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Have you fallen for the trap of eating five to six small meals a day?
A couple of months ago, a local university invited me to give a lecture about weight loss for their first-year Human Movement students. I gladly accepted, because as weight worries become more and more rampant in our society, these young personal trainers and gym owners of the future will be a first line of defence in helping people to lose weight and keep it off. They need innovative insights from weight loss research.
As part of my lecture, I explained the concept of the Fat Brake to the class. The Fat Brake is our natural weight maintenance system. It helps people to lose excess weight after short periods of overindulgence by cutting appetite and revving up metabolic rate.
"Therefore", I said, "If someone is not physically hungry, there's no reason why they should consume anything at all - apart from breakfast. By only eating when hungry - even if it sometimes means eating just two meals per day - the Fat Brake helps people to gradually attain and maintain their optimum healthy weight".
At this, one of the students asked the question I had been waiting for:
"I work part-time in a gym as a personal trainer, and we tell our clients to eat five to six small meals per day, otherwise their metabolic rate will drop and they won't be able to lose weight. How does this fit with what you're saying about the Fat Brake and only eating when hungry?"
Bingo! Here was my golden opportunity to help set the record straight on a dogma that has pervaded society and created more harm than good:
"Please", I answered emphatically, "Don't do that to your clients!"
I explained that while if a person was feeling hungry enough to eat five or six meals or snacks per day, then it was important that they eat five, six, or sometimes even more meals or snacks per day, whatever it takes to allay hunger. Doing so would indeed help to prevent the Famine Reaction from lowering their metabolic rate and making it harder for them to keep losing weight.
However, if a person was going through a phase where they just weren't that hungry (for instance, if they'd just come back from holidays a kilo or so heavier than usual and their Fat Brake had blunted their appetite), then eating five to six small meals per day would slow or even block their weight loss. Worst of all, by encouraging people to eat five to six small meals per day regardless of how hungry they feel, it only serves to alienate them from precious body signals that could help them to regulate their weight naturally.
A classic example of the effects of trying to eat five to six small meals per day is Maxine, a 43-year-old woman from Perth who ordered a copy of my book The Don't Go Hungry Diet in early June. When she e-mailed me to request that I sign her book before posting it out to her, we had to opportunity to chat in a few e-mails.
At 1.65 m tall and weighing in at 61 kilos, Maxine was certainly in the healthy weight range for her height. However, Maxine's usual weight was 58 kilos; in the 7 months since November 2007, she had gained 3 kilos that had settled uncomfortably around her middle and made her feel unhappy.
Something in one of Maxine's early e-mails alerted me to the likely culprit for her sudden weight gain:
I quickly wrote back to Maxine to help her realize the trap she was in.
From: Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis
Sent: Thursday 5th June 2008 8:51 AM
To: Maxine
Subject: Maxine: Your Order Receipt #646318
Dear Maxine,
If you aren't sufficiently hungry when you eat those three meals and three snacks every day, then they will stop you from losing weight and may even make you gain weight. This is likely what is happening for you.
When you keep your Success Diary as described in my book, it's important to aim for ALL -2s and -3s in your hunger column, and ALL +2s and +3s in your satiety columns.
Many people who eat five or six small meals a day notice that they aren't actually hungry when they eat some of them, and this is a major problem:
Anything you eat when you aren't hungry is in excess of your needs, and is stored as excess bulk on your body that you don't want.
So go the 2s and 3s! Even if that sometimes means only eating two meals a day.
If you'd like to let me know how you get on, I'd love to hear your experiences.
Sincerely,
Amanda
Two weeks later, Maxine excitedly wrote back with her results. As you will see in her e-mail below, it was clear that eating six small meals or snacks per day had been the culprit for her weight gain. When she connected with her body signals, she realized that she only needed to eat three times a day. By cutting out unnecessary snacks, she was finally able to lose weight and drift back towards her usual, optimum weight.
From: Maxine
Sent: Friday 20th June 2008 5:00 PM
To: Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis
Subject: Maxine: Your Order Receipt #646318
Hi Amanda,
How are you?
Just thought I would update you after 2 weeks as I promised.
I am, if I can use the word, 'gob smacked' at my results in 2 weeks. I
have lost 1 kilo in two weeks and nearly 1 cm off my waist, which is
fantastic. I haven't felt as though I was eating less than I had been
before, far from it to be honest.
