By: Chris Gates

There are lots of theories about meal frequency and weight loss. You’ve probably heard some of these before…

“You need to eat 5 small meals a day to lose weight.”

“Skipping breakfast is the most effective strategy for weight loss.”

“Fasting is the way to go for rapid weight loss. 1-2 meals a day!”

And while some of those strategies may be effective at times, they also might not be the magic formula for you to lose weight and keep it off.

So how many times should you eat a day if you want to lose weight? Let’s answer that question and map out a strategy that you can use to lose weight, keep it off, and feel happy and healthy for years to come!

Need-to-Know Information

Before we answer how many times should you eat a day if you want to lose weight, let’s break down some basic information about how weight loss happens in the body. Because this background information is going to be what really transforms your diet, and your progress.

You need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight.

Check out my article on how to know if you’re in a calorie deficit if you aren’t familiar with that concept. But I’ll summarize it quickly for you here.

A calorie deficit is negative energy balance. Calories are energy going into your body each day, so you need your intake to be less than your output (Ie. calories going in need to be less than the amount of calories you burn).

If your intake is less than your output, that means you’re in negative energy balance. And it means you’re in a calorie deficit.

Head over to that article link above to learn all of the details.

How Many Times Should I Eat A Day if I Want to Lose Weight?

So if you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose body fat, how does meal frequency come into play?

Quite simply, the amount of times you eat in a day is going to help you most with adherence to your weight loss program. It’s not necessarily going to be the determining factor of whether you lose weight.

If you’re in a calorie deficit, then the amount of times you eat a day should make the process as enjoyable, sustainable, and feasible as possible.

If eating more frequently, with smaller meals, helps you feel full and satisfied throughout the day, then that’s probably a smart route for you to go.

If eating less frequently, but having larger meals when you eat, helps you get through each day and stay in a calorie deficit, then listen to your body and keep doing that.

There truly isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question, as you’ll find research evidence that suggests basically every approach to meal frequency is both effective, and ineffective. It’s truly a person-specific concept. (More on what the research says below.)

So if you don’t know the approach that’s most effective for you, take some time to try different things out. Try five smaller meals a day. Try intermittent fasting. Try the traditional three-meal-a-day approach.

Heck, you could even try eating just one meal a day (although I doubt that will be very fun!).

And see what’s most effective.

Because any of these can work. It’s about what’s most effective for you.

And when you find the most effective approach, that’s when you can dive into the details of what’s REALLY going to be the big game changer for your diet and your weight loss goals…

Meal Composition is Most Important

We’ve already outlined that a calorie deficit is key.

First and foremost.

No doubt about it.

You need a calorie deficit to lose body fat.

Beyond that, the way you structure your meals is where the magic really happens.

Because regardless of how many meals you eat a day, if you don’t incorporate high volume foods in your diet, you’ll be making your weight loss journey a lot harder.

High volume foods are foods that you can eat large amounts of, but they come with a low amount of calories. Here are a few examples:

• Berries
• White rice
• Brown rice
• Most vegetables
• Potatoes
• Salad
• Watermelon
• Popcorn (light on butter or other flavorings)
• Lean meats (chicken, turkey, fish)

These foods are high in protein, fiber, and water content, and research shows that a combination of those three factors is killer for feeling full and staying in a calorie deficit.

So consider this…

If you eat five meals a day, it will still be very hard to stick to your program and lose weight if those meals are comprised of pizza, ice cream, cookies, and other calorie-dense foods. You’d need to eat such small portions of those foods in order to be in a calorie deficit that you’d still feel starving after each and every meal.

But if those five meals are packed full of high volume foods, you’ll be stuffing yourself each time you eat. A big bowl of chicken and rice with a piece of fruit and some vegetables are going to fill you up much more than 1 piece of pizza. You’ll finish each meal full and satisfied. It will be easy to stay in a calorie deficit and keep going to make as much progress as possible.

The same concept applies to eating 1-3 meals a day. If you’re eating very calorie-dense foods in those meals, you might feel full and satisfied for a little while, but the hunger will kick in again pretty quick. But if those 1-3 large meals are full of high-volume foods, you’ll feel full and have no trouble making it until your next meal.

Finding out how many times you like to eat a day is important, and it could be heavily influenced by the composition of those meals. So keep this in mind.

Myths and Research About Meal Frequency

There’s a popular claim that eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day is going to be optimal to lose weight. That claim is based around a theory that says by eating more frequently you’ll speed up your metabolism, but since the meals are smaller you won’t gain weight — in fact, you’ll lose weight.

And while that theory sounds awesome, it’s actually a myth. Any research on this subject has been inconclusive.

There’s another claim suggesting fasting — 18 hours or more without food — is optimal for weight loss. And while we probably need to debate the use of the word “optimal” here, it’s also a strategy that isn’t quite conclusive.

Fasting has proven to be an effective strategy for limiting calories and staying in a calorie deficit consistently, but adherence is often a problem. Most people just have trouble sticking to a feeding window of eight hours, or even less.

So while all of these approaches have merit, they also have flaws and downsides. Which brings us back to the point of trying to answer this question: How many times should I eat a day if I want to lose weight?

Your approach has to be based on you, and it should be centered around the concepts I mentioned earlier of enjoyment, feasibility and sustainability.

Because if you enjoy it, it’s probably what you’d consider feasible. And that means you can sustain it for a long period of time, stay in a calorie deficit, and make tons of progress with weight loss.

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I hope this article was helpful! If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me and I’d be happy to help.

And if you’re interested in getting some coaching to help you achieve your weight loss goals, then definitely give my coaching page a look to learn more about what online coaching is like! And if it sounds good to you, submit a coaching application form and I’ll reach out to you so we can talk more about your goals and what a program might look like for you.

Thanks for reading!

~ Chris