(１) If you take into account the fact that “the phrase ‘to gain weight’ has two meanings”, there are several possible patterns.

[related article]→　2 meanings of the phrase "gaining weight"

(２) One or two meals a day tend to make you gain weight in the long term, but the number of meals alone does not decide if you will gain weight. The most important thing is "what to eat” and other factors can also influence.
(３) Increasing the number of meals may help you lose weight.
(４) Studies that only examine the relationship between the number of meals and obesity are useless. A reverse causality may arise when people are already big or overweight and thus eat four to five meals a day.

  Some experts say that if the total calorie you take in a day is the same, then "how many meals you eat a day does not matter," but I definitely insist that the number and timing of your meals can affect your weight gain (or loss).
  I mentioned that the phrase "to gain weight" has two meanings, so let me explain part (A) first.

  Many people think that “taking in more calories makes you gain weight”, which means going back to their Base Weight. In this case, it’s nothing to do with “how many meals you eat a day". But people who usually be on a diet and keep their weight lower, or who endure hunger in a long time, may gain weight if they eat more calories.
  As for part (B), the opposite is true: Since it is the mechanism of hunger (strictly speaking, intestinal starvation) that increases the Base Weight itself, eating more often and taking in more calories do not mean increasing the BW.
  Rather, taking in the same calories by eating more often is less likely to lead to weight gain (in the sense that your BW doesn't increase). When you feel hungry, foods enter your stomach again, which means that undigested foods are more likely to remain in your stomach and intestines.
  Therefore, eating four or five times a day for thin people to gain weight is counterproductive.
  Also, for people who want to lose weight, skipping breakfast or lunch in order to reduce calories intake and eating only two meals a day while putting up with hunger can easily increase their BW in the long run. Thus, it may lead to the opposite result.

  Based on my idea, people tend to gain weight (that means their BW increases) if they skip breakfast or lunch and eat only two meals a day. However, eating two meals a day does not necessarily make everyone overweight. And conversely, even if you eat four or five meals a day, you will not always lose weight.
  It is pointless to argue that only in terms of “how many meals a day you eat”. If I explain this relationship from the perspective of the intestinal starvation mechanism, “how many meals you eat a day” actually means "meal intervals", and that is not the deciding factor for gaining weight. The most important thing is "what to eat (quality and balance of foods)”.

(three balanced meals a day)

（another three meals a day)

  Others that may affect are "timing of eating (e.g., is lunch at 12 pm or 2 pm?)" and a person's "digestive power". This mean that, even if they eat exactly the same foods in the same way, people who can digest them faster make the state of intestinal starvation faster.

[related article]→ What does it mean to eat relatively less?

  A friend of mine in college worked part-time in a restaurant. He ate only the meal for employee there and nothing else, so he had one meal a day.
  He gained about 10 kilograms since he started working. He once could not gain weight even though he was eating three meals a day, or more calories, in high school (i.e. this is not a calorie issue).

  Another friend of mine gained more than 10 kilograms by eating four to five meals a day when he was studying for a college entrance exam after graduating from high school. He belonged to a judo(Japan’s national sport) club in high school, and was very skinny even though he ate a lot.
  But please note that it is not the five meals a day that make you fat, but what you eat (quality and balance of foods) and how you eat that matter. He told me that light meals such as sweet bread, rice balls, and cup noodles made up more than half of his meals.

  If even a light meal such as a pastry, hamburger, or rice ball counts as "one meal", how many meals you eat a day does not account for the result.

  Although what you eat is the most important thing, and I cannot make an assertion only based on the number of meals, I believe that increasing the number of meals a day is one right way to lose weight soundly.

  Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that it helps you lose weight because it is less likely to raise your blood sugar levels. Rather than enduring hunger for a long time and eating with a bang, snacking throughout a day in order not to create hunger leaves more "undigested" food in your intestines and reduces “absorption rate” first, which results in less blood sugar levels.
  I believe reducing “absorption rate” is more crucial in regard to losing weight.

  In some cases, studies only about “the number of meals” may tell a lie. For example, suppose you surveyed overweight and obese people and asked them how many meals a day they eat. Let's assume that most of them answered four to five times. But you cannot take the overall results and say “eating four or five times a day is likely to make you gain weight”.
  The reason for this, as I said earlier, is that the most important things are missing: what you eat, how you eat, and how much you eat, etc.
 Additionally, as your body gets bigger, your stomach and intestines also become bigger and have more digestive power, so it is natural that you feel hungry faster even if you eat the same amount as others.

  The phrase "gaining weight" has two meanings, and therefore there may be several patterns; surveys and studies based on only one viewpoint cannot capture the whole picture.

[related article]→2 meanings of the phrase "gaining weight"

(1) In a sense, everyone should be more likely to gain weight if they eat at night, since bones, muscles, and body fat are made mainly while they are sleeping. Especially people who usually take fewer calories to lose weight tend to gain weight when taking more calories than necessary. But in this case, it does not matter whether they eat at 7 pm or 10 pm.
(2) In terms of my intestinal starvation theory, late night eating habits can lead to increase in weight. Those people tend to skip breakfast and eat two meals a day. They may also find it difficult to eat a balanced meal late at night and the meal might be skewed towards carbohydrates, meat and junk food.
  In other words, it is because eating late at night has a significant effect on "what to eat" and "meal intervals".
(3) It is impossible to correlate the secretion of BMAL1, a protein of the "clock gene" that promotes fat synthesis, with weight gain. It would be meaningless to compare the time of eating with the amount of secretion.
(4) For some thin people, eating a heavy meal before sleeping in addition to the three meals would rather work in the direction of losing weight. Energy is used more towards digestion, which should reduce the absorption of nutrients and synthesis of cells.

  One is the removal of waste products from the brain and the organization and consolidation of memory.
  The other is body maintenance and cell regeneration. The secretion of "growth hormones" stimulates metabolism, repairs damaged cells throughout the body, recovers from fatigue, and improves the immune system. It is also said that various enzymes and tissues such as bones, muscles, and body fat are produced.
  Thus, in a sense, isn't it natural that eating late at night tend to make everyone gain weight? If you are on a diet regularly, you will realize that if you eat more calories than you need and go to bed, you will rebound a few kilograms per night. But that is when your present weight go back to your Base Weight (see Figure-1 below), and in this case, it does not matter what time of night you eat.

