Dear Kayla,

Thank you very much for your books and videos on YouTube. Glad you’re not on Facebook! Although I am a member, I am NOT a fan. My question is this: Is it really eating windows or meal limitations that help the most with weight loss?

I am a compulsive eater, and I found I ate too much in an 8-hour or even 6-hour window! And curiously, I’ve found the people who are most successful at weight loss limit their number of meals, not hours. I am a beginner, and right now I am amazingly losing weight with three substantial meals a day, no snacking. I used to eat all day long! As time goes one I will definitely experiment with OMAD and 2MAD.

I am a research nerd, and I’ve found so many studies and people who are successful with meal limitations vs. a “window.” It’s a fascinating subject. Thank you for all you do to help your community.

Signed,

Ella

P.S. Glad you are a Jesus gal!

Dear Ella,

I am so glad you found my books and videos helpful! You ask a very good question. Based on my own experience, and talking to others who have lost weight successfully, I think the answer is, it depends.

It seems that the people who haven’t struggled with their weight for a long time, tend to do fine with simple eating windows. I think this is because they need a small tweak of their eating habits, and having the windows gives them just enough structure to help them eat the right amount of calories. Some people tell me they are better at eating the right amount if they use windows. If they go too long between eating times, they wolf down the food and end up overeating. Those people are certainly better off doing it that way.

That being said, many people struggle to lose weight, even when they’re being consistent with their fasting windows. This happens because of a misunderstanding of the purpose of windows. Windows are there to help make eating in a deficit easier. To put it a different way, the eating window is not a hall pass to eat to excess. Intermittent fasting is best thought of as a tool, not a magic bullet. And this is why experimentation with the tool is vitally important.

The goal is to figure out what strategy helps you eat the right amount of food. For people who have struggled for a long time with their weight, the odds are good that they have many bad habits relating to eating. In my experience, these habits are more easily changed by limiting the number of meals outright. Here are a few reasons why:

• It puts a clearer boundary around food and eliminates various opportunities to eat for reasons other than true hunger (boredom, stress, sadness, procrastination).
• It simplifies the rules so that it’s easier to know whether you’re doing the plan or not. This helps you hold yourself accountable.
• It makes it much easier to know how much you’re eating. Windows invite snacking, making it easy to lose track of how much you’ve eaten that day.

Ultimately, the plan that will work best for people is the one that they feel gives them enough, but not too much, structure. I think having the day off on Sundays helped me be okay with OMAD through the rest of the week because it meant that snacks were an option sometimes. I encourage everyone to experiment for themselves and see what works the best.

Sincerely,
Kayla

PS: Any good you find in my videos and books, is all due to Him. All flaws are mine. (: