Eating small, healthy meals throughout the day is essential for losing fat. (I say fat loss because people don’t really need to lose weight, it’s fat!) When I talk to clients about their eating habits, they are always amazed at how often I tell them to eat. Some say they feel like they are always eating, others say it is too difficult to prepare for so many meals, I even have a client who has to mentally convince himself to eat so much (it is rare).

There are significant benefits to eating small meals throughout the day. For one thing, it will speed up your metabolism.

Instead of skipping breakfast (thinking it’s a few hundred calories I’m not going to eat today), you starve yourself before lunch, have a sandwich, a salad, and a bag of chips, then wait until dinner. You are starving again, have a hamburger on the way home or order a pizza, sit on the couch, watch TV and order sweets.

You are making your body go from one extreme to the other. Your metabolism has a valley when you starve and a peak when you fill up on food. All day you are up and down, it is difficult for your metabolism to stabilize, much less to increase.

Your daily meals should look more like this:

* A decent breakfast: carbohydrates and fruit.
* Snack before lunch: protein bar (all natural, of course) or other fruit
* Lunch: vegetable and a protein, at least one of the vegetables here must be green.
* Snack before dinner: protein shake, another fruit or about 50 almonds / walnuts
* Dinner: a protein, a carbohydrate, vegetables, again here, a green vegetable
* Do you need anything before going to bed? try the hot tea (decaf of course)

Instead of your body going through peaks and valleys, it will remain more like a wave. This will help your metabolism increase and stabilize. It is true that this way of eating takes time to plan and prepare, but it is worth it. You will feel satisfied throughout the day and you will look and feel healthier.

If you can’t seem to get on your way, a wonderful tip is to write it down, it sure will take more time, but writing it down will make you think twice about eating unhealthy and you can track your patterns. See when you are doing well, write how you feel, choose foods you like, cook them in healthier recipes.

The idea is to implement this over time. Set a goal, stick to that goal, succeed with it, and then move on. Over time, you will find the right foods and times to suit your needs.