I haven't felt ravenous once. I have been eating three times per day, I
always feel elegantly satisfied afterwards, and I haven't felt the need to
eat anything else. I have been having lunch at around 12.30 pm and then not
needing anything until 6.30 pm.
It has been cold here in Perth this week so I have been having a lot of soups and chickpea curry and ricey things like that to fill myself up. I have found it so enjoyable to eat the things that I hadn't been eating on my higher protein diet, as supposedly there is not enough protein from these sources.
It has been so pleasurable to eat what I want (nutritious and whole foods though) and enough of it to keep myself elegantly satisfied, it is so different to thinking, "I must eat every three hours" to supposedly 'keep my metabolism' working properly.
I have used a food diary every day to record what and when I have been eating. I was doing that before, so using a food diary is second nature to me and not a problem, but it has been invaluable to see exactly what I am eating and how it is easily filling me up. It has just been so nice to eat the kinds of foods I would like to eat and in enough quantities so I am not snacking on anything in between meals.
Sorry I have waffled on a bit, but wanted to tell you how valuable I have found reading your book and following your instructions. As you say, it is simple and the foods taste great!
If you want to use any of my words on your site I am more than happy for you to use them, and I will certainly be spreading the news to family and friends about your book.
Take care and thanks again,
Maxine
Over to you
Here's something you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
Everyone is different when it comes to how much food is required in order to lose weight and keep it off. Additionally, the amount of food you need from day to day will change throughout your weight loss adventure.
To know exactly how much and how often you need to eat right now in order to lose weight and keep it off, all you need to do is connect with your body signals and they will tell you the answer.
Do you find yourself getting physically hungry halfway between breakfast and lunch or halfway between lunch and dinner? Not the 'hunger' that comes from thinking 'I always have a snack at morning or afternoon tea time and my coach says it's good to eat little and often, so I must be hungry', but authentic hunger, the kind of hunger that would quickly lead to your feeling ravenous and out of control if you didn't eat something sensible.
If so, you probably need to eat five to six small meals or snacks per day. Doing so will help you to lose weight without constantly fighting against your body's Famine Reaction.
If, however, you ever notice that you're not hungry at snack time, it's vital for your success that you do something else besides eat. Maybe drink something warm and comforting such as a chamomile tea with a dash of honey instead of eating, or do something that will make you feel good, such as going clothes shopping or getting your tax return done early.
By waiting until you feel comfortably and physically hungry before eating, you will notice times when you naturally slip into an easy routine of eating just two to three meals per day. As long as you don't feel hungry, keep doing just that.
Your body is biologically programmed to attain and maintain a healthy weight. When you follow your body's signals about what, when and how much to eat, you will automatically slim down until you reach your optimum weight.
Be sure to keep a Success Diary until you feel confident that you are reading your body signals accurately, and if you wish to accelerate your weight loss progress, I invite you to register for one of my up-coming workshops.
Take care, and I hope to meet you in person soon,
Amanda
Dr Amanda
Connect with your body
www.DrAmandaOnline.com
What the experts say...
"Dear Amanda, I just wanted to write you an email to thank you for changing my life in such an important way. I was an overweight child and obese as a young adult consequently most of my life has been about battling with my weight. After losing weight with a popular weigh loss group when I was 19 I thought I had solved the problem but I was wrong. Post weight loss I could no longer lead a normal life if I wanted to stay thin. I would breakdown in tears every time I had to go out for dinner because I knew it would result in more weight gain and I began to exercise obsessively and get furious if anything interfered with my grueling regime. This abnormal behavior did not help my weight problem though and after a year of gradual gain I began cycles of starving myself, which would inevitably be followed by a binge. This went on for two years with me trying to hide my problem from people. Within 4 years I had gained 8 of the 20 kilos I had originally lost. A year ago I read your book and at first I thought it must be too good to be true because the only way I had ever known weight loss to happen was through starvation and suffering. Six months later however I decided I had nothing to lose by giving it ago. The change has been gradual. Firstly I threw out my scales then I started drinking full cream milk (something I have longed to do since I was 12 years old when I was first forced to swap to skim milk because of my weight problem). After this I worked on being able to gauge when I was full (I never had a problem gauging hunger). This took a long time because I was so used to eating carefully weighed portions. In six short months, though, the binging has stopped, I no longer have a breakdown at the thought of going out to dinner and I have already lost 4 kilos. So thank you Amanda, your wise words have given me the courage to change for good and now I know I will never have to be fat again."