What is the Thermic Effect of Food?
The thermic effect of food is the small increase in BMR that happens when you eat. It’s the main drive behind the “eat 4-6x a day” because the theory is that if you eat 6 times a day you’re causing a “spike” in BMR 6x a day versus 3x a day. However, this is grossly misunderstood. The “spike” is directly related to the amount ingested.
Say we have two people eating 3000 calories a day – one person eating 1,500 calories twice a day and one eating 600 calories 5 times a day. Let’s also pretend these people have a TEF (thermal energy of food) of 10%. The first person burns 150 calories twice a day with the spike, the other 60 calories 5 times a day. Both burn 300 calories from the thermal effect of food.
It differs when the calorie count differs – but then your weight loss is based on calories, not the thermal effect of food. Yeah, someone eating 3,000 calories a day burning 300 is burning more than someone eating 2,000 calories a day burning 200. That’s not because they’ve increased their frequency of the meal, but because they’ve increased their calorie count.
July 4, 2012 Metabolism Series, Nutrition, Science Read more >
