3 meals, 6 meals or fasting? No carb, low carb or High carb?

The best way to lose weight is whatever is comfortable, sustainable, and healthy for you. Portion control, setting a slow weight loss rate, not restricting or forcing any particular category of food, and making sure I get a reasonable ratio of protein, fat, and carbs works for me. Plus it is a heck of a lot less stressful than starving, cutting out essential nutrients, or exercising to collapse. And free!

You may want to lose 30 lbs, but it does not have to happen in some arbitrary time frame. Just work on being more active, logging everything you eat accurately, and tweaking your foods a bit if they don't fit your goals.

And if you snack at your desk - quit it. Mindless eating will pile on calories faster than you realize. If you're hungry, get up, have a snack, log it, put away the extra food, and go back to work.

Can't agree more with the above posters. Do what you want, but stay under a set calorie goal and you'll lose weight. Carbs don't matter even though a lot of people believe they do. Calories burned vs calories you eat matter. If you eat less than you burn you will lose weight. Do yourself a favor and calculate your TDEE, and your BMR so that you know where you're starting from and will know how much of a deficit you want. There are plenty of free tools around the web to help you calculate that. Google is your friend.

You have to find what works for you. For me, that's 5-6 meals, with 40% carbs, 30% each fat and protein.
My husband eats 3 meals and a protein shake daily, 50-20-30 carbs, fats, protein.
You do you.

Balanced macros and adequate protein is a far better approach than trying to do all carbs or no carbs... you just need enough carbs. And enough fat too- don't go no fat! It's an essential nutrient for proper hormonal function and other necessary bodily functions!

Honestly all you need to do to lose weight is be in a caloric deficit. And a mild one is actually better than a large one. Dropping calories too drastically is unnecessary and counterproductive.

Be careful of weight loss advice given by those in the weight loss industry, especially if they're selling something. I came across all kinds of crazy fad diets and contradictory advice trying to research how to lose weight, and 99% of it was BS.

Not until I got interested in fitness and weight lifting did I find weight loss methods that actually work- but they don't even call it "weight loss", they call it "cutting", as in cutting down body fat percentage. That's how I discovered counting macros/calories and myfitnesspal. And it ACTUALLY works!

Check out IIFYM.com it might help you understand.

No need to make dieting & losing weight any more complicated than just eating fewer calories than you burn every day and eating a balanced diet. Just plug in your info in myfitnesspal, measure & log all your food, and stay within your calorie goal.

It's really simple.

Again do NOT go low fat, high fat, high carb, low carb, high protein, low protein... it is important to get ENOUGH of each nutrient and not cut any out.

Don't try to lose too fast either- unless you are quite obese chose 1 pound per week weight loss rate, not 2.

Curious OP, in the research you found, did any of the sites or books mention a calorie deficit? Because that is the only way to lose weight, to eat at a sustained calorie deficit.

All the other things you read are just means to an end, but I'm curious if the information you read even mentioned calories at all?

jessyj1023 wrote: »

I have been doing research on what is the best way to lose weight.

There is no best way (besides eating fewer calories than you burn, of course). Obsessing about trying to figure out some way that marginally will allow for a loss that is a tiny bit faster is just a way to avoid consistently doing what needs to be done. What helped me was dropping all that and figuring out what would work for me, and doing that, and adjusting as I learned more about myself and what works for me.

Meal timing and amounts is part of this. It makes no difference, overall. It might matter a lot to you, but that's if you pick something that is easier or harder for you. If you (like me) hate eating lots of little meals and try to force it, that won't be possible longterm. If you love eating a high carb mostly veg diet and try to force keto, that's not going to work. If you find you dislike breakfast and it makes you hungrier, forcing breakfast won't work (but IF might be a good approach). Figure out what appeals to you, make sure your calories are on point, and do it consistently for a while.

Anyone who says "you must avoid carbs" or "you must eat raw and 80-10-10" or "you must fast for 18 hours" or "you must eat coconut oil" or "you must not eat any sugar" or any of the 5 million other such faddy claims can be easily ignored. Eat your calories, eat in a way that you like (and that is reasonably balanced and nutritious -- I do recommend making sure you get enough protein and plenty of vegetables, for satiety and nutrition and preserving muscle), and ignore all the nonsense that the dieting industry is made up of. People have lots of money to make and people who have enjoyed something (or fallen for a scam) often like to insist that it is the One True Way. It never is.

jessyj1023 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

Curious OP, in the research you found, did any of the sites or books mention a calorie deficit? Because that is the only way to lose weight, to eat at a sustained calorie deficit.

All the other things you read are just means to an end, but I'm curious if the information you read even mentioned calories at all?

The info i was reading said that as long as you eat this way you will lose weight. The high carb said eat all you can just no fat and lots of starchy carbs and fruit. Low carb/no carb said eat all the meat and fat you want just no carb.

The "trick" to both of those is that at least in the short term people who eat those ways eat fewer calories than they were eating and lose weight. They also end up cutting out most of the high cal, tempting foods that people are surrounded by on a regular basis (since those have carbs and fat).

There's no magical way where calories don't matter.

Diet- meaning WHAT you eat- affects health.

CALORIES are what you need to pay attention to for weight loss