I have seen people who were on the right track, steady as can be, with weight loss and getting closer to their goal. But all of a sudden, their total daily calorie intake kept dropping dangerously lower and all of a sudden, the great weight loss just stopped. Thinking this might be just a plateau, these people will continue eating that low calorie diet and what do you know, they gain the weight right back!

For most people, this just does not make sense at all. If you eat less, why or how can you possibly gain any weight? Well, that is an easy answer: your metabolism.

By eating less and less often, you are essentially training your body to burn less fat. When you eat roughly 5-6 small meals a day, your body is constantly digesting and burning the fat so it gets gradually more efficient. But if there is less food to be digested, then your metabolism has to work less hard and kind of slacks off, if you want to think of it that way.

The key here is to eat 5-6 small, healthy meals a day. That means at least breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, and dinner every day. Skipping breakfast will not help you and neither will skipping dinner. Keep in mind, the less often and less intense you make your metabolism work, you will lose the efficiency and ultimately gain weight. So really, your daily calorie intake does matter since you do not want to dip too low for many reasons.

Now, it goes without saying that these small, healthy meals absolutely should not contain foods that make you gain weight, rather than lose weight. These foods would be anything considered junk food, fast food, soda, sports drinks, or sweets like cakes and cookies. So make sure to eat healthy and make wise health choices in the food department. Keep in mind that not all calories are created equal. Some foods, like fruits, can have tons of calories but is not necessarily bad for you because it is considered a negative calorie food. What that means is that even though it has plenty of calories in this food, it will not contribute to weight gain since it does not have any saturated fats. Other foods that are considered negative calorie foods are vegetables so eat plenty of fruits and vegetables!

Now you are going to want to include protein in your diet. You can get protein through either nuts or meats. It may seem kind of opposite to add meat if you do not want to add fat to your diet but fat is also still essentially, just not saturated fats in particular. And it makes sense to add protein even in meat form because of two particular reasons - 1. meat has plenty of protein and is great for you and very satisfying, and 2. protein is an essential building block of your body and you need to eat plenty of protein to build muscle, especially if you are working out as well.

Speaking of working out, it is important to incorporate exercise into any weight loss program that you follow. And when you workout, your body naturally uses up calories to keep your muscles going so the more calories you eat while you are leading an active lifestyle, the longer you will stay toned and slim. When you stop working out though, if you stick with the same amount of calories per day, those will turn into extra excess calories, which will turn into fat and weight gain instead of loss.

Okay, so all of that talk was about a diet that is high in calorie but what happens when your diet is very low in calories? Well, first you do not want that. If you eat less food or calories, that does not help you to lose weight and can actually make you gain weight. Not only does it make you gain weight but your metabolism is all messed up and inefficient, which will contribute to the weight gain any way. Finally, eating too little calories can create even more dangerous health risks, something that no one needs.

So make sure to eat enough calories for your body type and age. Be careful when dabbling into low, very low, calorie intake. It does not work the way you think it might, so do not just go ahead and severely limit your calorie count.

Real quick, keep in mind to eat plenty of meats, fruits and vegetables and avoid saturated fats all together!