How eating more could improve your health and help you lose weight

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Eating more to lose weight might seem counterintuitive. But it is a health and fitness tip that has cropped up surprisingly consistently among experts I’ve interviewed.

This is not to say the calories in versus calories out model is obsolete. The laws of thermodynamics still apply; if you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight, and vice versa. But the body is a complex machine, and there is more going on than a predictable relationship between one input and one output. As such, what you eat is worthy of just as much consideration as how much you eat.

“People always think I’m going to tell them to eat less [to lose weight and improve health], but I always tell them to eat more,” says Professor Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California.

“In a world of Ozempic, what you want is a diet that makes your own GLP-1, instead of having to take pills. Now you’re less hungry, and your intestine and stomach feel full because you’re eating a lot of food.”

In other words, a larger diet filled with nourishing foods can provide the body with the nutrition it needs to operate at its best.

Fermentation expert Dr Johnny Drain recommends “eating your CAP [a colourful array of plant-based foods]” for optimal gut health. Nutrients such as protein and fibre tend to be more filling, leaving us feeling satisfied for longer. And we can eat a far greater volume of less energy-dense foods, like fruits and vegetables, while still consuming fewer calories than if we had filled up on a smattering of sugary snacks.

Restrictive diets often overlook these benefits. Their prescriptions usually prove to be unsatisfying and, as a result, unsustainable.

“We always think, ‘Oh, it’s easy [to lose weight], just eat less.’ But that’s another misconception,” adds Professor Longo. “After a while, your body starts to worry because there are too few calories coming in, so it switches into energy-saving mode. Now, counterintuitively, you may gain more weight by eating less.”

Considering diet is, by definition, the “usual food and drink a person consumes”, shouldn’t we seek a healthy way of eating we can stick with long term? This will surely serve us far better than a four-week crash diet that leaves us feeling miserable.

There is a bonus benefit to eating more, and cramming your meals full of nutritious foods, too. Everything Fat Loss author Ben Carpenter calls it “the displacement effect”.

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“I like focusing on nutritious foods you can add into your diet because they tend to have a habit of displacing other foods out of your diet,” he explains.

“For example, there is research showing that if you tell children to eat more fruit, weirdly, they often lose a little bit of body weight, and part of that is because if you tell people to eat more fruit, it’s very rarely just added on top of their diet.”

Most people know, roughly, what constitutes “nutritious food” – items packed with vitamins, minerals and more that help your body operate at its best. For those who are unsure, Carpenter provides a whistle-stop tour.

“When I say nutritious foods, these are often foods that tend to be slightly less processed, for example fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, beans and lentils and wholegrains,” he says. “Even things like rice and oats as opposed to doughnuts, pancakes and waffles – more processed versions of the equivalent grains.”

If you can prioritise these items in your meals and eat a few more of them each week, health benefits are likely to follow.

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This makes eating a balanced diet and maintaining a healthy weight seem simple and easy. And in some ways it is fairly simple – but it’s certainly not easy. If it were, everybody would do it.

It’s especially difficult because the body is an energy-conserving machine. Among our ancient ancestors, for whom food sources were scarce and unreliable, energy conservation meant survival. But in our new age of supermarkets and takeaway delivery services, this prehistoric hangover can cause us to hold more body fat, with knock-on negative impacts on our health.

There is an interesting 2019 study which could be linked to this, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. It found that “appetite is regulated more effectively at a high level of energy turnover”. In other words, weight control is improved when we are eating more and moving more.

“Whereas overeating and weight gain are likely to occur at low levels of energy turnover,” it adds. “In contrast to the prevailing concept of body weight control, the positive impact of physical activity is independent of burning up more calories and is explained by improved appetite sensations.”

The human body is designed to move, consume nutritious foods and use energy. It is at its best when doing all three of these things. So while many will pair a deskbound lifestyle with a restrictive diet to lose weight and boost health, the super duo of a plentiful, nutritious diet and regular daily movement is far more likely to deliver the results you’re after.

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