For decades now, the conventional advice from trainers and weight loss specialists has been this:

"Eat three meals a day plus two snacks."

The big question is whether or not it's true.

And the answer (drum roll and envelope please) is ...... sometimes. But not always. ...

Many people do absolutely great on three meals a day with no snacks, and sometimes, on some days -- (gasp) -- even two.

See, the conventional advice was built upon the "truth" that "grazing" is always a better eating strategy for weight loss than eating three (or, god forbid, two) "solid" meals a day. Eating three meals and two snacks was supposed to keep your blood sugar even throughout the day, keeping cravings at bay.

Well, maybe.
But the truth of the matter is that people are far more variable and individual than we often acknowledge. And there's a downside to the "five meals a day" theory, a downside which may affect some people more than others.

For one thing, eating every two hours guarantees that your insulin is going to go up five times a day instead of, say, three. For many people, that means more hunger, not less.

Insulin is not only the fat storage hormone, it's also the hunger hormone. In fact, the whole "Carbohydrate Addicts Diet" got started when one of its creators, a (then) very-overweight Rachel Heller, found that she experienced a lot less hunger on one particularly busy day when she "forgot" to eat.

Three meals a day -- each with a beginning and an end -- is making a comeback as a weight-loss strategy, snacking be damned. Celebrity nutritionist JJ Virgin now advocates eating three meals a day, the first meal within an hour of waking up and the last meal at least three hours before bed. And recent research has demonstrated-- at least in rats -- that "intermittent fasting" actually has some major health benefits.

The point here is not that the old information was wrong and the new information is right.

The point is ....
that there are huge individual differences in how we respond to food, and no one strategy -- including the "five meals a day" strategy -- works for everyone.

We need to stop blindly following conventional wisdom and start paying attention to our individual differences when it comes to weight loss. (In fact, that's not a bad strategy to follow for everything, but that's another column.)

Ellen Langner, the Harvard psychologist, puts it brilliantly in her book "Mindfulness," when she says that "certainty" is the enemy of mindfulness. When we blindly follow a strategy, for weight loss or for anything else, we often stop paying attention to the individual cues that tell us whether it's the right thing to do in our particular situation.

 "Certainty is a cruel mindset," she wrote.
"It is uncertainty that we need to embrace, particularly about our health.
If we do so, the payoff is that we create choices
and the opportunity to exercise control over our lives."

So if three meals and two snacks per day works for you, great. Keep it up and carry on! But if it's not working, don't assume it's because there's something wrong with you. It just might be that you need to try a different strategy.

And three meals a day -- each with a beginning and an end point, and with no "snacking" in between -- might be one technique worth trying.

                          
One definition of a qualification is
a restriction or modification...like...
"an offer with a number of qualifications".

That's the kind of ANYTHING that become possible,
when we make enough little changes.
The body has some natural limits. 
Some limits of the body are across the board for everyone,
and some of them are specific to one's own individual body.

I can't fly...no matter what I do.
I can't grow taller or younger...no matter what I do.

My body won't change from an endomorph into an ectomorph.
None of my fat cells will ever disappear.
I will never stop wanting to naturally eat a greater amount of calories 
than the calorie amount my body needs to keep me normal weight.

 Some days I wonder if my arm will completely heal,
and if I'm ever going to be able to make a fist with my left hand again.
Some days I wonder if my body is ever going to go back under 120 lbs
and remain there, even on less than 1000 calories a day.

So it the following saying is with qualifications... i.e. Restrictions and modifications....

When we make enough little changes,
(.....almost....) .Anything IS possible.

We spend our lives trying to be the person
we think we should be.
Many of those “shoulds” come from outside sources:
our family and friends, or society in general.
As children we are asked:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
We’re told to: “Get good grades.”
We’re asked: “When are you two going to tie the knot/have kids?”
We’re told to “Lose weight”, “Be Lean”,
“Get fit”, “Get “Healthy”, “Build muscle”;
or sometimes asked:
“Don’t you think it’s about time you took off a few pounds?”

Sometimes the “shoulds” are not so obvious,
but are even more pervasive. 

 We see how things work on TV
and unconsciously believe that our lives must follow.
That we’ve got to live an upscale magazine advertisement life,
spending our time in a tidy and well-ordered house,
surrounded by lovable and perfect friends and family.

And sometimes, those “shoulds” come from within.
These are the worst, because it means we’ve internalized
all those outside shoulds, taken them for our own,
and stirred into the mix our own personal flaws
together with our guilt about them.
Many of us truly secretly believe that we should look similar
to the airbrushed pictures of genetically blessed people
who spend most of their lives working to enhance the appearance
of their already “perfect” bodies and faces.

We work on the goals we think we should have,
instead of the things we really want to do,
and then wonder why we feel vaguely dissatisfied
when we achieve them.

 Of course, we do have to eat to sustain life
…and for many of us…
what, and how much, we choose to eat
is a problem we have to deal with.

We need a place to stay warm and dry.
We need love, too. But all the rest of it?
Why not be who you really are instead?

Being who you really are means being brave.
It means taking risks.

It means saying hey, this is who I am,
I hope you like me, but even if you don’t,
I’m going to keep right on being myself.

  Who are you really?
What are your own personal dreams?
Can you distinguish what is fantasy from what is really possible?
What are you willing to do
in order to make those of your dreams that are possible,
come true?

If you aren’t living your own dreams
— or at least trying to —
whose life are you living?