How to Eat More Often and Lose Weight

Eating a well-balanced, healthy diet is essential if you desire to lose weight. Aside from what you eat, the frequency at which you eat also affects your weight loss. Eating five to six smaller meals over the course of the day stabilizes your energy levels and blood sugar, resulting in a reduction of cravings for the foods that sabotage your dieting efforts. To eat more often, you have to adjust your current three meals per day gradually.

Instructions

• 1

  Determine whether eating more often is right for you. If you are prone to overeat during meals, regardless of their frequency, eating more often may not work for you. To benefit from frequent eating, it's essential to stick to eating small portions.

• 2

  Count the total amount of calories you normally consume on a daily basis. Subtract 500 to 1,000 calories from this total to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week. Divide your daily caloric intake over the amount of meals you want to eat in a day. One pound of fat has 3,500 calories. This equals eating 500 calories less per day for seven days.

• 3

  Reduce your portion sizes gradually. Introduce one extra meal into your diet for one to two weeks. Eat a meal every three to four hours. Add another small meal for the coming two weeks and reduce your portion sizes even more. Add a sixth meal if desired. Take your time when adding meals. Find out what works best for you. Some people may take longer to get used to eating more often.

• 4

  Avoid skipping meals. Skipping meals triggers your famine alert. Your body holds onto fat out of fear of starvation because it doesn't know when it will get its next meal. Always eat breakfast because it kick-starts your metabolism that slowed down while you slept.

• 5

  Create six smaller meals by dividing your standard three meals in half or reduce the size of your three standard meals and add two to three snacks over the course of the day.

• 6

  Include lean protein, unsaturated fat and fiber-rich, complex carbohydrates in each meal. Eat balanced meals so your body feels satiated. A meal could be a piece of whole-wheat toast with margarine and a hard-boiled egg and unsweetened fruit juice. A whole-wheat turkey sandwich and a diet soda or almonds with unsweetened juice are other small meal examples.

• 7

  Start a regular exercise routine that includes both cardiovascular exercise and strength training. Go jogging, walking, biking or swimming and take on a full-body approach when it comes to strength training. Exercising helps burn extra calories, so you can be a bit more lenient with your caloric intake from food. Exercise at least three days per week for 45 minutes a day.