<Figure-1>

  I sometimes hear people say "I did not gain weight when I ate dinner around 7 pm, but after working overtime and eating at 10 pm at night, I gradually gained weight. But that is a separate issue from [1] above, and is a case of Base Weight itself going up in my intestinal starvation theory.
  First of all, many people tend to skip breakfast if they eat dinner late at night. This means they only have two meals, lunch and dinner. Also, getting home late at night and then finding a well-balanced meal can be difficult. Unless their wife prepares a meal for them, they will end up eating ramen, curry, beef bowl, etc. which they get at a convenience store or at a restaurant that is open till late. This means they will end up eating a high-calorie, nutritionally unbalanced meal.

 In other words, eating dinner late has a great impact on "what to eat" and "meal intervals". And in this case, eating late is not a "cause" of weight gain. It’s a "consequence". The cause for this is an unbalanced diet skewed towards carbohydrates and meat(fish), and putting up with hunger for hours by skipping breakfast, etc.
  One way to prevent this is to diversify meals, such as having a sandwich, cookies, or milk around 5 pm if dinner is going to be late. You should also try to eat a balanced diet.

  Many Japanese experts confuse the two meanings of [1] and [2], stating as if secretion volume of BMAL1 and weight gain are correlated.
  BMAL1 is a protein of the "clock gene" that promotes fat synthesis, and its secretion increases around 6 pm and peaks between 10 pm and 2 am, which seems to be thought as a rational behind the fact that people are several times more likely to gain weight if they eat late at night than during the day for the same calories.

  In my guess, the reason why BMAL1 peaks between 10 pm and 2 am is that if we humans have been eating dinner around 6 pm since ancient times, it peaks at just about the time of finishing digestion and absorption (to be synthesized successfully).

  If they eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner properly, I think, for most people, eating before going to bed does not cause weight gain.
  As I said earlier, if you eat a lot of calories than you need, you will definitely gain weight. It means your present weight goes back to your Base Weight.　A weight gain might be 2 or 5 kilograms, depending on the person, but it should stop at a certain weight.
  In Japan, there are a lot of people who have gastroptosis or weak stomachs, and even if they eat a dessert, sweets or a light meal before bedtime in addition to the three meals to gain weight, their bodies might still work in the direction of slimming down rather than gaining weight (at least, it is true for me).

・A "well-balanced breakfast" can help prevent obesity. On the contrary, an unbalanced or easy breakfast (a piece of bread, coffee, a slice of ham and mashed potatoes, etc) might make you gain weight.
・In other words, we cannot judge it simply based on whether people eat breakfast or not.
・In Japan, it is said that eating breakfast will increase your metabolism and make it hard to gain weight, but this is wrong. Rather, it should be explained using my "intestinal starvation theory".

 In the previous article, I introduced the idea of a "biological clock," but this time, I am going to state my own opinion about how eating breakfast affects obesity concretely.
[related article] →"Does a biological clock affect obesity? "

  The same is true of breakfast. Eating breakfast will raise body temperature and metabolism, and the nutrients and calories taken from that are consumed, so it is thought that people do not gain weight even if they eat a lot of breakfast.
  Many researchers and experts describe metabolism as a silver bullet to solving obesity, but this is an obvious mistake. It is already proven that fat people have a higher basal metabolism.

  As I mentioned at the beginning, it is more reasonable to explain this by my “intestinal starvation theory”.

First of all, when I say “eating a well-balanced breakfast make it hard for you to gain weight”, it does not mean that you take simple nutrients such as tablets, but it means that you take a variety of food (meat, vegetables, dairy products, beans, seaweed, etc.).

  Breakfast is the start of the day, and when you eat breakfast, your resting stomach and intestines start moving actively. If you eat a variety of food at that breakfast, such as fibrous vegetables, seaweed, dairy products, beans, and fish and meat products, you can prevent intestinal starvation because undigested food will remain in your intestines for a dozen hours or so (this is because our small intestines are as long as 6 to 7 meters long). In short, you are unlikely to gain weight in the sense that your Base Weight is not going to go up.

  In other words, when you eat (meal time, meal interval), what you eat, and how you eat affect obesity because they are closely related to the movement of the "intestines". This is why people who are slim by nature and have this kind of lifestyle are unlikely to change their body shape for the rest of their life, even if they eat without worrying about calories.

  On the other hand, there is the case that eating breakfast might make you more likely to gain weight (in the sense that your Base Weight goes up). It is a so-called inverted triangle-type diet, in which you have a light breakfast and lunch (or you might sometimes skip lunch) and make up for the lack of nutrition and calories by eating dinner.

 For example, you just have a light breakfast (a piece of bread, coffee and fried egg) in the morning, and also eat something like a rice ball, a hamburger or an instant noodle for lunch, contrary to the explanation in (1), you are likely to develop an intestinal starvation.

  In other words, if you combine various food and take a well-balanced breakfast, you become less likely to gain weight, but if you make it too simple, instead, you might gain weight easily. In chrono-nutrition, the theory that "eating breakfast boosts your metabolism and consumes whatever you eat afterwards" does not hold true.

  Skipping breakfast does not make everyone fat, but I think, if some conditions are met, it makes you more likely to gain weight.
  The biggest thing is simply a matter of "what to eat" and "meal intervals". Eating only two meals a day makes the meal intervals longer. Eating dinner at 8 pm means that you do not eat anything for nearly 15 hours until next lunch.
  Skipping breakfast makes you hungry, so in Japan, people tend to eat a carbohydrate- and meat-focused meal. Many people are satisfied with being full, so they sometimes lack fiber, such as vegetables.

