Do You Have A Habit of Eating TOO MUCH? | TJ WALKER | THE HABIT INFLUENCER

For the last few years, you may have heard a lot about one specific habit that many people swear by to make them healthier, leaner, a great diet. And the whole concept is five meals a day. And the idea is your body never gets so hungry, so you never gorge. It feeds your body in ways that are more natural to how your body uses energy. Your body uses energy all the time. It doesn't use energy at three set times a day. So by feeding yourself, you're keeping your body better regulated with energy needs. And you're less likely to gorge, you're less likely to overeat because you never get to the point where you're just starving to death. And there are a lot of health experts who swear by this, a lot of celebrities who talk about it. I saw a celebrity profile, Reese Witherspoon recently talking about this. A lot of other Hollywood celebrities swear by it. And I do think that if, all things being equal, it probably is healthier to have as a habit eating five small meals a day. But here's the problem. All things are not equal. All things are never equal. Anytime you're looking to build a habit, to change a habit, to acquire a habit, to make yourself better, you have to look at a number of things. The context, the cost, the social environment, the ease of use, the complexity and the sustainability. And when I judge the five Meals a Day program on those standards, I have to give it an F minus. If you eat five meals a day and it works for you and you feel that it helps you get to a healthier point in your life and at your proper weight, I'd love to hear from you, share with us your insights. But here's the problem I see with a five meal a day plan. Again, I'm not disputing the medical side of it. I'm sure it is healthier for you. But there's some big, big problems with the idea of eating five meals a day. For starters, there are about 7 billion people on the planet who are all on a three meals a day plan. So you're trying to go against the current of what the rest of the world is doing. And hey, I'm a great, I'm a free spirit and Walden's great, and it's fine to go against the current sometimes, okay? But if you're going to a friend's great birthday party celebration and you're at a fancy Italian restaurant and everyone is having a nice beautiful lasagna put in front of them and it's the portion size of a meal, for people who Eat three meals a day and a dessert comes and a cake comes and great bread crumbs and comes and appetizers come. You now have to show superhuman willpower and discipline and motivation to eat basically half of what anyone else is eating. Do you have that? And if you have that much motivation, willpower and discipline, why do you need a special diet in the first place? You should already be at your perfect weight. So that's the problem is you're constantly going against what everyone. If you go out to friends with lunch and everyone's having a nice lunch and you order an entree, it's very hard to go to the restaurant and say, I want an entree and it needs to be, it needs to be 2/3 of a normal size entree. Of course you can order an appetizer and I order appetizers sometimes and I like to split entrees with my wife if I'm out for dinner because restaurants give portions too big anyway. But it becomes compoundedly more difficult if you're trying to eat one fifth of your day's food requirements when everyone else is eating one third. Yeah, it's a whole separate issue in that in many countries, especially the United States, people are eating 200% as many calories as they need in a typical day. But by eating five meals a day, you can unfortunately open yourself up to even more temptation, more food opportunities. And you're constantly in a situation where you have to tell people, no, no, no. Whether it's a party, out to dinner, a dinner party, it's always going to be no, no, no, no. If you had that discipline, wonderful. But if you had that discipline, you'd probably be at your perfect weight anyway. Anytime I'm looking for a new habit to help me in life, especially if it's a health habit. One of the things I just ask myself is if I go to a retirement center, if I go to a place, whether it's in Florida or anyplace else, and I see a whole bunch of healthy, active, 90, 95 year old people and they're walking, swimming on the beach, playing with grandkids, active life, what are the chances I'm going to see that they follow that health practice? I can tell you I've never met anyone like that who's proper weight, 95 years old, vigorous, and I say, what's the secret? They never say, oh, well, T.J. i have a milkshake meal replacement once or twice a day. I've never heard that. I've never seen that. That's why I don't believe in shake replacement. It's not sustainable. I've never heard anyone in a senior citizen home who's healthy, fit, trim, active, say, oh, it's because I eat five meals a day. Now, they might eat healthy snacks. I'm not saying it's impossible to have a healthy snack, but really thinking of their life in terms of I eat five meals a day, it's just not something I see people actually sustaining for decades. So one of my tests for any health practice is, is it sustainable? Because you can look at any diet in the world, you can eat a diet of m&ms. If you only eat 2m&ms. A day, you will lose weight, I guarantee it. But nobody in the world can go on a diet for more than a week. If you only eat 2m and Ms. A day, you'll go insane or you'll die or something. But yeah, you will lose weight those first six days. And that's what's true about Atkins and Keto and this. No carb and Paleo, all of these things. You will lose weight on all of them. But they're not sustainable. Why bother starting something, losing weight, getting your hopes up if you can't sustain it? And then you put all that weight on. And typically, data show with most diets like that, you gain more weight, you end up with more than where you started. Why would you want to set yourself up for failure? That is a poor habit to start something you know isn't going to work. So that is my big concern and problem with the five meal a day approach. I think it was Kate Hudson in a recent profile also said she did that. And it's one thing if you are a celebrity in a bubble and you have your own personal chef surrounding you and traveling with you, and you're in this bubble at all times, it might be a little easier. But even then, hey, you're at the Vanity Fair party, you're at all these great parties, every kind of caviar and lobster out, but you've already had your fourth meal of the day. Now you got to say no to the caviar and lobster. If you can do that, you have more discipline than I do. But if you have that much discipline, why do you need a special diet? Anyway, to me, it gets back to fundamentals. Far more important to figure out, how can you just not eat second helpings? How can you mostly eat unprocessed plants? You know, things like vegetables, fruit? How can you do everything you can to minimize processed sugar? If you minimize processed sugar, if you minimize processed food, foods that comes in boxes, bags and packages with every kind of chemical and ingredients. List that long and you mostly eat vegetables and salads and small amounts of meat or fish, and you eat and drink things that don't have a lot of sugar in it. Chances are you're going to be in great health. Chances are you'll probably weigh what you should and you don't have to go for these gimmicks of five meals a day. I'm TJ Walker and that was topic C for the day. If you have a lot of luck and experience good feelings with five meals a day, I'm open. I've certainly read about it in a great deal in celebrities stories, profiles. You hear about it in blogs. I can't say that I've ever really talked to a real human being who had luck with it, but if you want to share your feelings on that, then I'm happy to hear from you.