how often should i eat to lose weight?
I can’t even tell you how many times people have asked me “how often should I eat to lose weight?”
Spoiler alert, it’s not every 2-3 hours like you probably think. In fact, eating that often is actually making it HARDER for you to lose weight.
This blog post will answer the question how often should I eat to lose weight AND give you some simple tricks and tips to make it happen.
When you eat every 2-3 hours you end up walking around all day with a constant low level hunger. You never get truly full because you’re never eating enough to do so but you also never get to feel true hunger because you’re not giving your body enough time between meals/snacks to get hungry. So essentially you’re overriding all of your body and brain’s innate abilities to tell you when to eat and when to stop…and that is making it WAY harder to lose weight.
We live in a snacking culture though and it’s become the standard to eat 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. There are absolutely some situations where this is required (clinical eating disorder recovery, managing diabetes and other clinical indications).
But for the vast majority of people who have struggled to lose weight and keep it off and have been stuck on the yo yo diet cycle for years (and likely even decades), 3 meals and 2 snacks is actually making it HARDER for you to lose fat.
Which Means You’re Probably Now Wondering “How Often Should I Eat to lose weight?
Here’s the punchline: Every 4-6 hours.
If you notice yourself consistently getting hungry less than 3 hours after eating, it means you are not eating enough at meals.
Feeling hungry that often sucks. It’s distracting and frustrating and stressful. It also sucks to finish a meal and not feel truly full—this can create anxiety around fullness and make it harder to connect to those physical sensations.
(Note that I am talking about true biological hunger here—not cravings, boredom or any other type of emotional eating--separate post for that!).
So you want to work towards eating enough at meals so you don’t get hungry for 4-6 hours. That’s the answer to your question: how often should I eat to lose weight”
There are so many amazing benefits to this:
You feel completely full after meals which is calming for the nervous system
You don’t get hungry an hour or two later so you’re not constantly distracted by thinking about eating
You eat less overall which will help you lose fat (if that is a goal)
By eating every few hours you are absolutely eating more food than your body actually needs. If you take some of those smaller meals/snacks and combine them into one larger meal you will end up eating less overall.
I know it seems counterintuitive or like you’re eating the same amount of food, but you’re not.
Because if you’re eating a smaller meal and get hungry again 2-3 hours later, it means you need a little more food at that first meal to keep you full for an extra hour or two—likely a little more protein, maybe some more volume in the form of veggies.
Whereas at that 2-3 hour hour mark, you’re really hungry and will need a bigger snack to take the edge off—and what you eat at that time is more than you would have needed if you just made the earlier meal a little bigger.
That adds up A LOT if you are consistently eating every 2-3 hours during the day.
That is how eating bigger meals helps you lose fat—when you add the right things (protein and fiber) to your meals to stay fuller longer, you end up eating less overall.
Here’s a helpful infographic to give you a guideline for how much food should be on your plate at meals ➡️
And this isn’t about restriction…this about adding MORE food to your meals and getting comfortable with feeling full. You feel more at ease in your body when you feel full after meals and aren’t preoccupied thinking about food an hour later because you’re already getting hungry again.
This is the win win of a skills based approach to eating. So start adding MORE protein to your meals, include veggies in some form at lunch and dinner (remember bagged salads and raw veggies count!) and start noticing what happens (bonus is this will also help with cravings!!). And you’ll never have to ask “how often should I eat to lose weight” again.
Next on your reading list:
This blog post that dives into 4 other core skills that can help you lose fat without a diet
This blog post all about how to stop feeling hungry after eating
This blog post on my top 3 tips to change eating habits permanently
And episode 187 of The Diet Diaries talks covers this topic in even more detail