  However, since they did not eat breakfast, there is only that lunch in their intestines. If you do not eat until 8 or 9 pm in that state, you are likely to develop an intestinal starvation (a state where everything is digested). (The same is true of between dinner and next lunch.) This is basically the same reasoning as (2), "lightening your breakfast and lunch makes you more likely to gain weight”, with a difference of “the amount you eat”.
  If you eat late at night, you can prevent yourself from developing a state of intestinal starvation by eating something such as milk or chocolate, even around 5pm.

  There are many things in common with my theory and I have no objection to the statement that eating a balanced breakfast is important not only for your health but also to prevent obesity.
  However, it is wrong to explain whether you gain weight or not, by “metabolism”. “Metabolism” is not so versatile. Rather, I think it should be explained using my “intestinal starvation" theory.

The number of diabetic patients in Japan is about 8.9 million (or 22.1 million including prediabetes) (as of 2012). Diabetes started increasing in 1970s.
  Then, you might think “it is because Japan became rich and Japanese people started to eat delicious food”, but the average daily energy intake dropped from 2210 kcal (in 1970) to 1849 kcal (in 2010).
  Nevertheless, the number of diabetics has increased nine-fold. Similarly, obesity has increased—Japanese people’s energy intake decreased by 16% from 1975 to 2010, but obesity of middle-aged and elderly people increased by 40%.

These are just theories from the book above.

 However, their internal organs do not receive the sunlight. By eating breakfast, nutrients spread to every corner of the body, informs the “peripheral nerve gene” in each cell of the arrival of the morning, and resets the 25-hour circadian rhythm to 24 hours.

  In Japan, the term “Chrono-nutrition” was used for the first time in 2008 by the Japan Society of Nutrition and Food Science. The harder you work on your diet, the more you try to decrease the amount you eat from morning until night, but the effect and influence differ significantly depending on when you take the food and nutrition.
  It is said that the following three are important:
①When to eat (the timing of the meal)
②What to eat
③How to eat (the order of eating etc)

  A brief summary of the theory of chrono-nutritionists is as follows. I will also show my argument.

  Eating breakfast informs the “peripheral nerve gene” in each cell that the morning has come and resets the biological clock. By this, your body temperature and metabolism rise and nutrients and calories you take at breakfast are going to be consumed, so even if you eat a lot, you do not gain weight. Moreover, calories you take at lunch are used for metabolism, making it less likely to be body fat.

  Aren’t they using metabolism as a “magic word”? Certainly, eating breakfast will move your body cells and increase body temperature and metabolism, but it is because nutrients come in. For a normal range of a meal, the increased metabolism should not exceed calories you take at breakfast. At least, they should have more calorie surplus than people who do not eat breakfast.
  Also, what about the saying “If you skip breakfast and eat a lot for lunch when your metabolism is low, you cannot convert it to energy and will gain weight”? This claim is also used when a dieter rebounds and gains more weight than before, but this sound strange to me. Of course, when you start eating, your metabolism may be low, but as soon as 30 minutes later, your body temperature and metabolism will rise and your body will start moving, right? Then, how much is the difference? Don’t you eat breakfast when your metabolism is low soon after you wake up?
  In other words, if you try to distinguish between slim and fat people by metabolism, all calories and nutrients are supposed to be absorbed by everyone in the same way, and only slim people break down and consume the calories as energy. Why do they need to do such a useless thing? Why don’t they save the extra valuable energy that they have taken in case they cannot eat in the future?

  Of course, I admit that balanced meals affect nervousness and concentration. However, even one slice of toast, ham and coffee increase your body temperature and provide energy for the brain. Then, how much metabolic difference is there? If a balanced diet (e.g. 700 kcal) makes it difficult to gain weight and an unbalanced diet with lower calories (e.g. instant noodles: about 350 kcal) makes it easier to be fat, something is wrong.
  Also, when you grow fruits or vegetables, isn’t it normal that if you provide them with a balanced nutrition, they tend to be larger?

  From 6 a.m. in the morning to 4 p.m., BMAL1, a clock gene protein that promotes fat synthesis is lower, so it is difficult to store food as body fat. From 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., the level of BMAL1 reaches its peak, so it is a little easier to gain fat even if you take the same calories as breakfast.

■As for a rebuttal on this argument, please see the following blog.

[Related article]　→"Does eating late at night really make you fat? "

  While the idea that the reason of gaining weight is “the total amount of calorie intake” is still pervasive, it is a great progress, that people started to understand “①When to eat, ②What to eat and ③How to eat” affect the prevention of obesity or losing weight. Also, it is clear that eating breakfast and a balanced meal is important not only for our health but also for our concentration and mental stability.
  However, the strange thing about this theory is that they are trying to explain everything that does not fit with the calorie theory, only by “metabolism”. Isn’t this a mere theory just linking “people who are slim though they eat breakfast and lunch enough” and “people who skip breakfast and tend to gain weight” to the values of “metabolic”?
  Moreover, if the relationship between the timing of the meal and nutrition determines whether people gain weight, they only need to mention “the timing of the meal” for their explanation. Nevertheless, they add ② and ③, which sounds unreasonable.
  As I mentioned in the beginning, my “intestinal starvation" theory should be more reasonable. In the following blog, I will explain “why eating a balanced breakfast leads to the prevention of obesity” based on my theory.

[Related article] → ”Why a well-balanced breakfast help prevent obesity."

