I'm always going to believe in the post workout shake, judging from personal experience I feel like it works. But you're right about everything else, I've seen no difference with the timing of the rest of my calories as long as I get them.

Wesley nailed it, but broscience is to be expected in a bb.com article. Bigbron, your extreme example doesn't make the point, but even if, the differences would be so minute as to not be noticed. Mlit, your anecdotal experience isn't backed by any relevant science. Do what you want, but at least you know it's a placebo feeling...I'll give you credit.

I'm pretty sure to maximize protein synthesis one must consume quality protein every 4 hours. Check out studies on Protein metabolism and draw your own conclusions. From my own experience, I've experienced the best gains consuming protein every 3-4 hours along with one serving of BCAAs between meals. I later attempted to ignore protein timing and over the course of 5 weeks my muscles weren't as hard and as dense as before. To each their own.

Plenty of studies have been done on the way your body reacts to food. The reason you eat several smaller meals/snacks throughout the day is to keep your blood sugar steady throughout the day. If you overeat or eat high glycemic foods your blood sugar spikes and your body says to start storing fat. Also, if you are working out properly and breaking muscle down, your body needs more then a protein shake and one big meal several hours later. If anyone disagrees, then try your own experiment; for 6 months eat three large meals per day and do your usual workout... track results and then compare with the next 6 months, eating several smaller meals, equalling the macros ingested prior, and compare results... You can talk about "broscience" all you want, but real world experience and trial and error have shown repeatedly that this article pretty much nails it for the most part.

I'm pretty sure you're opinion isn't backed by any relevant science. If either of you have studies, you should post links so they can be scrutinized. There is nothing back either mmanningfitness's comments about protein synthsis or michaelr575 ridiculous blood sugar and storing fat comments. Post the science showing significant differences and then we can talk. michaelr575 your experiment idea is also ridiculous. You try mimicking exact conditions to prove otherwise. From day 1 to day 180 you will change. The baseline is different at day 180 to try to prove an difference over the next six months. The problem you have is that "real world experience" is just your reality and if you had done it differently you'll never know the difference. That's the point. The differences are so minute that you'd never know if one way was better or not. So please don't throw a bunch of bs around about how timing meals and protein (or other macros) is superior. You can't prove this to be the case and there is zero science proving any significant difference. mmanningfitness, your anecdotal evidence and subjective measures mean and prove nothing other than you have subjective measures of proving something in your own mind.