3 meals + 2 snacks = frustration

Debunking some well-kept secrets today

Let me start off with an industry secret:

If you ever see an ad depicting a woman laughing at a salad, run as fast as you can!

Such a glam picture is most likely just a curtain of smoke. Behind it you will likely find MLMs, powders, pills, expensive body treatments, starvation-based diets or cooking equipment sales schemes.

Wink wink – enter the code valentin10 for a 10% discount.

That was a test. We don’t have any commercial affiliations. Never will.

I have always hated seeing pictures of women laughing at a salad. Ladies, who the hell is so happy to see some colored leaves? How can the idea of a ​​diet make someone so content?

I guess you have figured it out by now: absolutely no one can be THAT happy.

✅ THE 3-MEALS-AND-2-SNACKS OBSESSION

You are constantly and incessantly told: you need to eat regular meals in order to lose weight.

As you well know, the standard that is promoted in the "weightloss industry" is 3 meals and 2 snacks per day.

As a rule, whether you’re going to either a diabetologist, a dietitian or an “imposter” nutritionist, you will pretty much get the same meal plan.

You'll say that things have changed in recent years, that there are all kinds of doctors out there now. That many doctors have stormed social media and recommend intermittent fasting or something – or just insert any new fad diet here.

You do know that it's one thing to recommend something because it's trendy and a totally different thing to recommend something you understand in depth.

I wrote a bunch of articles on fasting after more than a decade of practicing it myself, alongside thousands of members in our community.

Intermittent Fasting: CLICK.

One Meal A Day: CLICK.

Fasting for Weightloss: CLICK.

Let's debate this topic a little today because we all have that one overweight colleague who is an expert in diets.

You know, the one who always scolds you when you don’t eat breakfast.

✅ BREAKFAST

So you had breakfast every day until you were 25? Think about it. What did you look like then? What do you look like today?

There's a good chance you've gained weight since you started listening to those “experts” in your office/instagram and forcing yourself to eat breakfast.

I still have friends who eat breakfast every day because they heard that "that's the way it should be / it's healthy/it’s the most important meal of the day". Blah blah

When I ask them if they're hungry in the morning, their answer, in 9/10 cases, is “not really”.

---

✅ YOU’RE STILL FAT...

I fondly remember those summers I used to spend at my grandparents’ house in the countryside.

The first words my grandfather always used to say to me every summer on my first day of school vacation, upon entering the 3-month "training camp" were:

"You're still fat."

And he was right. I was fat since my early childhood. I'm glad he got to see me in shape.

---

✅ CULINARY FEAST

Every breakfast was a feast: eggs, buttermilk, an omelet with fatty meat on the side.

Only later on did I realize that I was always alone at the table.

I never saw my grandparents eat in the morning.

Probably because they ate first thing in the morning. Meaning sunrise.

Well, the city boy (me) used to wake up at 9 AM…

✅ THINGS HAVE CHANGED

When I became 14 years old, I started going out in the field with my grandfather for the daily chores. I woke up every day at 5:00.

He used to tell me: "Put the harness on the horse and let's go!"

I then used to reply: "Well, aren't we going to eat something first?"

The answer always came quickly: "Are you hungry? Come on, we got some takeaway food, we'll eat later!"

We would meet up with the other boys and men from the village. The jokes would start and then work would start as well. We had a full-on competition.

The first serious pangs of hunger would appear around 11:00 AM.

The reply was classic: "Let's keep working, the sun is burning now".

I think it would have been very interesting to tell my grandfather I was on this special diet – a snack consisting of 1/2 an apple, 3 weighed olives and a rice croquette at 11:00 AM sharp.

My grandfather would have probably laughed his ass off.

---

✅ MEALS ON A FIXED SCHEDULE

The sun was starting to burn so I would take my shirt off.

Vitamin D, anyone?

Our first meal was at noon, in the shade, after 5-6 hours of hard manual labor in the field. Our last meal was in the evening, after at least another 5 hours of digging.

Meals at fixed times? Are you kidding? My grandparents only had one clock in the house. They never wore a watch on their wrist. They didn’t need to.

---

✅ HOW ABOUT THE WEEKEND?

You might be thinking that we would have a breakfast feast on the weekends.

Let me ask you this:

What weekend?

Saturday was just another regular workday. The crops and farm animals don’t have weekends off.

On Sunday we went to church and no one ate in the morning.

Think about it.

We have strayed so far from our natural way of functioning.

So much so that we have ended up following downright illogical advice…

---

✅ WHAT ABOUT DESSERT?

The only dessert we had was on Sunday at church: we used to have coliva.

Editor’s note: coliva/koliva is a dish based on boiled wheat that is used liturgically in the Eastern Orthodox Church, usually for commemorations of the dead. It can also be found in pastry shops.

The snacks we used to have? Apples or plums straight from the tree. And we only used to do that during the season, when the fruits were ripe.

✅ EXTRA KILOGRAMS

• You gain extra weight because you eat a lot.

• You eat a lot because you don't sleep, you eat refined carbohydrates (and excess fat) that make you want more.

• You go to bed at 2 AM.

• The next day, you're stressed and you eat "sweets".

• To the above, I will also add the complete lack of exercise.

All these factors combined have helped you develop insulin/leptin resistance.

---

✅ BLUE SCREEN

• Why would you even eat 3 meals and 2 snacks?

• How could you even eat when you're not hungry?

• And when you're hungry, how would that food fit into a predetermined amount? An amount that someone else has set for you. Of foods you don't even like.

• Why would you ever get up from the table while you're still hungry?

• How could you eat at specific times?

• Why would you weigh food?

• Why would you count calories?

• Why would you keep a diary or write down everything you eat?

• Are you a high-performance athlete or do you make a living that way?

• Are you a Hollywood actor? Do you have a trainer, a chef, a driver, a nutritionist and 7 assistants?

---

✅ I USED TO DO ALL THAT

I used to do ALL these things. For years.

They are unthinkable to me today.

I did these things because I didn't know any better, I couldn't find anything else.

Fortunately, I do have this one quality (tenacity) that helped me persist.

I persisted in learning and I eventually found out the truth about "nutrition and lifestyle".

✅ THE SECRET IS...