(References: “The Obesity Code”: Dr. Jason Fung, 2016)
  The National Institutes of Health recruited almost 50,000 post-menopausal women for the most massive, expensive, ambitious and awesome dietary study ever done. Published in 2006, this randomized controlled trial was called the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial. This trial is arguably the most important dietary study ever done.
  Approximately one-third of these women received a series of eighteen education sessions, group activities, targeted message campaigns and personalized feedback over one year. Their dietary intervention was to reduce dietary fat, which was cut down to 20 percent of daily calories. They also increased their vegetable and fruit intake to five servings per day and grains to six servings. They were encouraged to increase exercise. The control group was instructed to eat as they normally did. Those in this group were provided with a copy of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, but otherwise received little help. The trial aimed to confirm the cardiovascular health and weight-reduction benefits of the low-fat diet.
  The average weight of participants at the beginning of the study was 169 pounds (76.8 kilograms). The starting average body mass index was 29.1, putting participants in the overweight category (body mass index of 25 to 29.9), but bordering on obese (body mass index greater than 30). They were followed for 7.5 years to see if the doctor-recommended diet reduced obesity, heart disease and cancer as much as expected.
  The group that received dietary counseling succeeded. Daily calories dropped from 1788 to 1446 a dayーa reduction of 342 calories per day for over seven years. Fat as a percentage of calories decreased from 38.8 percent to 29.8 percent, and carbohydrates increased from 44.5 percent to 52.7 percent. The women increased their daily physical activity by 14 percent. The control group continued to eat the same higher-calorie and higher-fat diet to which they were accustomed.
  The results were telling. The“Eat Less, Move More”group started out terrifically, averaging more than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) of weight loss over the first year. By the second year, the weight started to be regained, and by the end of the study, there was no significant difference between the two groups.
  Did these women perhaps replace some of their fat with muscle? Unfortunately, the average waist circumference increased approximately 0.39 inches (0.6 centimeters), and the average waist-to-hip ratio increased from 0.82 to 0.83 inches (2.1 centimeters), which indicates these women were actually fatter than before. Weight loss over 7.5 years of the Eat Less, Move More strategy was not even one single kilogram (2.2 pounds).
  This study was only the latest in an unbroken string of failed experiments. Caloric reduction as the primary means of weight loss has disappointed repeatedly.

  Many people tell me, “I don't understand. I eat less. I exercise more. But I can't seem to lose any weight.” I understand perfectly-because this advice has been proven to fail. Do caloric-reduction diets work? No.
(Overeating experiments)
  THE HYPOTHESIS THAT eating too much causes obesity is easily testable. You simply take a group of volunteers, deliberately overfeed them and watch what happens. If the hypothesis is true, the result should be obesity.  Luckily for us, such experiments have already been done. Dr. Ethan Sims performed the most famous of these studies in the late 1960s.
  Could he make humans deliberately gain weight? This question, so deceptively simple, had never before been experimentally answered. After all, we already thought we knew the answer. Of course overfeeding would lead to obesity.
  But does it really? Sims recruited lean college students at the nearby University of Vermont and encouraged them to eat whatever they wanted to gain weight. But despite what both he and the students had expected, the students could not become obese.
  Dr. Sims changed course. Perhaps the difficulty here was that the students were increasing their exercise and therefore burning off the weight, which might explain their failure to gain weight. So the next step was to overfeed, but limit physical activity so that it remained constant. For this experiment, he recruited convicts at the Vermont State Prison. Attendants were present at every meal to verify that the caloriesー4000 per dayーwere eaten. Physical activity was strictly controlled
  A funny thing happened. The prisoners' weight initially rose, but then stabilized. Though at first they'd been happy to increase their caloric intake, as their weight started to increase, they found it more and more difficult to overeat, and some dropped out of the study.
  After the experiment ended, body weight quickly and effortlessly returned to normal. Most of the participants did not retain any of the weight they gained.
（low-carb diet）
  Longer-term studies of the Atkins diet failed to confirm the much hoped-for benefits. Dr. Gary Foster from Temple University published two-year results showing that both the low-fat and the Atkins groups had lost but then regained weight at virtually the same rate.
  But why? What happened? One of the founding principles of the low-carbohydrate approach is that dietary carbohydrates increase blood sugars the most. High blood sugars lead to high insulin. High insulin is the key driver of obesity. Those facts seem reasonable enough. What was wrong?
（metabolism）
  Since losing weight reduces total energy expenditure, many obese people assume that they have a slow metabolism, but the opposite has proved to be true. Lean subjects had a mean total energy expenditure of 2404 calories, while the obese had a mean total energy expenditure of 3244 calories, despite spending less time exercising. The obese body was not trying to gain weight. It was trying to lose it by burning off the excess energy. So then, why are the obese... obese?

  Recently, I receive a lot of e-mails from Japanese readers asking “what should I do to lose weight?”
  Although this blog is not a diet blog, since I’m writing the reason why you gain weight, naturally, I must know the way to lose weight and I felt that I should write about it. This time, I will only write “the theory to lose weight” based on my own opinion.

Just like the phrase “gain weight” has two meanings, “lose weight” also has two meanings.
【related article】→2 meanings of the phrase "gaining weight"

  The first way is by reducing the amount you eat, reducing the calories you take by low fat foods, and doing more exercise to grow calorie consumption. In this method, you must always experience hunger.
  I consider that humans have a function to maintain one’s present condition, and I assumed the weight is based on that as the “Base weight.” When you reduce the amount you eat (calorie intake) and a hunger state continues, your body will try to minimize the change by
・increasing absorption rate in order to take maximum nutrition
・decreasing calorie consumption (and base metabolism) in order to suppress wasteful consumption

  Even if you lose a little weight with your hard work, I believe it is only temporally and most people will rebound because their Base Weight hasn’t changed.
I will introduce a book explaining that, “too much intake of calories, carbohydrates and fat is not the fundamental cause of obesity”.
 <References: “The Obesity Code”: Dr. Jason Fung, 2016>

  In a word, since the over intake of calorie and carbohydrate is not the basic cause of obesity, it shows that even when you reduce calorie and carb intake, the problem of obesity will not be solved.

  Another way is to lower your “Base Weight” itself, which is the base to maintain present condition. It means to get “a body that will not gain weight even with eating” like people who are thin but eat more than you do.

I will quote the same reference related to this.
 (References: “The Obesity Code”: Dr. Jason Fung, 2016)

  The “set point” of weight that Dr. Jason Fung mentions can be regarded as the same as my “Base Weight.”
(He seems to consider the reason of this “set point” is “insulin resistance,” and the way to lower the set point was quite different from my consideration.)
  I am repeatedly telling you that “you have to lower the Base Weight (the set point of weight) to avoid a rebound.”

