I mentioned in last week’s blog that the family and I were in Stockholm during the first week of the Easter holidays.
The hotel we stay there did a buffet breakfast.
So I did what I always do when there’s a buffet breakfast available.
Ate loads.
Enough so that I didn’t need anything again till tea time.
Partly because I do like a good breakfast and it was all in front of me.
Partly to save money.
Partly logistics and time.
And many times over the years when people hear that this is something I do in such a situation, they might reply with questions such as;
– “Isn’t that bad for you?”
– “I thought skipping meals wasn’t a good idea?”
– “Surely that’s not the healthiest approach?”
And so on.
And the short answers to those three questions are;
– “No”
– “Depends”
– “Maybe not if you’re wanting to be a world class athlete, but I’m not”
All the research ever done shows that when, calorie matched there is zero difference in weight gain and loss on different feeding frequencies.
If we had 2,000 calories a day from;
A – Three Square meals
B – Six smaller meals
C – Two bigger ones
D – Eating earlier or later in the day or before or after certain times
E – Any different combination of meals and snacks and drinks
Then there would be no different, all else being equal, in what happened with our weight.
The important caveat, of course, is that “all else being equal”.
If one eating decision means that we’re more likely to consume more (or maybe move less) than that would impact our results.
That’s not “calories not working”……..
That’s us eating more or moving less.
I’m confident, from experience, that I can have a big breakfast and be absolutely fine having nothing till tea for an average maintenance calories.
Maybe marginal surplus on holidays but not an amount that can’t be then quickly averaged out.
That might not work for everyone.
It’s about finding an approach that does work for you.
Not feeling you have to do it a certain way because something magical happens at certain times of the day or with different feeding frequencies.
If you’re wanting to lose weight, you don’t necessarily need to know all the details of energy in versus energy out.
We can do it without measuring all the numbers.
But we will benefit massively from knowing that it is that deficit that is key.
Not getting confused and derailed by other things that don’t really matter.
Finding a way to create that deficit (or maintenance) that works for us.
Much love,
Jon
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
