How many meals should you eat in a day to lose weight?

I googled this recently and it made my head spin! There seems to be hundreds of ‘doctors’ and ‘health specialists’ pushing some kind of book that claims to have the answer to this loaded question. And to make it more confusing they are all creating noise about completely different methods. 6 meals a day, intermittent fasting, 3 hour diets, 3 meals and no snacks. The list goes on…. The truth is there is no 'perfect diet'. It’s about looking introspectively; who you are, what you are ready, willing and able to do, what your diet and lifestyle is like as well as your current and historical relationship with food. 

Take a look at your current diet

“Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” 

If you have been trying to lose weight and are not seeing results then you need to change elements of your diet to start making progress. If you don't take a look at what, when and how you are eating and just ‘keep trying to eat healthy’ then you will likely continue to bang that head against a brick wall.

Keeping a food journal can be really helpful. Jot down everything you eat and drink over the course of a week then take a look at what your week was like. Are you fairly consistent with the timing of what you eat or does it vary? Do you regularly skip meals or find yourself snacking? What kind of foods are you eating? Are you eating a more carbohydrate, fat or protein rich diet? Are those carbohydrates mostly from vegetables and fruit or more from grains, bread etc? Is your protein processed (e.g. sliced packaged meats) or from a whole source (fresh meat, fish)?

Know your body type

Are you an ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph? We are all built a little bit differently. This gives us different strengths and qualities and is important to consider when wanting to lose weight. It can be so tempting for women to look at someone with a body they desire and strive to copy what they eat in a bid to look like them. This method is usually frustrating, discouraging and rarely yields results. Following the diet of a waif thin 6 foot tall model will likely be a miserable experience for someone with a shorter and naturally more muscular build. 

Take the test on bodybuilding.com  to see where you fall.  Then check out Precision Nutrition’s Body Type Eating to see what a typical meal breakdown for your body type should look like 

Get a grip on your activity level 

It can be easy to fall into the trap of sometimes feeling like you have worked out harder or for longer than you actually did. It can also be surprising to see how much baseline activity you get during the day, using an activity tracker can be a great tool to see how much (or little) you are moving. 

Revisit your diet history

Your relationship with food is a very important factor for long term weight loss success. Have you have spent times heavily restricting yourself from meals and food groups then perhaps suffering a period of ‘falling off the wagon’ by overeating, feeling out of control with your eating or bingeing? If so spending time forming a healthy relationship with food should be the first step before thinking about weight loss. If you have been excessively restricting calories for an extended period of time then you may need to initially focus on regulating your adrenals and hormones to get your body working optimally again. 

Understand your hunger cues

This means developing body awareness and working on mindfulness! A simple concept but not easy and takes practice. Many of us are out of tune with our hunger signals, often mistaking stress, fatigue,dehydration and other emotional factors for hunger. Why are you hungry? Do you approach meals starving?  Do you forget to eat then overeat at meals? Or do you constantly feel hungry and like snacking all day? Do you use food as a distraction? Or as a reward? For some people having 6 small meals a day helps keep overeating at bay and overall calorie consumption in check, whereas for others restricting to 2-3 meals is easier to make better choices and allows for better consistency. 

Sources:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/3-hour-diet-or-3-meals-a-day

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25242841  (The effects of 6 isocaloric meals pattern on blood lipid profile, glucose, hemoglobin a1c, insulin and malondialdehyde in type 2 diabetic patients: a randomized clinical trial.)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680567/ (intermittent fasting) 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23171320  (Intermittent fasting combined with calorie restriction is effective for weight loss and cardio-protection in obese women).

willpower. it's more than the story you tell yourself

Willpower is not black or white. You don’t ‘have it’ or ‘not’. It combines a complex of multiple of things.

So what is willpower?

• Willpower combines your ability to be interested and engaged in novelty
• Willpower combines your attentiveness to environmental cues around you 
• Willpower combines your sense of internal principles, your sense of self 

What’s your inner dialogue when it comes to willpower? It could be “I really suck at exerting my willpower and I am a total failure” or it could be “I am iron clad and unflappable.” The story that you tell yourself about your willpower is critical. 

