episode 187: the simplest way to lose fat
Hey friends, this week I'm diving into one of my all time favorite topics to talk about: why eating snacks is keeping you from losing weight.
Here are some of the questions I’ll answer in today’s discussion:
Do you really need to eat every 2-3 hours, or is that just a myth?
Why might constant snacking be the unexpected cause of weight gain?
How can eating bigger, more satisfying meals help you eat less overall?
What do you need to be putting on your plate to stay full and happy for longer?
Can changing your snacking habits actually lead to real, sustainable fat loss?
And I'll share some real-life stories from clients who've seen incredible results by making these simple tweaks. It's all about making food work for you, not against you. If you're tired of feeling hungry all the time and want a fresh perspective on losing weight without feeling deprived, this episode is for you.
Also, check out this blog post for more helpful suggestions on meal timing!
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187
[00:00:00] Hi, friends. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Um, what's today? Episode 187? Wait, where'd my notes go? Hang on. 187. I'm recording this a little bit in advance of when it's going to air, but I'm very excited to talk about this today. So one of my favorite things to talk about, honestly, 187 episodes in, I've kind of lost track of what I have and haven't talked about.
But the reality is that even if I have talked about it, once is never. We need to hear things like way more than one or ten or even sometimes a hundred times before it sinks in. And if it was a really long time ago, if I've forgotten, you've certainly forgotten too. Um, and there's also new people that have come in along the way.
So what I wanted to talk about today is snacking and its connection to weight loss and weight gain. Um, because this is something [00:01:00] I think like, if I had to pick, Like, not protein related, not like specific like nutrition related, but if I had to pick one behavior that has the most power to be transformative.
It would be this. And I have had so many clients get results, results across many areas, but I am going to talk about fat loss in this episode, kind of not explicitly, but specifically. Um, get fat loss results as a result of the stuff I'm going to talk about today as it relates to snacking. And if you follow me on social media, And for any length of time, you've seen me talk about this before, and one of my favorite, um, like little one liner quips to say is that you're not a snacker, you're just not eating enough at meals.
And I will fall on my sword for that, I will die on that hill, I will, you know, all the expressions, all the euphemisms. [00:02:00] Um, I truly believe that, um, the way our bodies kind of biologically are designed really is kind of evidence of that. We're not really designed to eat every two to three hours. Um, we are actually designed to eat, um, kind of a, a filling meal and then not eat again for, um, a decent period of time.
Minimum four hours, but probably in reality closer to like five to six, um, so that our digestive system, we can fully digest, things can move through, we have the chance to actually feel hungry again, um, There's kind of a lot of pieces to it, but here's the thing, right? So there's so much noise out there. I mean, I can't tell you how many diets I did where it was like eat every two to three hours.
There was one diet I did, I can't remember what it was called. It was in a book that I followed where you had to alternate. So you were eating every two to three hours on those alternate alternating. [00:03:00] With the every two to three hours, it was very specific. So one meal, snack, was carb based, and then the next two, three hours would pass, and then that one was fat based, and then the next one was carb.
And there was like protein in there too, but it was like this crazy, like you have to alternate your carbs and fats. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, I'm like, looking back, I'm like, oh my god, what? I'm so desperate, so unhappy that I literally would do anything and take anything at face value, not considering whether there was like any science or any like logic or anything that that was going to like match my lifestyle or my preferences or my needs.
It was just like, oh, this book says to do this and I'll lose weight. Great, I'll do it. Um, and then. You know, just so many crazy things and you'll see a lot of people out there eat three meals and two snacks. I'm not an advocate of that. I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you. Now that is not to say that snacks are bad or that you can't snack because we, the work we do in coaching, what I talk about here [00:04:00] is meeting you where you are at and matching your lifestyle, right?
So, If your life or if your work schedule, whatever it is, is such that like, you can't eat a meal for like eight hours, then yeah, a snack is going to be important. But that is very different. Having a very, having an intentional, thoughtful snack in that way is very different than on a regular basis, every single day, eating every two to three hours, right?
