you are getting enough protein to hit around 3-4g of leucine at a meal to ensure that you are maxing out anabolism, that is typically around 30-45g of protein for most sources. But as far as meal frequency and it's impact on fat loss, it does not seem to matter, and if anything eating too frequently actually impedes fat loss. I believe however, that you could get many of the benefits, if not all of the benefits of intermittent fasting by simply intermittently eating carbs but still having multiple protein meals as eating protein with low/no carb would still maintain elevated insulin sensitivity. "
