Most people who are interested in changing the way they eat are motivated by fat loss. There's nothing wrong with this, and given the state of the country (and much of the world), it's an appropriate motivation.
Changing your diet (as opposed to going on a diet) to facilitate fat loss really comes down to just three simple things:
- Reducing the amount you eat. (Quantity)
- Reducing how often you eat. (Frequency)
- Eating better foods. (Quality)
That's it! And while they're conceptually simple, that doesn't mean they're easy.
You don't have to do all three (although it usually helps). Some people even increase their meal frequency, but with a reduction in quantity and usually an increase in quality.
Let's take a closer look at each of these changes.
Quantity
This is usually what people think of first: just eat less! The concept of "portion control" goes here, along with eating until 80% full (Hara hachi bu). This can make a huge difference in your daily caloric intake, especially if you eat high-calorie foods. For example, having a half-pint (one cup) of ice cream instead of a pint can reduce your intake by 500 calories! Even cutting the olive oil on your salad by one tablespoon can save 120 calories.
Simply put, whenever you eat anything that's not a vegetable (because they have a low caloric density), eat less of it. And the higher the calorie count, the more impact you'll get from cutting back. This is conceptually simple, but not always so easy in practice!
Frequency
Some people are grazers and eat five, six, or more times per day. Others may eat only once or twice per day. What's better?
The answer...drum roll please...is whatever works best for you. Oh the disappointment!
A study showed that
Increased meal frequency does not promote greater weight loss in subjects who were prescribed an 8-week equi-energetic energy-restricted diet.
(Why do so many good health studies come out of Canada?) But that's just one study. An earlier one had concluded otherwise, but only based on blood lipid levels, not actual weight change.
An earlier research article concluded that
any effects of meal pattern on the regulation of body weight are likely to be mediated through effects on the food intake side of the energy balance equation.
In other words, meal frequency doesn't matter.
Still, as usual, you can generally find some studies supporting whatever position you want to take, and some refuting it. But the preponderance of the evidence is definitely leaning toward meal frequency being unimportant--when caloric intake stays the same. Aye, there's the rub.
Some people like to eat a little at a time, some people like to eat large meals. Either can work. What doesn't work is to eat frequent high-calorie meals and snacks. Duh. And that's when frequency really matters: when it impacts your total calorie intake for the day.
There's a modality known as intermittent fasting (IF) that comes in multiple forms, one of which is eating in narrow "windows" of time. For example, eating only during an 8-hour period of the day. Turns out that this kind of eating usually leads to reduced daily caloric intake: people don't eat as much during that time as they would if eating less per meal but all day long. Other forms of IF include eating just once a day. I recall from a tour of Mt. Vernon in Virginia that George Washington ate just two meals a day. (Or maybe two meals and a snack.) And he was a 6' 2" manly man.
But anyway, the point is we can manipulate meal frequency to affect our daily caloric intake and thus our weight.
Oh, and about that "eat 5-6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism going" thing. Pfft. It doesn't even make intuitive sense. And in case you want more info, read this. Or just the "Quick Answer":
There may be benefits to manipulating meal frequency and eating the same amount of food more often or less often, but metabolic rate is not one of them. There is no evidence to support the idea that multiple meals increases metabolic rate.
And for some information on meal frequency's (non-)effect on body composition, see this:
www.lookgreatnaked.com/blog/are-frequent-meals-beneficial-for-body-composition/
Again, it's about what works best for you.
Quality
Here, "quality" refers to a food's quality as related to fat-loss. So broccoli would be higher quality than ice cream, but diet pop would also be higher quality than regular. Few people would contend that diet pop is a high quality food, but when it comes to fat loss, it will be higher quality than regular pop but lower quality than broccoli.
Food choices aren't black and white. We grade on a curve.
Looking at the red curve, we see most servings are of unhealthy foods with few, if any, being healthy. Shifting the curve to the right (the green curve) doesn't mean eating only healthy foods; it just means increasing the quality of at least some of the foods consumed during the day. Shifting the curve towards healthy, even just a little at a time, can make a big difference in the quality of your diet. And that can help with fat loss.
The other concept that fits in nicely here is substitutions. These don't have to be dramatic, like substituting asparagus for potato chips. Indeed, those kinds of substitutions are likely to fail because the asparagus won't satisfy the same cravings as potato chips: it's not salty or crispy or fatty. (Salted celery might be a better option here.) In the same way, fruit can be a good substitute for candy because of the sweetness. It's usually best to look for substitutions that make a small move on the quality curve, stabilize there, then move again when you're ready.
You might be wondering where "organic" foods fit in here, since they are generally deemed to be higher quality than conventional. But for purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter because organic food is no better than conventional for fat loss purposes.
And there you have them: the three keys to fat-loss nutrition. You'll be seeing references to these as we go along. There might even be a quiz!
Be seeing you.
-gary