Because here's the thing, when you snack and you are eating every two to three hours, or you are consistently eating three meals and two snacks a day, for most people, you are ultimately eating more than you would if you ate bigger meals. Because when you are getting hungry every two to three hours, that means that you are not eating enough at your meals, right?
That's what that means. Boom, right there. You are not eating enough at meals and you're not eating enough of the right things. And when I say right [00:05:00] things, I mean filling, nutritious foods. Foods whose job is to it is to fill you up, meaning protein, veggies, fiber, and fat, and carbs, right? You need all of that in a meal to fill you up.
If you are finding yourself actually legitimate, legitimately hungry, not like bored hungry, not looking for something to do hungry, not stress hungry, if you're legitimately hungry consistently, meaning every day or multiple times a week, you're after two to three hours after a meal, it means you're not eating enough at that meal.
So then when you go to have your snack, You have your snack, right? Which by, I think, we've all been, you know, brainwashed by definition of snack is like, Oh my god, now there's confetti? If you're watching this on YouTube, like, There's something with my laptop where it picks up hand movements, and it started off with thumbs up and fireworks, then balloons showed, and it's like, Now I just got confetti for the first time.
So if you're listening, you're not going to see this, but if you happen to be watching on YouTube, and [00:06:00] my clients see it all the time, like when we're on Zoom, it's just really, I've never seen confetti. So anyway, sorry, I digress. Of course I lost my train of thought. Um, okay, so you eat your meal, and then you're hungry two to three hours later, right?
So I was about to say, right, we're 250 calories. Dude, that's not going to be enough to fill you up, right? You're going to eat that, and you're going to be like, I'm so hungry. And then you're going to look for something else, or you're going to white knuckle it until the next two to three hours pass and you get to your next meal, which also is not going to fill you.
So basically you end up with this like constant low lying level of hunger that never gets filled. And that is a shitty way to live. It's going to cause you to think about food a lot more often. Like we hear about food noise and food noise is everywhere. absolutely 100 percent biological for some people.
This is not me saying that this is the solution to food noise for everyone. And also, it can do a lot of heavy [00:07:00] lifting for you. Um, You need to feel full after meals. Not stuffed, full. And again, if you are having snacks constantly, you're not getting full enough after meals. And you are going to be eating more than you would if you were full.
Right? So, if you have, let's say, let's say for breakfast, you have, Um, like, I can't even think of like a non protein based breakfast because my brain just doesn't go there. You have like, you know, I don't know, two slices of toast and a small yogurt. Okay, like that's your breakfast, right? It's not going to be filling enough, right?
A small yogurt is going to be like 12 to 15 grams of protein, the toast is really not going to get you that much, especially if it's white toast, if it's got a little, you know, if it's a whole grain and you get some fiber, right? You got no veggies, you got no fruit, okay? This is just an example. You're going to be hungry in two to three hours, [00:08:00] like no question.
And so then you have a snack. Let's say your snack is an apple with peanut butter, okay? So, and then we can talk, get into like portion sizes of peanut butter, but right, like one serving of peanut butter is like one to two tablespoons. It's way less than you think it is. Right? So you have your apple with peanut butter and like, maybe it like takes the edge off the hunger, but it's not, you're not going to be full.
So then you're probably going to look for something else. Let me just grab a couple crackers. Let me grab a few almonds. Oh, there's this piece of chocolate. Let me grab like a bag of chips, right? Because you're going to want to feel full. And then you get to your next meal, it's the same thing. Let's say it's like a turkey sandwich with like, I don't know, a few chips and like some veggies or whatever, right?
And you put on probably two ounces of turkey, right? Because most people do not put enough meat onto their sandwiches. And then same thing, two to three hours later, you're hungry. Oh, it's my afternoon snack. I'm gonna grab like my popcorn and my piece of dark chocolate. that's not going to do anything, right?
