How To Eat To Lose Weight

If you’re going to lose weight, and lose it for the long-term, then it’s important to know how to eat to lose weight. Why? Because it’s not just about the types of food, or how much of it, you put in your mouth… it’s also about HOW you put those foods in your mouth.

More accurately, WHEN you eat is probably the most important part of your “diet”. (“Diets” — I hate that word because you don’t want to follow another diet — you want to find a way of eating that fits with your lifestyle for you to adopt).

In the words of my hero, Ori Holfmekler, author of The Warrior Diet likes to say:

“It’s when you eat, that makes what you eat and how much you eat of it matter!”

and I can’t agree more

Ancient Wisdom On Fat Loss…

“Our ancestors consumed food much less frequently and often had to subsist on one large meal per day, and thus from an evolutionary perspective, human beings were adapted to intermittent feeding rather than to grazing.”
(Mattson, M.P., PhD, Lancet 2005; 365:1978-80)

It makes sense that humans as a species would get used to eating in an intermittent feeding manner. Big meals spread eaten after long periods of time without food.

The Logic Test On Meal Frequency

If all the experts are correct and you’re supposed to eat 4-6 (even 8 like some say!) meals per day to have an “optimal” metabolic rate and be as healthy as possible… then what did the history of mankind do for the 2,000+ years before us?

How did anyone EVER get lean enough to look good? Enjoy optimal health? Or NOT be overweight if we really need to be feeding ourselves every 3 hours like all the “Experts” suggest?

Why then has America gotten fatter and fatter and fatter as a country, year after year, after year? Shouldn’t we be getting thinner because now we know the “secret” to speeding up our metabolisms and keeping ourselves in “fat burning mode”?

Step In Modern Science

Remember all the health benefits of a low calorie diet?

• Improved BMI (Body Mass Index — less fat, more muscle — better body composition)
• Better cholesterol – more of the good, less of the bad
• Better blood pressure — lower blood pressure a good thing for heart and cardiovascular health
• Better fasting glucose levels – lower risk for diabetes
• Better insulin levels — insulin sensitivity and having more stable, better insulin levels means you’re leaner all year round and less likely to fall victim to diabetes, etc
• Less Inflammation – inflammation is basically the root cause of all chronic diseases
• Better memory – better cognitive function and memory in older populations…

Well, what if there was a way to get all the benefits of a low calorie lifestyle while enjoying a variety of foods, and actually eating the same amount of calories you’re eating now?

Meet Your New Friend, Intermittent Fasting

Recent studies on intermittent fasting (one day fasting followed by one day overeating twice as much calories) at the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, found that feeding cycles based on periodic fasting and overeating, provided superior benefits than CR. According to Dr. Mark Mattson, professor of neuroscience and head of the research team at Johns Hopkins University, intermittent fasting increases mice resistance to degenerative diseases (Diabetes, Parkinson, Alzheimer and Strokes) while improving body composition (lean mass/fat) and increasing life span more than the calorie restricted mice. Note that the above studies were done on mice and rats. More studies are required to fully understand the effects of similar feeding cycles on humans.

Intermittent Fasting 101

There’s a couple ways to go about this. One is alternate day fasting, but since I don’t have any experience with it, I’ll let you find out information about it. I think the easier one to do for (most) people is daily fasting. Eating this way basically means you have a period of several hours (16-20 hours, including sleep time) where you undereat or “fast” and a period of several hours where you “feed” (4-8 hours).

So for example, I woke up today around 7am and I won’t eat anything all day. I’m drinking black coffee right now, I’ll have a lot of water throughout the day and take some vitamins, etc if I remember. Around 7:30pm I’ll eat my first “meal” of the day — it’ll be a protein recovery shake after I lift weights today. Then I’ll go home and have a REALLY big meal of meat, lettuce, cheese, etc — tons of fat, protein and a little green stuff. I might drink some liquid egg whites, etc… but I’ll probably get full before I eat more than one big meal.

Last night, I had my last meal around 11pm… so that means I’ll have about a 20 hour fast today and then I’ll eat from 7:30pm – 9:30-10pm. So I’ll set aside a 3-4 hour “window” for feeding, but I won’t be stuffing my face that whole time. Eating this way I’ll be very full and feel great after my first meal.

It’s a little more involved than that, but that’s the basic idea.

I talk a lot about intermittent fasting here on the blog, and there’s always my friends over at lifespotlight.com who have more information — specifically a TON of articles on intermittent fasting. So I’d recommend going over there and reading those…

But anyways, I hope this short article helps you and that you have an easier time losing fat off all your “trouble spots” because you now know how to eat to lose weight.