Many people can find a successful dieting solution...by simply eating more. Now you might think that the whole point of a diet is to eat less so you lose weight, but this doesn't have to be the case. The way that you lose weight isn't just about the food that you eat, it's also about how your metabolism works and the messages that your diet food gives it to make it work harder and to minimise issues like fat conversion.

If you've ever been on a diet before that hasn't worked for you in the long term, then I'll bet that you were really encouraged to start off with. But, after that initial few weeks where your weight just fell off you probably found that you hit that wall - and no matter how you stuck to your weight loss diet, you stopped losing as much weight as quickly.

This can be all down to your metabolism. If you go from an irregular junk food diet that is high in calories to a healthy diet (as so many of us do!) then the first few weeks of eating healthy diet food sends your metabolism into overdrive. But, once you've lost this initial weight your metabolism will stabilise and slow down again...as will your weight loss, if it doesn't simply grind to a complete halt.

So, if eating good healthy food won't necessarily give me longer term success, what am I missing? How does eating more actually help?

Well, it's really quite simple. It isn't about eating more with every single meal though, and therefore overeating. It's about having smaller meals, but more often, and regular healthy snacks during the day. If you eat healthy food on a little and often basis (say 6 or 7 times a day instead of the standard 3 meals we are used to), then you can teach your metabolism to work harder and better process what you eat. If you only give it enough fuel to last until the next meal then it will use that food up as energy rather than store it as fat.

So, technically, because you eat less but more often, you can end up eating more overall...and lose more weight because your body is doing all the work for you!