You're still going to be hungry and you're going to go back to the kitchen, whether you're at home [00:09:00] or you're at the office, and you're going to be looking and picking and grabbing. Oh, let me just grab a couple of those and then go back to my desk. And then half an hour later, oh, let me go up and grab a few more chips.
And you end up grazing and you end up eating almost in a way like kind of constantly throughout the day, right? And this is, this is just kind of like one scenario. All this to say that if, if that morning breakfast, let's say you had breakfast. one slice of toast and you Doubled at least doubled the amount of yogurt and got some high fiber fruits.
You're gonna be a lot more full You're likely not gonna not need that snack and then you're gonna get to lunch So you're saying well if I'm eating the calories at the snack and I'm just moving them to breakfast, isn't it the same thing? No, it's not the same thing and the reason why it's not the same thing is because When you set yourself up to be hungry every two to three hours and you're snacking Your snacks are, you're always gonna end up eating more because you're never getting, you're always trying to get full but [00:10:00] without trying to get full, right?
It's like, you're having, you keep, you can't get full because you're eating such a small amount of food, which is gonna lead you to kind of keep going back and grabbing more. thinking that like, okay, if I just have a little more, a little more, a little more, then I won't feel hungry, but all the things you're eating for those snacks are really not going to fill you up.
And even if you're eating a more nutritious snack, like something that is higher in protein, for the most part, again, if you're doing this regularly, again, it might take the edge off, but you're not really going to feel full and you're going to be much more likely to keep going back and looking for food.
And so without even realizing it, you're kind of inadvertently eating more. than you would if you ate a really filling meal, right? Ultimately, this kind of comes back. Yes, there's definitely a calorie piece and a math piece. And I guess I could get into that, but I feel like it's going to get kind of confusing, like listening to it.
But the idea is if you ate more foods that were more filling at one sitting and you finish that meal and [00:11:00] were really full, not stuffed, but really full for four to six hours. Versus feeling hungry again in two hours and going to get a snack that actually doesn't fill you so then you kind of keep needing to add to that snack.
You are eating less by eating the bigger meal than you are by eating the snacks, especially if you are prioritizing protein, because protein, you get a lot more bang for your buck in terms of fullness. And typically the snacks that you're eating are not going to have protein. And again, that's why they're not filling, which is going to lead you to go back to eat more of them.
Or let's say you do have the low protein snack and then you get to your next meal and now you're fucking starving. So now you have to eat a lot more of that meal to kind of catch up. And so over time, this accumulates and you are eating more, you're intaking more calories than your body needs because of the way that you're eating, because you never get truly full.
There's this constant low, low level hunger that sometimes escalates into high level [00:12:00] hunger that never gets satisfied. It's a shitty way to live mentally and it's a shitty way to live physically. And so this is a huge reason why you are struggling to lose weight. And I have seen this happen with many clients.
When you start eating bigger meals and fewer snacks, it will impact your overall intake and you will start to lose weight. Is it going to happen overnight? Is it going to happen in a week or two weeks? No. Is it going to happen over a period of months? Yes. If you are consistent with it. And so this means that you need to be eating bigger meals.
You need to be eating a complete portion of protein on a numbers basis that's looking like 30 to 40 grams on a visual basis, like one third of your plate or like a bowl, like a cereal bowl, or like a soup bowl with like a lot of yogurt or cottage cheese in it, right? With a lot of veggies or high fiber fruit, some fat, maybe adding, I [00:13:00] mean if you're eating, you know, High fiber fruit you're getting fiber depending on the veggies may or may not have as much fiber But trying to prioritize higher fiber veggies, cruciferous veggies You know if you're if adding in what your carb is adding in higher fiber carbs, beans, quinoa Edamame which kind of like straddle protein and fiber You need to be eating those bigger meals and when you start to do that Watch what happens.
You will feel better mentally because you're not constantly thinking about food and you feel full so then you're no longer distracted by that feeling and you can be like present in your life. And it will slowly impact your overall intake. You will be eating less food overall. And this is doing this consistently at breakfast and lunch and dinner over a long period of time, right?
