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).

Why Goal Setting Does Not Work

We all have things we want to achieve in life. When it comes to health it could be weight loss, gaining muscle, losing body fat or just improving fitness and wellbeing. There is so much emphasis out there on goal setting to attain success, it’s the way I was taught in school and in the workplace. We all love the idea of a big goal igniting a new found level of motivation in us, jotting down new years resolutions or joining a gym as the guarantee that those life changing things will now happen. 

The problem is that thinking about something won’t make things happen. No one gets to a goal without looking at the process of how to get there. For changes to occur in life you must first look within. This can be the hard part. Change requires mental adjustments that allow you to be open to addressing certain areas of your lifestyle. When a goal seems too large or too difficult it can be easy to blame work, family or other circumstances in your life that can make things more difficult, but not impossible. 

Setting certain goals can have a negative impact by creating a false perception of “when I reach my goal, then i’ll be good enough.”  Researches from four of the top business schools have found “in many cases goals do more harm than good.” This can place too much attention on the wrong things and puts you in a perpetual state of feeling like a continuos failure until you reach the goal. When a person feels they are failing at something it is a de-motivator, this can cause you to throw all those good intentions out the window. According to Ray Williams “The brain is wired to seek rewards and avoid pain or discomfort, including fear.”

So what to do instead?  Take the focus away from larger goals and foster an interest in building a lifestyle structure that will have you moving towards your desired image of health, wellness and weight loss. Stop thinking about the symptoms or outcomes of the problem and focus on the process, or as Scott Adam's puts it, the system and not the goal. It sounds so simple right? 

And in some ways, it is. 

Move away from those size goals, restrictive diet goals or trying the latest weight loss trend and instead start adding your own actionable systems to build a healthy lifestyle into your daily, weekly and monthly routine. As stated by Adams who is not referring directly to weight loss yet it rings so perfectly true “Beware of advice about successful people and their methods. For starters, no two situations are alike”. Just because your buddy next door lost 30 pounds on a Paleo diet or your other friend swears by training for a marathon to get results does not mean this is the path for you. 

Find Your System

Recognize your weaknesses:

Is there a time of day you find you feel is the hardest to make good food choices? Then fill that time with something else. Schedule a meeting with a colleague, go for a walk, make a herbal tea or catch up on a call or email with friends or family. 

Play up to your strengths: 

What do you enjoy that will improve your health and wellbeing? Maybe it’s walking or practicing yoga. Whatever it is you enjoy doing find the time to fit it in. Go for a walk at lunchtime or meet a friend for a walk instead of a drink. If you feel you don't have time to exercise in a studio then find some classes online you can do in 20 minutes before work. 

Break it down: 

Making big dietary changes all at once usually results in a period of dedication which slowly (or quickly) unravels as resolve dwindles . You need to address your behavior patterns which directly relates to the systems in your life. Start small, such as adding vegetables to 2 meals a day, eating a high protein breakfast or replacing unhealthier snacks with fruit or nuts. Over time the more healthy and nutritious foods you are consuming will leave less room and desire for junk. 

Build in small achievements:

Did you make it to the gym 3 days this week like you scheduled? Or did you eat vegetables and lean protein for dinner Monday, Wednesday and Thursday? Whatever systems you are successful with each week should be recognized. It could be going to see a movie or having a massage. Celebrate the small wins as they are what will get you there. 

Try new things: 

Get out and try a bunch of different activities. Get out of your comfort zone. Hiking, group classes, swimming, tennis, Pilates, social sports on the weekends, running clubs. There is bound to be something that motivates you. Keep things from getting stale by mixing it up.

Schedule activities:

Find some activities and book them in. Don't wait to do it. Recruit friends to help hold yourself accountable. 

Be honest and realistic with yourself about what can you manage to do just today or for the next week. This is creating a system and set of processes in your life that you can build on to get you to where you want to be.

Habit is what keeps you going. Start creating healthy habits and you will be pleasantly surprised at where you will end up.