The Truth About Meal Frequency in Connection with Dieting and Weight Loss Program

If you are on your way to a weight loss program, it is best to remember that meals frequency and weight loss are likely so close together that they are in connection with the each other. There have been so many studies that discuss this meal frequency debate looking at what the implications are exactly in terms of your metabolism and ability to burn body fat.

The latest study shows it was predicted that an increased meal frequency would enhance short-term appetite control therefore allowing you to maintain your diet easier and see enhanced weight loss results. The outcome of this study, however, proved this prediction wrong and there was no positive connection between more frequent meals and greater total weight loss, appetite, or diet adherence.

One of the biggest misconceptions about weight loss is that by eating less food or skipping meals you will lose more weight. People think that if they skip breakfast or dinner and only eat 2 meals a day, their weight problems will vanish within a few weeks.

Not only is this thinking incorrect, it can actually produce a gain in weight in the long term. It all has to do with your metabolism and how it reacts to the food you eat and how often you eat.

Eating less of the important meals or eating much less than normal will cause you to put on more fat on your body. Skipping meals also lead to spikes in blood sugar, which will make you feel really good one hour, but then horrible the next. There are some examples in the animal kingdom to show you this principle at work. Goat, graze and eat small quantity of food continuously throughout the day.  If you have ever seen deer, you will know that they are extremely lean and fit because their bodies don't have to hold on to any fat as it appears that an abundance of food is available. 

This is actually the big secret. The less food that you eat, the more your body will think that food is scarce or not available. When this happens, your body will go into what is called "survival mode" and it will drastically slow down your metabolism and try to preserve as much of it's fat as it can.

Another best example, bears on the other hand, are fat because they need to be able to survive long periods of not eating such as in hibernation.

In such case like when your metabolism slows down dramatically, you will begin to feel less energetic, lethargic, tired, depressed and not have any desire to exercise or perform strenuous activity.

This is part of the body's method of preserving as much energy as possible until it decides that there is enough food available to eat again. When you start eating more food, your metabolism will start to speed up again and you will begin to feel much better and your normal energy levels will return.

This is one of the reasons why people feel so miserable on low calorie diets. They restrict their food or calorie intake so much that it causes the body to believe that there is a famine or severe food shortage.

If you have eaten a certain way for many years and then all of a sudden reduce or drastically change your eating habits, your body will think that there is something wrong with the availability of food.

The other important aspect to eating more frequently during the day is that it will help to keep your blood sugar levels stable. This helps to control hunger and appetite.

If you eat with long hours in between meals, you will generally feel very hungry by the time it comes to eat and then you will be more tempted to overeat, rather than just eating enough to satisfy your immediate needs.

One of maybe the best answer for a long term weight reduction is to consume the right types of foods with each meal while increasing the amount of meals that you eat each day to speed up your metabolism.