This takes work. It takes effort. I'm not sitting here telling you it's because for some people it is a really big shift. But this is [00:14:00] like what I talk about all the time about how to lose fat without a diet, without restricting, without taking things away. This is really adding food, right? That's what's so cool about it.
This is subtraction by addition. You are eating more to eat less over time. That is a very different way of approaching things than like, I have to eat every two to three hours, but I'm only allowed to eat this much and it has to fit into this perfect little Tupperware box. Or I have to weigh out like my 10 grams of almonds or whatever it is, right?
Yes, portion size matters for things and there's different ways to figure that out, but you all know the things I'm alluding to and how kind of like restrictive and limiting they start to feel after a period of time. Feels good at first because you feel like, oh, I'm under control. And then it starts to feel really shitty because you're not eating enough.
Um, so there's so much out there about like diet culture, anti diet culture, and wanting to lose weight. Not like all this noise and stuff. And the reality is like. There are people out there [00:15:00] who are carrying a lot of excess body fat who, for whom losing weight would be beneficial for their health. There are people out there carrying excess body fat for whom losing weight would not be beneficial for their health.
It's not black and white. All this to say that if you are someone who wants to lose weight because you have information or you, meaning like biomarkers and blood work or whatnot, And there's health reasons, or you want to feel better in your body if it's affecting your movement, your quality of life. Yes, that is okay, and that can be a good thing, right?
For some people, losing weight is improving their health, is a form of self care. For other people, it's not. It is not black and white. There's so much nuance. But, if you are someone who wants to lose weight, a diet is not the answer, because that is, that is a, Um, a temporary solution at best. So that this skill that I am talking about is a way to approach fat loss without dieting, without restricting.
In fact, it's approaching fat loss by eating more. How [00:16:00] fucking cool is that? And I know you might be thinking like, that's never going to work. How could that possibly work? I'm telling you it does. And that's what I was trying to explain in like the upfront part of the episode by eating more at a meal and prioritizing the foods that are going to fill you up and like do the quote unquote heavy lifting of like getting you full and getting you nutrition, you are going to not need those snacks.
And the snacks are what are easy to overeat. We are prioritizing foods that are not easy to overeat, that fill you up, so that you don't have to rely on foods that are easy to overeat, that you will overeat. And by doing that consistently over a period of time, you will slowly reduce your overall calorie intake.
And that is where fat loss comes from. Like, right, that's the science of it. Laws of thermodynamics. Um, so, yeah, I'm like, what else do I need to say about this? Do I need to keep belaboring the point? I don't really know. Um, [00:17:00] again, not to say that there aren't certain days or times or certain jobs or life stages or needs where there are snacks are needed.
Yes. And then we work through that. If that is you and you're like, well, I work whatever I can't eat for like Eight hours or nine hours. Great. You're going to need something that you can take with you. It's got to be high pro, it's got to, it's like it becomes a mini meal. So you treat it in the same way.
You're not bringing like a bag of popcorn and like a piece of chocolate. That, that's not going to do shit for you. Like it might taste good, but you're going to end up, that's when you're going to go end up like picking up donuts and grabbing a candy bar and stuff that like tastes really good, but it's not going to fill you up.
And it's ultimately going to leave you feeling crappy when you're using the food in that way, right? Donuts and candy bars. have a job, their only job is to taste good. And so we need to use them as such, not to fill us up when we're so hungry in the afternoon because we haven't had time for a meal. So if you are someone who does need to have a snack, think of it maybe [00:18:00] less of a snack and more of like a mini meal, right?
Maybe you're like a four meal a day person based on like your schedule. And if it needs to be something that's on the go, you are prioritizing the same thing, protein, fiber, veggies, and some nutritious fats. Right? Maybe that looks like, I don't know, I'm not gonna get into the specifics of what it looks like because that's too, like, customized.