  Dr. Jason Fung, the author of “The Obesity Code”, considers it is necessary to remove insulin resistance and recommends fasting for that. In my opinion, I believe it could be resolved by “eating based on certain rules” rather than not eating.
  If the fundamental cause of gaining weight was based on long-time hunger (intestinal starvation mechanism), the opposite status of keeping more indigestible food in your intestines should make you lose weight (lower your Base Weight). (“keeping undigested food in the intestines”= you don’t need to store body fat)

  Meanwhile, “lower Base Weight” in my definition does not mean improving metabolism but rather “lowering the absorption ability”.
  In the following blog, I explained “why you gain weight in intestinal starvation”. I believe that the opposite status will create a body to lose weight without rebounding.

【related article】→What is it to “gain weight by starvation status”?

  The main Point is not to keep your stomach “hungry”. For that, eating meat, fish, fat, fiber-rich vegetable, seaweed, nuts, dairy product in dispersed ways will do. (Reduce the time you feel hungry. If possible, eat just before you get hungry when your hunger is about 80 to 90%)

• Reduce carbohydrate (rice, bread, potato etc.) by 1/2 to1/3.
• Take low G.I. carbohydrates such as brown rice, whole-grain bread, cold rice (starch will be difficult to digest once cooled down) and Ar dente past.
• Increase the amount of fat such as oil.
• Increase the amount of fiber-rich vegetable and seaweed.
• Eat more meat, fish, diary product and nuts.(For fish, it’s better to take fatty fish like mackerel and sardine rather than white fish)
• If you feel hungry between meals, you can eat something.
• Of course, you can combine with aerobic exercise but make sure to eat first

  “Fat” is the source of our energy, but is the cause of gaining weight at the same time. I think it’s a food that has dieting effects if we take it in a correct way.
  Fat is regarded as the cause of “gaining weight” because it has “high nutrition density”. However, high nutrition density food takes more time to digest, so if you take it from time to time, you can lose weight. It is true that if someone who is usually starving takes fat, he may gain weight, but the difference is how we eat it and not the amount of calories.
【related article】→3 perspectives regarding dietary fat

  In a similar case, by taking enzymes or medication that slows the digestive process, it is thought to have the same effect. I think it could be a proper way (cost-effective too) to treat obesity. (However I am not aware there is such a medicine or treatment yet. This is just a theory for now.) However supplement reducing absorption medication may be temporary and meaningless.
  By lowering “digestive ability” so that undigested food would stay longer in intestines, I believe you can get the same effect as the (1) method. This is a quite natural way for the same reason as “there are those who stay thin even if they eat”.

  For those who reduce calories to lose weight, intake calories may increase. So it might sound weird that you will lose weight by eating more.
  However, reducing calorie intake is not the final point. In short terms, it is necessary to reduce carbs and calories in order to lose weight. But to lose weight in long terms, it is important to lower the Base Weight (the set point) by keeping indigestible food in the intestines and changing to a body that won’t store fat. (this is 2-step way)
  Of course, the energy intake and output should be equal. It must be. However, what should be equal are “absorbed energy” and consumed energy and not the amount of calorie index of what you eat.
  It is said that calorie index is calculated based on “combustion heat” but the chemical reaction inside the body must be much more complex. Those who gain weight with a small amount of food should be gaining more energy than the calorie index and those who won’t gain weight (including me) gain less amounts of calories than the calorie index.
  In Japan, there are various ways of dieting by eating and many people have their own interpretation of “losing weight by eating”.

  However, I bet none of these are true since “why we gain weight” is not recognized correctly and calorie /carbohydrates over intake is currently regarded as the main cause of obesity.

  Losing weight is a 2-step process. This is because, as I’ve mentioned several times, gaining weight has 2 steps and it’s the same structure.

I’m going to explain the core part of this blog.
Some of you might think it’s different from what you expected, but I’m writing what I actually experienced. I was so thin that my weight was less than 40kg so I was able to clearly understand why I gained weight so rapidly (around 5 kg in a few days).

  However, please understand that this is a true state of starvation (malnutrition) in which the people can’t eat even if they want to and I’m stating that it is different from “intestinal starvation”.
  African refugees can’t eat digestible foods and by being malnutrition, their digestive ability decreased. On the other hand, in developed countries we can take high-quality nutrition and digestible European food. Therefore, if we focus inside the intestines, we are more prone to be in an intestinal starvation status.
  As a matter of fact, obesity is a problem even among the world’s poor. Common to them is the “quality” and “balance” of food, not the excess consumption of calories, carbohydrate and sugar.

  In my blog, I’ve said intestinal starvation increases your Base Weight and I want to explain it here. For the purpose of explanation, I’ve used plants as my example.

 (2) Using an example of a plant (figure below), gaining weight by the increase of Base Weight due to intestinal starvation could be explained in the same way as a plant that is extending its roots.

  When there is not enough nutrition, plant roots grow deeper seeking for nutrition and in the same way in our intestines of 6 to 7 meters when all foods have been digested, it seeks further nutrition. It is said that “the small intestine is the second brain” or “they have a will” and I’ve actually felt the will of my small intestine.
Although the villus of intestine won’t actually become longer, something similar to plant roots will happen. If the amount of the absorption and ability increases (*) and even if you eat the same thing over time, you will gain weight. (It may be 3 kg in a year or 3 kg in a few days)
 (*) It is said that villus of small intestine is about the size of the tennis court if unfolded and its purpose is for absorbing more nutrition.

 If your Base Weight increases, it basically means that that is the point where “weight is well-balanced”. Temporally reducing calories to lose weight means reducing fertilizer in the example of a plant. Even if you could lose weight temporally, your weight will basically go back to the original weight as soon as you start eating normal food.
We often hear about rebounding after losing weight, but this is because skipping meals and experiencing hunger for losing weight induces intestinal starvation and the absorption level increases.

  Since digestive enzymes and hormones are made from protein (amino acid), digestive ability and appetite is thought to increase at the same time.
  There is nothing mysterious about a big person or persons with a strong stomach that can eat more than others. It’s not that they gain weight because they eat more, but rather, the bigger their body is, the more hungry they become, and in turn eat more. This reversal phenomenon of cause and effect exists.

