Fewer foods=greater weight loss?

doesthisappmakemelookfat
doesthisappmakemelookfat Posts: 103 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I was just wondering how standardized are people's meals? I've read that if you eat the same thing for breakfast and/or lunch, that it can be easier to lose weight. Thoughts? Experiences? It sure would make logging easier, wouldn't it?

Replies

  • amyk0202
    amyk0202 Posts: 666 Member
    I think that's true for me, but only because I'm lazy & hate to cook. I eat pretty much the same things all the time so I don't have to keep fixing new meals. I make a giant pot of something & eat it all week for dinner--sometimes for lunch too. For me, constantly fussing over meal prep would make losing weight & keeping it off unsustainable. I think the opposite might be true if you were the kind of person who likes to cook, or enjoyed variety in your meals. I'm perfectly happy eating the same thing all the time, but my kids complain when they have to eat something 2 nights in a row (not that anyone volunteers to cook anything else).
  • TheBeachgod
    TheBeachgod Posts: 825 Member
    It makes logging easier since I can hit "Copy Yesterday" but it isn't a magic formula for weight loss. I do it because I'm single and eat more or less the same thing every day until I run out of it. I get into a routine of how much I'm eating and prepack some of it.

    It still boils down to calories in vs calories out.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I like variety...this whole things is a pretty long haul...I'd be bored silly eating the same thing day in and day out over months and months...not to mention, then comes maintenance...are you just going to continue to eat the same thing over and over and over and over for the rest of your life?

    I'm also somewhat of a foodie and I enjoy cooking...I don't find it difficult at all to cook nutritious and deliciously awesome meals and controlling my weight. I lost 40 Lbs a few years ago and have been maintaining without logging for going on three years this spring.
  • bclewright12211
    bclewright12211 Posts: 3 Member
    i think variety is the best route i feel like if you eat the same thing everyday or for more than one meal a day it will make you end up choosing unhealthy foods, plus your body needs the nutrients and vitamins from other foods. choosing the same thing day in and day out will become mundane. i personal choose what i like and am used too just in much healthier versions and i count the calories now it helps a lot and since doing so i feel better mentally and physically
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,219 Member
    Fewer meals means less errors. If you eat the same thing day after day you're more likely accurate. Focusing on accuracy has greater impact on weight loss than the variety does.
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    If the calories are the same, it wouldn't matter.

    Where a more limited set of foods helps is that it develops habits around how much you eat that helps you keep to your calorie limits. Having a variety of meals and exercising proper portion control will do the same, but is somewhat more work.
  • Duchy82
    Duchy82 Posts: 560 Member
    I like variety personally although I do tend to eat the same lunch several days in a row because I bulk cook at the weekend for my lunches. This week is tomato and red pepper soup I'll add a sandwich or bread roll and I'm good to go.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    edited February 2016
    Lots of people find that for them, eating just a few things are both cheaper and easier to log. But that has to be individual, up to personal preference. If you DO find logging easier when you eat the same and DON'T mind eating the same foods over and over, it will make it easier for you to track, and stay on track.

    There's even some research on this, (or almost this, "sensory specific satiety") and while I don't agree with the conclusion personally, it may be that others can be perfectly happy with monotonous diets/meals and even eat less on them.

    In my experience, variety is one of the reasons why I was able to lose weight, and keep it off. It's not that I eat an enormous amount of different foods, I just combine them in different ways; I go through maybe 150-200 different items in a year, it may sound like a lot, but it's not much when you just have a reasonable amount of foods from every food group, and I don't need more, my meals are simple and easy. When I eat roughly the same kinds of food, I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. So there's a "sameness" to each of my meals. I try a new dinner recipe about once a week.

    I think the important thing is getting ENOUGH variety, and what is enough variety, has to be differerent for every person.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    I guess it makes it easier if you're not logging and counting calories, because it seems like the only way to follow the dicta "just eat less" that's handed out as the alternative to counting calories. I've never understood that. How do I know I'm eating less unless I have some way to compare today's burger and fries to yesterday's bowl of stew with flatbread and an apple, and tomorrow's bowl of lentil soup with a tuna melt? But I guess if every day was lentil soup with a tuna melt, I could just have a smaller bowl of soup and half the amount of cheese. I would get so bored I'd abandon the whole project after three or four days, of course, not to mention the concerns about nutritional deficiencies from only eating the same limited number of foods every day if I could stick with it. Thank god for a large online database of nutritional information and a relatively easy interface for recording, storing, and recalling information about what I'm eating. And thank god for food scales.

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