“Three square meals per day” is a recipe for metabolic disaster. If you have any tendency to gain weight, all your body sees is that you are “starving” between these meals. Let’s say you eat a classic meal schedule: breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at noon and dinner at 7 p.m. Well, if you are at all metabolically inefficient, as is anyone with weight issues, then your body read this as “Oh my goodness — we are starving from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. We are getting no food for 12 hours. HOLD ONTO THE FAT! We may need it. We do not know WHEN we are going to get another meal after this 12-hour fast.” This is a bad signal for your body to get, right? So, the recipe is to create an environment of nutrients in your body that lets you have “permission” to let go of the fat. Permission to keep your body as revved up as it is meant to be. Simply put, if your brain and cells are washed in good nutrients (mostly protein and some “good” carbohydrates) that are taken in at frequent meals throughout the day, you are giving your body a signal that you are not starving, and you are able to survive without holding on to the fat.

Notice I called these eating episodes “meals.” I did not say snacks. It is not just an accident that I used these words. “Meals” are what you plan to eat. They are intentional. “Snacks” are what you casually put into your body. They are “whatever is around when you get hungry.” I am a big fan of planned eating. Just by planning your foods — the what and when of your eating — the better you will do. Just by eliminating snacking — i.e., impulse eating — you will better control your weight and nutrition. You have seen those weirdly “ripped” body builders and wondered how they got so lean. Well, they are an exaggeration, odd as they may be, of what I am talking about. They eat around the clock in the manner I recommend — waking up at 2 a.m. for a protein shake then at 5 a.m. for an egg-white omelette, etc. Their bodies are fooled into thinking that they do not need to hold onto ANY fat. So the constant intake of the right foods is critical to the process of releasing fat. That is why the starvation and super-low calorie diets you have tried have ended in halting your weight loss way earlier than you like. Oh, and they are a miserable experience, too!

Do not trust your stomach — “I could eat a ton” is not a reasonable food volume guide either.
The rule to live by is simple: Eat with your eyes. LOOK at the food on your plate. Are they the right types of foods? Is it the right amount of food in the serving? When your “eyes” are OK with these judgments, then eat the meal and get on with your life. No seconds. No “just a little bit more of this and that.” Your eyes were satisfied at the beginning of the meal. The foods and volumes were “OK” then. Don’t let your head and stomach get in the way and undermine your efforts now. Get away from the table and do something else. You are going to eat again in three hours, so how full do you need to be now? And you haven’t even let the 20 minutes of time to fullness set in yet!

The problem with these drinks is they also are way too full of empty calories — too much calorie bang for your buck, so to speak. For example, there are 15 calories in a single packet of sugar. There are about 200 calories in a can of regular cola. Would you drink a cup of water with 13 packets of sugar in it? “Yuck” is the proper answer. When you drink a can of regular soda that is what you are drinking.

What about the vitamins in juice, you ask? Well, why would they be better than the vitamins in the actual fruit? They aren’t. So, no need for juices. Eat the fruit. Hydrate with water. Save the sugar for your birthday cake.