We all have willpower, no one is a ‘failure’ and can’t control themselves.

Instead of thinking in a blanketed, negative way about yourself recognize the areas in your life where you do have excellent willpower. It could be your attention and focus to your work, it could be the amount you dedicate to read, it could be drinking enough water, walking every day, cooking dinner 4 nights a week, or getting to sleep around the same time every night.. All of these require consistent effort which is exerting that ‘willpower muscle.’

Each of these obviously have varying degrees of effort, but there is still effort involved. Look at how you mentally apply yourself to tasks you are successful at to help guide you to gaining more control over situations where you feel your willpower fails you. 

Instead of telling yourself you have no willpower, change the story you tell yourself to: “In some situations I have trouble being decisive or being uncomfortable."Everything is a skill that can be tackled in segments. Just like learning a language, building physical strength or running long distances we start small and build upon it consistently to get results. 

By recognizing this you can look at that particular habit or activity that you struggle with and begin to break it down into smaller pieces. Work on those pieces one step at a time, to develop new habits and break old habits to support your goals. 

Working on habits, not willpower will get us moving closer to our goals. 

Winter Fitness Strategies to Manage Indulgence

Thawing freezing fingers and toes in a cozy bar with a big glass of red, or racing home to snuggle up on the couch with a big bowl of pasta and a cozy blanket has a powerful pull during cold winter days. Days off exercise can quickly lead to weeks off and suddenly the fitness discipline and diet regime you worked so hard to cultivate earlier in the year has evaporated. Finding balance in New York winter can be difficult and requires a little extra dedication and planning to compensate for the cold. 

Get Moving

Weather permitting, walk wherever you can. Pick places to eat that are further away for lunch, walk to a further subway stop, take the stairs. Go out shopping rather than buying online. Incidental exercise counts. Purchasing a personal exercise tracker such as a Fitbit is one way to keep an eye on your daily baseline activity. 

Make Time to Workout

A few days away from your routine can easily slip into a few weeks off. Set yourself realistic goals and schedule your weekly workouts ahead of time. Pack light exercise equipment such as skipping ropes when traveling. Plan your gym days and honor that time as you would a business meeting. If you are feeling unmotivated or find your workout is getting stale, schedule time to attend some of the classes offered at your gym or book sessions with a personal trainer to give new energy to your workouts and to help keep you accountable.

Lift to Stay Lean 

Pick up those weights to maintain muscle tone, not just for definition but to keep your metabolism stoked. When you can get to the gym, utilize that time to work those big muscles which will help you burn more calories, build tone and reduce body fat. Think deadlifts, squats, lunges, pull-ups and rowing.

Mix in Cardio 

Enjoying more decadence than usual? This is a great opportunity to amp up your cardio workout routine to effectively use all that extra energy. Your muscles use sugar as fuel so when a little too much indulgence takes place use it wisely by applying yourself to some challenging workouts, such as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) which torches calories to help stave off that unwanted fat.  The great thing about HIIT workouts is they can be done in a limited amount of space with little to no equipment. So even if the weather outside sucks you can still get something done!

Get a Handle on Your Eating and Drinking Habits 

Don’t let one bad food choice or decadent meal be the catalyst for an entire day or week of overindulgent eating. Balance your big meals out with healthier choices and make it a priority to drink purified water. Not just a glass here and there, at minimum half your body weight in ounces per body weight per day. If you are hitting the caffeine and cocktails then you are going to need even more to help hydrate and flush out the system. 

Build in Detox Days

Include some short detox days in between indulgent days. After an indulgent weekend carve out time during the week to cleanse the body. Eat lots of leafy greens, rehydrate with purified water and herbal teas. Add anti-inflammatory herbs and spices to soups, salads and juices such as ginger, mint, cilantro, parsley and turmeric.