How Many Meals a Day Should You Eat to Lose Weight?

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how many meals a day should you eat to lose weightIf you listened to the standard advice, you’d think that eating 5 meals a day was almost required if you wanted to lose weight. However, is 5 meals a day necessary to achieve results? Can you get by with eating 3 square meals a day? Just one? Or how about 6 or 7?

How to Determine How Many Meals You Should Eat

When it all comes down to it, the best meal frequency for weight loss is the one that best fits into your lifestyle, and the one that you’re going to stick with for the long term. You can lose weight eating just one meal a day, and you can lose weight eating 7 meals a day. There are pros and cons to intermittent fasting, and there are pros and cons to eating every 2 hours. When all is said and done though, if you can’t stick with what you pick, none of the little details are going to matter. You have to stay on track and be consistent with making good choices.

Being consistent is just one of these 20 healthy weight loss tips from people who lost over 50 pounds.

Success Comes From Consistency

I have tried nearly every single eating plan. Back in my body building days I’d eat 6-7 meals a day, even waking up in the middle of the night to have a meal. Over time, I realized this made me OCD, and overly-obsessed about food. When you have to eat every 2 hours, eating is about the only thing that’s on your mind!

I’ve also tried intermittent fasting, where I’d only eat 2-3 large meals a day during a small eating window. That worked too! However, I had a hard time going out to eat, as restaurants rarely offered a healthy meal that was upwards of 800 calories or more. So, that didn’t last long either, although I did like how I wasn’t thinking about food all day long.

Read more about intermittent fasting for fat loss.

Now, I’ve settled into eating 4-5 meals a day. It’s never more than 5, but it’s split fairly evenly between 4 and 5 meals. This isn’t on purpose, I’m just going by how I feel. It fits with my lifestyle, and I’m able to stay consistent with it. I can have my meal first thing in the morning and after I work out, and I can eat dinner with the family and have my snack at night. That’s 4 meals right there, and if I get hungry mid-afternoon, it’s the perfect time to have another meal. Combine that meal frequency with the infrequent cheat meal, and you have a recipe for success.

Here are 5 cheat meal tips to keep the fat gain in check.

Meal Frequency Does Not Matter

You will see people from all different nutrition philosophies saying how they eat is the best. I’m sure it is the best – for them and the people that have had success with their ideas. Yet there are still millions more people who have had success eating at different meal frequencies.

Read more about why fitness and weight loss is so confusing.

The common denominator is that the successful weight losers and healthy lifestyle maintainers all found what worked best for them. They found the meal frequency that fit into their lifestyle. The people that couldn’t eat at work found that eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a nighttime snack was perfect. The stay-at-home workers liked the 5 meals a day routine. And the people who didn’t like thinking about food all the time found that 2-3 meals a day was best.

These people all gravitated towards the ideals that they shaped all by themselves. They experimented and found their own individual solutions. You need to do the same. Know that once you have your diet consisting of 90% whole foods, the rest is just arbitrary details. Nail down the quality of your diet first, and you will start to see an eating pattern evolve that you can live with for the long term.

No more forcing meals when you’re not hungry. No more tedious food prep so that you can eat at inconvenient times and places. No more thinking about your next meal before you’ve even finished the one you’re eating. Just eating to live, fuel, and enjoy life, and that’s what living a healthy lifestyle is all about.

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About Tony Schober

Healthy living curator, blogger, foodie, certified personal trainer, husband, & step-dad to 3. Founder of Coach Calorie. Hates scales.

  • http://www.fullfat.ca Octavian

    Amen.

  • Allison

    I love how you say, “Just eating to live, fuel, and enjoy life, and that’s what living a healthy lifestyle is all about.” I couldn’t agree more. And I think you are so right that when you find what works for you, you can stick with it. Love your blog as always. Ever think about doing a post of the positives and negatives of caffeine? I am a caffeine addict and am trying to quit.

    • http://www.coachcalorie.com/ Coach Calorie

      Thanks Allison. I’ve touched on caffeine before in a previous coffee article. There might be some things in there that help you. Here it is – http://www.coachcalorie.com/does-coffee-help-you-lose-weight/

      • Allison

        Thank you Tony I appreciate the link. I can’t drink coffee because of religious reasons. (Some days I wish I could) I was referring more to energy drinks such as AMP or 5 hour energy etc. Which I think I probably know your advice on without asking. ;)

        • http://www.coachcalorie.com/ Coach Calorie

          I think you do too :)

  • Mars

    I have the problem of thinking about food all day. I train for triathlons and because there is so many foods they think we need to eat, I try my best but I’m always hungry always thinking about food. Ill eat about 1400 calories a day, then my trainer expects me to be at a race weight that seems impossible to reach. I’d love to remember a time I wasn’t thinking about putting food in my mouth.

    • http://www.coachcalorie.com/ Coach Calorie

      I know the feeling Mars. I used to be very OCD about food, but I’ve tried in the past year to just let it go and just focus on the quality of my food. It has worked out much better that way. Your body will become its function. If your body thinks it needs to be at a lower weight to be the best athlete for your sport, it’s going to adapt to its stressors. Feed it the right fuel and don’t worry so much about calories.

  • Rebecca

    As a new teacher, I’ve been finding it so difficult to eat small, frequent meals everyday. Someone suggested that I fit in a snack and meal when my kids have their snack and lunch, but even then, I’m most likely using that time to catch up on other work. Now that I know eating slightly larger, but less frequent meals is an option, I’m going to give it a shot. But one question I do have is, what if my eating patterns are inconsistent? What are the consequences of eating small meals one day, then eating less meals the next day? I find that with my unpredictable schedule, this has become a more likely scenario, especially for the past few months. However, my meals have, for the most part, been as nutritious and home prepared as possible. What do you think?

    • http://www.coachcalorie.com/ Coach Calorie

      The negative impact would be little if any. It could in fact even be beneficial. I wouldn’t stress about it. Eat whole foods in good quantities, and let your meals fall where they may.