  Even if everyone eats exactly the same amount, people with a big body/ obese will be experiencing hunger, more often, so it means they eat relatively less and tend to gain weight more. It may be a vicious circle where a person eats modest amounts and gains weight, and if they overwhelm their intake amount, they gain even more weight (rapidly). 

【related article】→What does it mean to eat relatively less?

  Also, for a person too thin like me, getting thinner means decreasing the amount of protein / nutrition intake (I’m still lightly anemic) and it results in less muscle supporting the stomach and less digestive ability. This is the vicious circle for a person who can’t gain weight.

  Some people are not obese despite eating a lot of calories, whereas others that are obese eat less or fewer calories. The same thing can be said for carbohydrates and sugar.
  Although it is said that various factors such as the number of meals, eating speed, eating breakfast or not, late dinners, snacks, processed foods, lack of vegetables and fat in addition to the above affects obesity, however I believe the intestinal starvation mechanism and “relativeness” can explain it.

  As I’ve already explained, please understand that the phrase “gaining weight” has two meanings.

【related article】→2 meanings of the phrase "gaining weight"

  The Mechanism many people refer to as “get fat by eating a lot” is (B) in the graph below. When (A) intestinal starvation mechanism occurs, there are various factors related.

  For example, starch such as refined flour tends to cause starvation status, and fiber and fat prevent it. This is why people say you won’t gain weight if you eat a well-balanced diet.

Also, since our intestine is about 6 to 7 meters long, you won’t gain weight by eating unbalanced food just only once, but if you continue eating such meals, you will be more likely to gain weight. This is why there are people who are likely to gain weight and who aren’t. I can explain why there is more obesity among poor people.
  A well-balanced breakfast with dairy products and vegetables will leave fiber and fat inside intestine for a long time, so it will prevent obesity, however, a breakfast with ham, toast and coffee only, could be a cause of gaining weight. What I want to say here is that whether eating breakfast or not, alone it can’t be the deciding factor.

  Also, even if we eat the same amount, those who digest faster tend to gain weight and those with weak stomachs would have undigested food inside their stomach longer, so they won’t gain weight. This is why we can’t explain the different weight gain, despite the same intake amount and calorie amount.

【related article】→What does it mean to eat relatively less?

  When we do exercise (especially muscle exercise), the body will accelerate taking nutrition into the body, so it actually moves to the direction of gaining weight. However, people who do exercise such as athletes tend to eat well-balanced meals, so they won’t have the starvation mechanism and won’t gain weight, despite the large amount they eat.

【related article】→Misunderstanding of the relationship between diet, exercise and body weight

  In a broad sense, there are two meanings.

 (1) Simply speaking, those who experience “hunger” relatively more tend to gain weight. However, strictly speaking, simple hunger won’t make us fat. The status in which “all foods are digested” in the intestines which is 6 or 7 meters long would be regarded as “no food status” and it makes us tend to gain weight.

 (2) The other meaning of “relativeness” is that “intestinal starvation” occurs under various conditions happening simultaneously or overlapping.
  That is to say, it won’t occur under just one condition but by “relativity with other conditions”. Meaning that one single reason such as skipping breakfast, eating late at night or eating junk food is not enough to induce intestinal starvation. This is because our intestines are about 6 to 7 meters long.
  Although there are several conditions happening simultaneously, the following (a) to(d) have the principal influence.

【related article】→3(+1) Factors to Accelerate “Intestinal Starvation”

♦If there are genetic factors, I believe the factors below must affect overall strongly.
・Power of digestion (difference by family or race. Of course, it may change after birth)
・Character (not hasty. Calm and slow character)
・Preference of food (vegetable and diary product etc.), interest in food (diet balance)

  When my total body weight fell down to around 35kg, it would have been impossible to have gained weight without the help of carbohydrates. In my case, neither oil (fat) nor sugar could have done that … In other words, I would never have gained weight by eating cream-filled cakes or oily pork cutlets and Chinese food. I am going to explain the reason next.
  To be precise, I don’t mean all “carbohydrates,” but just refined digestible carbohydrates (such as white bread, rice, potato, starch etc.).

  Thus, in the case of brown rice, fried rice, whole-grain bread and al dente cooked pasta etc., the result may be different even though they are the same carbohydrates. These are known as foods that won’t increase blood sugar levels (glycemic index, resistant starch) but in short, they are “indigestible”.

  When you always eat indigestible foods, such as the above-referenced carbohydrates that don’t increase the blood sugar level, oil (fat), high-fiber vegetable, seaweed and dairy products, it can be said that it is difficult to gain weight: “Base Weight” in my definition is unlikely to go up.
  As I have already explained, each person’s Base Weight level will not go up since the body recognizes that “the state which undigested foods are still in the intestine” = “there are still foods” → “there is no need to store.”
  I’m saying that it is difficult to gain weight if a thin person eats properly every day.
  Although a person who has already gained weight may not lose weight by eating some, I consider this that it may be possible to lose weight depending on how you eat them, since these foods are always discussed in dieting techniques.

  You may have heard the word “PFC Balance (protein, fat, carbohydrate)” and currently in Japan, it is said to be ideal to take 50 to 65% of energy from carbohydrate in average (Food Intake Standard-2015). However, I believe many people take still around 70%.
  If you proportionally increase digestible carbohydrates, the percentage of side dishes such as fat, meat, fish and vegetables will be relatively smaller. The density of a spoonful of oil will be lower if you add water by doubling your bread or rice portions.
  Raw egg is indigestible but if you eat together with bread and coffee, the density of the egg will be lower.

  If the amount of side dishes are the same for everyone, the one who has relatively more carbs and water will be sending diluted nutrition to the intestine. So it will be easier to be hungry (intestinal starvation).
  For example, let’s say I eat a hamburger and a potato, another piece of bread and tea altogether.

※ On calorie basis, broccoli mayonnaise salad is about 70 to 100kcal. However, adding it to the meal doesn’t have the same meaning as adding another piece of bread . This is why calorie intake basis thinking may go wrong.
  On the other hand, what would happen if I proportionally decrease carbohydrate? As you can see in low-carb diet, if I decrease the carbohydrates of the main meal and increase proteins such as meat and fish, oil or vegetables, I can send nutrition of higher density to my intestine.

