No More Diets

I usually eat only lunch or dinner - I feel because of my size I shouldn’t be eating much at all. But I have since learned that I have put my body into starvation mode. However I am still struggling with the concept of three meals a day. Do you have any advice?

The best way to keep your metabolism stoked and burning food at a high rate is to eat little and often.

By eating only twice a day you are saying to your body “I’d better conserve as much energy as possible, because it doesn’t look as if any more food is coming my way”.

And when you do eventually eat, your body will be saying “Food at last. Better hold onto this in case the next lot is a long time coming just as it was yesterday and the day before”.

If you want to lose weight I recommend 5 or 6 mini meals a day if you can possibly fit that into your lifestyle. i have to admit, it’s not for everyone. If your style is to eat large meals with others at lunch and dinner then this would not be easy to do, but work towards a compromise but including some of the ideas below.

• Always eat a healthy breakfast when you want to lose weight - so many studies have shown that it helps and this is even the case when it means you eat more calories in total! See a recent report confirming that breakfast helps you lose weight from the BBC.
• If you feel you can’t face breakfast right away, take something healthy to work and eat it as soon as you can face it.
• Don’t keep yourself going with coffee and tea. Keep yourself going with proper nutrition.
• Eat a small healthy snack mid morning - for example, an apple and 5 or 6 almonds
• If you take you lunch to work (a good idea when you want to lose weight) you can try eating part of it as your mid morning snack save part of it for the afternoon
• Always eat something healthy mid-afternoon so you do not over-eat at dinnertime
• Reduce portion sizes so that you are hungry within 2 to 3 hours of each meal. You should not be eating more than two fistfuls at a meal in terms of quantity with smaller snacks in between
• Eat the bulk of you food while you are most active - for most people this is during the day and not after 8pm.
• Reactivate your metabolism with exercise - if formal exercise is not for you then just keep as active as possible during the course of your normal life. Your metabolism does not know if you are at the gym or if you are cleaning your car but it does know if you have not moved from your seat for the last 3 hours.

How can I possibly diet when I only eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. I only have a half hour break for lunch so it is always very rushed most days only a couple pieces of fruit on the go. My job is very active Home Care in which I would be cleaning four or five houses a day plus personal care is also added into my days work. By the time I come home and cook dinner I am too exhausted to exercise further.

Oh dear. It’s no wonder you are exhausted if you are going all day with only a couple of pieces of fruit between breakfast and dinner. This is really too little food to keep anyone going even for a sedentary worker never mind someone with an active job like yours.

The main problem here seems to be that you are eating too little to keep your metabolism going - your body will be conserving fat and calories because it thinks you are starving.

It’s important to spread your calories throughout the day and not eat everything in one dinner at night. Half an hour is still enough to get some good nutrition including some lean protein and I think it would do you good to have a small snack mid morning and after noon as well. Then balance your eating with a smaller dinner than usual.
It sounds like you are probably getting enough exercise already so that may not the way to go for you. (You know you have to run more than a marathon to lose a pound of fat so even for most people exercise is a bonus and a way to keep healthy rather than the main way to lose weight).

Focus on healthy regular eating for a while to get your metabolism back on an even keel before you think about losing weight.

Also if you are on your feet all day and not eating much between meals make sure that you are drinking enough water and not drinking calories - it’s easy to forget that sugar in tea, coffee and soft drinks can add up to an awful lot of calories not to mention those in fruit juice, milky drinks and alcohol.

How Fast Can I Lose Weight?

This can vary a great deal. Those who starve themselves and take strenuous exercise like those on shows like the Biggest Loser can drop a huge amount of weight quite quickly but of course they are doing that under very special circumstances and with medical supervision.

A lot depends on how much you have to lose. If you are very overweight you can lose weight faster than someone who only has a few pounds to go but much of the weight loss in the early weeks will be water.

The problem with losing weight too quickly is that

a) you tend to lose muscle along with the fat. Muscle is needed to keep your metabolism running high. Lose muscle and you will start and burn fewer calories each day (muscle burns calories even when you are not doing anything). Muscle is also needed to keep your body and your skin firm and taut. So you want to preserve your muscle tissue as much as possible. This is why the Biggest Loser contestants have to keep up their exercises - not just to burn calories but also to preserve their muscle tissue.

b) you tend to give yourself a weight loss program which you just can’t keep up and live a normal life. If you are trying to lose a pound a week you can do that without affecting your life too much. If you try to lose a lot more than that it’s very difficult to eat at parties and weddings, business trips or weekends away and much of your free time will be given over to exercise. Result - you will probably give up too soon to make any lasting difference to your weight.

c) you tend to put the weight back on much quicker. This is especially true if you have lost muscle (due to burning fewer calories) but it is also because you will probably not have learned a way of eating which you want to keep going for the rest of your life. Strict diets are usually followed only until you get to your target weight (if you keep them up at all). As soon as you go off your strict weight loss program, you will pile on the pounds if you go back to eating the food and the quantities which made you overweight in the first place. In fact over 95% of people do exactly this after reaching their target weight.

In my Diet Exit Program I show you a different approach to losing weight. The best way to lose weight is to make small gradual changes to your lifestyle and habits which you are prepared to live with for ever. These changes accumulate to make a significant difference to your weight without taking over your life. Result - you lose weight steadily pound by pound and stay slim forever.

I want to lose two stones (28lbs) in two months - how can I make that happen?

The short answer is that to lose 28lbs of fat you need to eat 98,000 fewer calories than you use in activity during that time - which is pretty nigh on impossible if you want to lead a normal life. That’s 1750 fewer calories than you need every day for 8 weeks! Given that average calorie needs are around the 2000 mark - you can see that it is not going to happen.

Not only that but by dieting to that extent, you would not be taking in vital nutrients and you would be putting your body and metabolism into starvation (fat conservation) mode which might affect you for some time to come - meaning that when you return to normal eating you will pile weight back on faster than ever.

The maximum you should set out to lose is 2lbs a week so you might realistically (and healthily) get half-way there and even then only if you make a huge effort to change your eating and activity habits.

You may see TV shows like The Biggest Loser where people lose more than 2lbs, but the contestants generally

a) have a huge amount to lose in the first place and the more you weigh the easier it is to lose a number of pounds in a week(a lot of that weight loss is water rather than fat). If you are less than 30lbs overweight it is more difficult to lose that much consistently.

b) undertake very low-calorie diets which are miserable as hell and not sustainable in the long term or even in the short term by anyone with a social life or even a normal life

c) exercise hard for long periods each day

If you want to lose weight AND KEEP IT OFF - I have to say that slow and steady wins the race. Change your habits one at a time into habits that you can live with for the rest of your life. Build success one step at a time and you’ll make permanent changes in your shape which will be with you for the rest of your life.

I don’t say this to discourage you - just to be realistic - I have seen time and time again when friends have lost weight on some “fantastic” new diet only to see the weight return with a vengeance because eating and activity habits weren’t changed to match their new slim body - they just went back to their usual pattern of eating once the diet was over.