[Lynda (OP)]

Please could you settle a mild disagreement I have with a friend.

Numerous magazines and websites advise us to eat several small meals a day to keep the body from "thinking" there is a famine therefore storing fat.

My friend says he has little or no breakfast (!), a main meal at lunchtime then fruit at teatime.   He says this is to "rest" the stomach and to allow any toxins to clear away.

As we are surrounded by toxins, in the air etc, do you think my otherwise well-educated friend is wrong?  My friend is slim built, in his 60s, and claims never to have been fat!

[chris]

This business about toxins is a load of crap, quite literally!

The body is continuously producing and excreting toxins - just take a look at how long someone survives without a liver.

The reality is that when calorie intake exceeds calorie use, then whatever is left over in the equation is stored as fat.

The worst behaviour for sustained weight loss is crash dieting and skipping meals.

This provokes the body to shift metabolically to a calorie-conserving state which translates into effective weight gain whenever the dieter has "a little treat" (usually something full of sugar and fat) for being so good. Consequently weight usually rebounds to higher and higher levels with each successive diet phase.

The most effective weight loss strategy is to aim for a gentle loss of weight by increasing calorie expenditure (that means more activity) and modestly reducing calorie intake (that means eating less, but not nothing).

The most important thing to do, however, is to realise that the reason that weight accumulated in the first place was because of lifestyle. If, once the diet is over, you resume the previous lifestyle that got you fat in the first place, you can expect to get fat again quite quickly.

This means identifying lifestyle changes that will ensure that once the weight is off, it stays off.

Chris

[SquarishTriangle]

I love this whole concept of 'detox' diets. "What are these 'toxins' and WHY ARE YOU EATING THEM?!"

[Alan McDougall]

There is no such thing a detox diet. The liver does this all the time .

Eating small meals might be a good idea but is simply is not practical. Breakfast is important "Break Fast"

[Bored chemist]

Having put paid to the thick end of £50 worth of alcohol on Friday night/ Saturday morning, I can say that there may not be a detox diet, but there's certainly a "moretox" diet and a "lesstox" diet.

[chris]

Lots of calories in alcohol, BC! Alcohol is metabolically equivalent to eating adipose tissue and has about four times the energy density of the equivalent amount of sugar. Hence "beer belly"...

Chris