  Though our stomach does expand after we eat, since it’s easy to digest, it will start moving actively and smoothly. I had the problem with my stomach and intestines and suffered often from constipation or diarrhea, but this resolved it several times. And not just that our stomach starts to move but since the foods are digestible, it will be easier to be in an intestinal starvation state.
  On the other hand, though there are people who say taking meals with a lot of oil (Chinese food or fried food) will give us stamina, it actually means that it stays in stomach for a longer time and its energy could be sustained during sports. That is to say, since its holding time in stomach will be longer, it will be more difficult for us to become hungry (intestinal starvation).

(1) I consider sugar (monosaccharide, disaccharide) and polysaccharid (starch, cereal) can not be put into the same category since they have slightly different characteristics.
  Recently-popular low-carb diets pay attention only to the “characteristics that increase blood sugar rate easily” so I don't believe it’s sufficient.
(2) Obesity among poverty stricken people worldwide can be understood as the influence of cheap carbohydrates (cereal, starch) and unbalanced foods (lack of vegetable etc.). Considering them, it may be easier to imagine that they are not gaining weight due to taking too much calories or sugar, but rather from consuming cheap carbohydrates as mentioned above.
(3) Also, the fact that Sumo wrestlers (Japanese national sports) eat hot pot dishes called “Chanko-nabe” with a lot of rice in order to make their bodies larger is a very logical view in this sense.

・Up through the 1960s, there were some research and studies that obese people were able to lose weight by replacing many of their carbohydrates to plenty of dietary fats or meats, etc, without thinking about calories.
  On the contrary, when overweight students were put on conventional semi-starvation diets, they lost little weight and they were discouraged because they were always conscious of being hungry.
・in the 1960s, few doctors were willing to accept a cure for obesity predicated on the notion that fat people can eat large portions of food. They believed that the obvious reason of obesity is that fat people eat too much.
・Health officials had come to believe that dietary fat causes heart disease, and that carbohydrates are “heart-healthy" in the 1960s.
  As a result, doctors and nutritionists started attacking carbohydrate restricted diets because they believed dietary fat causes heart attacks and that a diet that replaces carbohydrates with more fatty foods threatens to kill us.

In Japan, Locabo diet (meaning a low-carb diet) was popular around 2015, but when we look around the world, this way was repeatedly conducted since the 1800s.
 Though there will be a lot of quotes, I will explain this. This is very interesting in view of my theory.

(Note: This is common with my blog and the point made by Mr. Gary Taubes)

 As you can see, it seems that reducing carbohydrates and sugar and eating more other things would lead to resolving obesity... but here is the basic rule of calories.

 This belief in the carbohydrate as "heart-healthy” started in the 1960s and it couldn't be reconciled with the idea that carbohydrates make us fat. After all, if dietary fat causes heart attacks, then a diet that replaces carbohydrates with more fatty foods threatens to kill us, even if it slims us down in the process. As a result, doctors and nutritionists started attacking carbohydrate restricted diets (pp.159-160)
 The Times article, “New Diet Decried by Nutritionists: Dangers Are Seen in Low Carbohydrate Intake,” quoted Harvard's Jean Mayer as claiming that to prescribe carbohydrate-restricted diets to the public was “the equivalent of mass murder.”
 First, as the Times explained, “It is a medical fact that no dieter can lose weight unless he cuts down on excess calories, either by taking in fewer of them, or by burning them up." We now know that this is not a medical fact, but the nutritionists didn't in 1965, and most of them still don't.
 Second, because these diets restrict carbohydrates, they compensate by allowing more fat. It's the high-fat nature of the diets, the Times explained, that prompted Mayer to make the mass murder accusation.(p.161)
(Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes)

  This time, I’d like to simply introduce “Locabo” diet in Japan and Sugar Busters in the U.S.. As I’ve said repeatedly in my blog, the direct cause of obesity is due to the “intestinal starvation mechanism” and not the amount of calories or carbohydrates that we eat. So, the reason I presented this article is to show that

(1) Carbohydrates do not have a direct, but indirect effect that makes people more prone to gain weight.

【related article】 →Carbohydrates make it easier for people to gain weight, its meaning other than just calories

(2) The right way of losing weight, I have been thinking is closer to that of a Locabo and a Sugar Busters diet. Locabo and Sugar Busters diets are a kind of proof, showing that people are able to lose weight even if they eat a lot of calories, especially fat.
  I think that the important point is people were able to lose weight even though they consumed a lot of meat, cheese and oil or just simply ate a lot without thinking of the calories.

  I wrote this article in Japanese in 2016 and at that time, carbohydrate restriction diets were becoming popular. It’s called “Locabo” which is a new word created after the English phrase “a low-carb diet”.
  First, I want to explain “Locabo” which is said to be effective for abnormal blood sugar, diabetes and dieting.

  Locabo is not strict, but rather a "loose" carbohydrate restriction. By definition, the diet tries to keep the carbohydrate intake amount per day to around 70 to 130 grams in total, by taking 20 to 40 gram per meal, 3 times a day and also a dessert or sweets up to 10 grams.
  The difference from a strict carbohydrate restriction is that by eating at least 70grams of carbohydrate, it avoids an extremely-low-carbohydrate condition that results in Keton body formation. Also, a strict carbohydrate diet makes food choice very limited but Locabo has a variety of foods you can enjoy. As long as you keep reducing carbohydrate intake, you can eat a variety of foods such as meat, fish, cheese and vegetable dishes etc. without thinking about calories.

 In Japan, the majority of people are still believing that “calorie restriction” is necessary to lose weight, but I feel it’s shifting gradually to carbohydrate restriction. I want to introduce its background.

In Japan, when Locabo diet became popular around 2015, people believed it was a new dieting method. However, when we look around the world, this was the way it has been repeatedly conducted since the 1800s.
I’ll explain this in the link below. ↓
Debate whether carbohydrate makes us fat or calorie makes us fat

  It is said that restaurants in a town created the Sugar Busters Menu and made this movement even stronger. It’s surprising that this was done more than 15 years before the rise of the carbohydrate restriction boom in Japan.