Maybe I'll do a separate episode on that. But again, this isn't like black and white, like, never snack, you're not allowed to snack, no snacking, right? Like, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that for most people, most of the time, most of the days, we are not eating big enough meals. That's the case for many, many people.
We are not eating enough meals. I've had clients come to me and be like, Yeah, I'm having a cup of yogurt with like a few berries and some granola sprinkled on top. I'm like, that's your meal? What? That's like bird food. Like, what? Are you kidding me? Like, I eat a tremendous amount of yogurt in a bowl for breakfast with berries, with some type of granola or shredded coconut mix, and chia seeds.
And if I had to, like, guesstimate the calories [00:19:00] on that, probably close to like 600 calories I'm eating in a meal at breakfast, right? Needs to be food, enough food to fill you up. Whereas if I was, let's say, eating half of that, eating, let's say, 300 calories worth of food at a meal. I'm gonna be hungry two hours later.
I eat my 200 and 250 calorie snack, right, my apple and peanut butter, or like my, my, um, smart pop and a piece of chocolate, or my hummus and my veggies, and it's like, this isn't filling. I'm still hungry. I've just eaten 250 calories. And I'm still hungry, and I gotta go grab something else. I gotta tack on another 100 calories, and another 100 calories.
Whereas if I had just eaten the bigger meal to begin with, it would be less food overall, right? And I'm not trying to get you overthinking calories. And at the same time, that is the science of how food works. That's, that's how we measure the energy intake of food. A calorie is a unit of energy. That's what it is.
It's not good, it's not bad. It is simply how our bodies get energy. is from the calories that are in food. And so sometimes it is [00:20:00] important to use that to kind of help explain a concept, not that you need to be walking around thinking about it all day. Because once you get the idea of how this works, you just know what you need to do.
You start to learn how much you need to eat at a meal to feel more full so that you can go four to six hours. Um, so I, I lost my train of thought on that, where I was going. But again, all this to say, The cool thing is you are eating more to eat less. And again, this isn't eating less is like restrictive or rigid or like eat less and move more.
It isn't about that, right? But if we want to lose fat, we need to be in a caloric deficit. That is science. That is not morally good or bad. That is science. Okay, we have to learn to sometimes strip apart our feelings and our emotions from the science of how science works. I didn't make it up, right? It's evolution.
This is how it all happened. What we have to start to pull apart is there are many ways to do that. There's many ways to be in a caloric deficit, and there's a lot of ways that are really fucking shitty, which you've done a [00:21:00] million times, and there's ways that actually aren't shitty, where you get to feel full and good, and you're not constantly thinking about food.
And this skill of eating bigger meals You So you don't need to eat snacks is a big one, is a bedrock, and is something that I work on with, I would say, pretty much every single client in some form. It might look a little different, right? There's no set. This is what we do. This is how we do it. But it shows up in some way.
And it plays a really big role. I have had a couple clients lose weight from this, just this. And when I say just this, it's not really just this, you know, to be honest, because in order for this to work, you need to be eating the right things. I don't like using the word right, but the more nutritious things at meals.
You do need to be eating more protein. You do need to be eating more veggies because that's what's going to fill you up. That's going to help you not eat the snacks. Um, so it does kind of go hand in hand, but without having to, um, Don't think as much about some of the other [00:22:00] stuff. Just thinking about eating more of the nutritious foods at meals is enough to get a change.
Again, done consistently. over time. That means most of the days, most of the time. So that's a lot. This is not like two days a week you're doing this. This is six or seven days a week you're doing this. You know, most of the time, not perfection, but most of the time. This gets subjective, right? What is most with things like this when it comes to fat loss, whatever you're doing needs to be Most of the time and most meaning a lot close to all not all maybe that's a good way to say it close to all Of the time but not all the time.
So it's not perfection, but it's also not 50 percent of the time Like that's fine to do that, but you're not gonna get the results that you want I've talked about consistency before I just talked about in a few episodes ago. So, all right, I think I'm done I think you get the point reach out if you've got questions.
Um, I think that's it for today. See you next [00:23:00] week