Meal Frequency Does Not Effect Fat Loss
An old but popular myth says eating many small meals will boost your metabolism. Newer beliefs are countering this myth by saying intermittent fasting is the way to go; eating only once or twice during a dedicated time called the “eating window.” In reality, both of these statements are false.
How many meals you eat every day does not directly effect fat loss. The only way any diet can create fat loss is by creating a calorie deficit.
Calorie Deficit: The Only Way to Lose Fat
A calorie deficit simply means burning more calories than you’re consuming. You can do this by physically moving more than you eat, or by eating less than you move. That second approach is where dieting comes in. Every diet works by providing a specific set of rules to prevent eating too many calories. Depending on the diet, these rules could be: no carbs, no processed food, no eating after X time, only eat X amount of meals a day, etc. While these rules help make decision making easy, they give a false impression of what is actually causing the weight loss.
Weight Loss With Intermittent Fasting
For example, let’s look at intermittent fasting again. The way most people use intermittent fasting is very simple; you can only eat within a specific window of time. Most people use an 8 hour window, but more extreme users will narrow that window to as low as 1 hour. How many meals you eat isn’t directly specified, but you’ll automatically eat only once or twice a day since you only get a small window.
A lot of people who use intermittent fasting think they’re losing weight because of the 16+ hour window of no calories. No calories means you’re body can only burn bodyfat, right? Not exactly. The real reason people see weight loss with fasting is because they’re eating less calories than before.
Before starting a diet, the amount of calories you’re eating is equal to the amount you’re burning. This is called your calorie maintenance since you’re not losing weight, but you’re likely not gaining weight every week either. After you start intermittent fasting, one of two things will happen. 1) You’ll have to cut out a meal or two since they don’t fit within your eating window. 2) You’re already eating 1-2 meals, but you’re cutting out morning or late-night snacks because of the same window. In both scenarios, you’re cutting out extra calories. That decrease in calories is enough to make your daily intake less than your daily burn, leading to a calorie deficit and weight loss.
Overall, a lot of people accidently get into a calorie deficit when they start reducing meal frequency. They think it’s the large fasting window that’s causing weight loss when it’s actually their daily calories. This misunderstanding of what’s causing the weight loss can actually be dangerous since it may lead to people abusing their feeding window to eat whatever they want.
How Less Meals Can Make You Gain Weight
True intermittent fasting professionals will know that you can’t just eat whatever you want during your eating window. You still have to stick to healthy foods and pay attention to calories. However, most people who start fasting don’t know this. They believe you can eat basically anything as long as it’s within you’re eating window.
More Calories With Less Meals
The idea of eating whatever you want within your fewer meals can easily lead to eating more calories than you burn. Let’s say your body burns 2,000 calories a day. Before the diet, you might be having 3 meals with 600 calories each plus an extra 200 calories from snacks and drinks. This means you’re eating exactly what you burn (calorie maintenance). During the diet, you might think to just cram those same meals and snacks within the eating window, making your daily calorie intake stay at 2,000 calories, which leads to neither weight loss nor weight gain.
For those who believe they can do anything within that period, they may cram their meals into their eating window AND add some “guilty pleasures” like sweets, fries, and other unhealthy foods. Even a single candy bar can add up to 300 calories a day, bringing their daily calories to 2300 even though they burn 2000. This 300 calorie difference can lead to between 0.5-0.75 pounds of fat gain every week if left unchecked.
Gaining Weight With “Healthy” Foods
Even if you’re eating “healthy” foods, you could still be adding more calories than you burn. This is because “healthy” does not automatically mean low calorie. Great examples of healthy foods with relatively high calories include sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, etc. They’re considered healthy because of their micronutrients, but they can all cause you to eat more than you burn if you don’t pay attention.
