One of the most common mistakes made when a person is trying to lose weight is to skip meals. We naturally think that the less we eat, the more weight we will lose. Actually, the opposite is true. When we don’t eat often enough throughout the day, our bodies become low-energy, food-craving, fat-storing machines.

The reason for this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as famine response. Our bodies have no idea when our next meal is going to occur, so when you go for a long period of time without eating, your body begins to adjust accordingly.

Because it wants to avoid starvation, the body starts hanging on to all of its fat as if survival depended on it. Your metabolic rate of fat burn becomes much more sluggish and energy levels are reduced.

The solution to fix this problem is to eat small meals at three hour intervals. If you eat the wrong types of food, then you will gain weight when you eat this much. By taking in food frequently, you’ll keep your energy level at an optimum level, while allowing your metabolism to burn off those calories.

Naturally, the size of your meals will be small, but that won’t really matter since you will be eating more frequently. Make sure you are filling up on healthy foods that boost metabolism and encourage weight loss. Some great foods for raising your metabolism are grapefruit, broccoli, apples, pears, oatmeal, lean turkey, and low-fat yogurt.

Drinking water also increases your metabolism and aids weight loss. Drinking lots of water (at least 9 8-oz glasses) each day can work as a natural appetite suppressant and keep your portions small when consumed before eating. Often when we think we are hungry, it is actually our body trying to tell us that it needs fluids.

Water also acts to flush the bad toxins out of your body and reduce bloating. If you are unable to drink all of that water, try drinking green tea in place of some of the water. It also does wonders for increasing your metabolism rate.

Illogical as it may seem, it’s absolutely true that eating a larger volume of food can help you to reduce your weight. It isn’t uncommon to find that your weight loss “plateaus” after a period; sometimes you can get the process going again by briefly increasing your calorie intake for a couple of days.

After your body adjusts you will start burning up the fuel to create extra energy. You need to put that energy into workout and exercise. Don’t be surprised if you lose weight sooner than you expected to.