Instead of classifying foods as “healthy or unhealthy,” it’s better to use “Calorie-dense” and “Nutrient-dense.” As the terms imply, calorie-dense means having a lot of calories in a relatively small portion. Nutrient-dense means low calorie but high micronutrients in the same portion size. To learn more about the difference between calorie-dense and nutrient-dense, read our article here.
Meal Frequency Can Indirectly Effect Calories
Although we’ve shown that meal frequency cannot make you lose or gain weight by itself, it can make a calorie deficit easier or harder to maintain over time.
Eating 1-2 Big Meals
As long as calories are controlled, eating fewer meals makes it easier to stay in a calorie deficit. Eating frequently makes your body use to having constant food. This makes meals less satisfying and the time between meals more unbearable. With fewer meals, you’re training your body to withstand the “fasting periods,” reducing the side effects of weight loss such as:
- Low energy
- Hunger pangs
- Lack of focus
- Strong cravings
- Bad moods
Also, be sure not to snack between meals. Even if your snacks don’t add significant calories to your day, eating anything between meals can make your body less comfortable with the fasted state. If your body isn’t use to fasting, the side-effects from above will be more severe.
Eating 3+ Small Meals
Eating a lot of small meals is recommended for those trying to gain weight or build muscle. To gain muscle, you need to eat slightly more calories than your body burns. Those who struggle to gain weight, however, might find that they need to eat way more calories than they’re use to. Instead of cramming as many calories as possible into a few meals, it’s better to have a lot of decently sized meals throughout the day.
Before we said eating frequently will hurt weight loss, but those negatives are actually positives when trying to gain muscle. By never letting the body get comfortable with fasting, your appetite will naturally increase. You may go only a few hours before wanting another meal, which will make you’re total calories high enough to hit your goal.
How Many Calories Do You Need To Lose or Gain Weight?
The exact amount of calories needed for weight loss depends on many factors. Your height, weight, activity, gender, etc. all effect how many calories you burn each day. Below is a simple step-by-step guide on how to find your calorie maintenance, and how to lose weight from there.
1. Estimate Your Calorie Maintenance
The easiest way to estimate this is through an online calculator, like this one from ACTIVE.com. After inputting your information, you should get a number for how many calories you need to maintain your weight; this is your caloric maintenance.
Do note that this number is only an estimate. Even the most sophisticated tools can’t estimate this number exactly. If you feel like the number you’ve received is too high, try subtracting a few hundred before doing step 2. We’re going to test the accuracy of this number in step 3.
2. Create A Calorie Deficit
Eating anything below your caloric maintenance will create a calorie deficit. The more you subtract from your maintenance, the faster you’ll see weight loss. However, you’ll also get more severe weight-loss symptoms, making it harder and harder to maintain the diet all the way to your weight goal. The best place to start is by only subtracting 500 calories. This is enough to see decent weight loss week by week without feeling like you’re starving to death. Use a food tracking app like MyFitnessPal to make sure you hit your calorie goal every day.
3. Monitor Your progress
As mentioned, calorie calculators are not that accurate. That’s why it’s important to monitor your weight loss progress every day to see if you’re losing, maintaining, or gaining weight on those calories.
The easiest way to monitor progress is by weighing yourself every morning, recording each measurement, and taking an average at the end of each week. The average is crucial because weight will naturally fluctuate day by day. For example, gaining 2 pounds in a day can easily be caused by retained water, not actual bodyfat. Taking a weekly average removes those fluctuations, making the changes between averages more likely to be body fat changes. After the first two weeks, you’ll have two averages to compare. Here’s a table of what can happen during this comparison and what to do.
| Result | Action |
| Weight decreased by about 1lb | Nothing needs to change! Just keep up the good work! |
| Weight barely decreased or stayed the same | Try reducing calories by 100-300 |
| Weight increased | Try reducing calories by 500 |
A 500 calorie deficit should lead to about a pound of weight loss each week. If that’s what you see, then that’s great! You’re heading in the right direction. Otherwise, you’ll need to further reduce calories and see how it effect your next average.