  The reason for gaining weight is said to be from “intake calories＞consumed calories” and there are people who try losing weight just by decreasing the amount they eat.
  For example, by eating only a rice ball and a piece of fried chicken, or a hamburger and a drink for lunch.... These people say they are hungry but continue experiencing hunger for long periods of time.

  Therefore, she ate half of her meal such as rice and meat and never any vegetables. She was always saying “I’m starving...” but continued experiencing hunger and stopped from eating snacks.
  And the result...? She didn’t lose weight but rather, she seemed to have gained a little.

  In his case, he starts working at 6 am but never eats breakfast.
For lunch, he only eats a small amount rice and meat (or fish) dish. He rarely eats vegetable dishes such as salad and Nimono (Japanese traditional vegetable stew). He gained 2 kg more in the following year.

 The problem here was that they thought “reducing calories (from carbohydrate, fat and meat, etc) is enough” in order to lose weight and that they thought they have to keep experiencing hunger in order to lose weight.
  As a result, they didn’t eat fiber from vegetables, fat and milk products so their Base Weight increased by creating an intestinal starvation mechanism.

There are 2 ways of how intestinal starvation mechanism works.
  (1) Taking an unbalanced meal with a lot of carbohydrate and meat (not enough vegetables). Many of them skip breakfast and only eat once or twice a day and experience hunger in long hours.

(2) Eating small portions with carbohydrates and meat (not enough vegetables). Many of them eat 3 times a day but often experience hunger in long hours.

  In conclusion, whether you eat a lot of calories or a little, an unbalance of food in the intestine doesn’t change. Experiencing hunger in long hours is the same in view of creating intestinal starvation mechanism. Eating vegetable dishes, milk products and fat, etc is important in regards to preventing an intestinal starvation mechanism, but those people in the above examples choose not to eat them.

・Losing weight by doing exercise is temporary and it’s possible to rebound. Basically, exercise, workout(※) is a power accelerating to the direction of gaining weight (※especially muscle training) .
・However, the priority is in how you control your “diet”. The way a person controls their diet (when to eat, what to eat, how to eat etc) has a huge effect on whether we gain weight or not.
・Originally lean people doing sports eat 3 balanced meals per day, and it hinders increasing their Base Weight since some undigested foods tend to remain in their intestines throughout the day.
 In contrast, people who quite doing exercise or live sedentary lives tend to eat light or skip their meals. Such a situation can create intestinal starvation and lead to an increase of their Base Weight.

  However, with my 3 basis, relationship between diet, exercise and body weight, it becomes much easier to explain:
(1) each person has the function to maintain their present condition
(2) the phrase “gain weight” has 2 meanings
(3) Base Weight (set weight) increases by the intestinal starvation mechanism.

  I repeat, but those who believe that “eat more and you’ll gain weight /exercise more and you’ll lose weight” are seeing things in this way(figure below). They are thinking that “intake and consumption are opposite and the difference between them would result in gaining weight (or losing weight)”.

However, it’s actually like this (figure below).

  Intake amount (A) and consumption amount (C) is mediated by the absorption. Therefore, as the consumption amount (C) increases, appetite and absorption rate and capacity(B) would increase relatively. Also, the increase of intake amount (A) not automatically increases absorption rate and capacity(B).

If there is no need to exercise to lose weight….

There is no meaning in simply calculating calories

  Though exercise does consume energy once, there will be a reaction to regain consumed energy. There is some kind of a law that “consumed energy would be regained”. It’s the same thing as your hands become hot after playing with cold snow.

  However, whether you gain weight or not depends on how you control your “diet”.
“Diet” is always the priority.
  This is why false theories emerge like “people exercising everyday are lean, even if they eat a lot".

First, I want to explain by several patterns.

  Those who do exercise pay attention to nutrition and take nutritional supplement other than 3 meals. It’s because we think “I have to eat nutritiously” or “I have to eat properly” when we do exercise.
  In other words, originally lean people doing sports such as football and marathons take 3 balanced meals per day. And that would prevent increasing their Base Weight because intestinal starvation mechanism never occur (Some undigested foods tend to remain in their intestines throughout the day).
  Their misunderstanding is that they believe “I won't gain weight even if I eat a lot because I’m consuming” or “I won't gain weight even if I eat a lot because I have high metabolism”. “Consuming” is not completely wrong but eating a well-balanced meal 3 times a day actually has more meaning.

  There are people who say “though I didn’t gain weight when I was young even if I ate a lot, recently I don’t do exercise so I’m gaining weight....” but in other words, it means that they didn’t gain weight when they were young since they ate a proper diet 3 times a day, but now they are eating light meals (with less vegetable) and are experiencing hunger for a long time, so they’re gaining weight.

  However, he gained more than 10kg in just a year when he failed the university entrance exams on the first try. He said it was because he didn’t do any exercise but even studying uses calories in brain.
  When I asked the details, it seemed the most part of his daily diet, even more than half, was something simple to eat such as rice ball, snack bread or instant noodles.

  Though fighters and Sumo wrestlers (Japanese national sport) do exercise, they need to gain weight due to the characteristics of the sports. However, we often hear that even if some fighters eat a lot and take protein supplements other than 3 meals per day, it’s difficult to gain more muscle and weight.
  On the other hand, those who don’t want to gain weight, sometimes put on some weight easily. This is because the intestinal starvation mechanism is necessary in order to gain weight. Those who exercise hard think they need to take sufficient nutrition (milk product, protein, fat, vegetables etc.) but those who don’t do any exercise or live sedentary lives tend to eat lightly or skip their meals.

  In addition to this, they always do an early morning practice not eating breakfast. They eat only twice a day(at 11:00 am and 6:00 pm) after practice. So all the foods they ate are able to digest in the whole intestines easily and their Base Weight increases.
  We can see that they are directing “the power to gain weight" and “the intestinal starvation mechanism” in the same direction. That is to say, it’s very logical in view of gaining weight.

  Is there any meaning in strictly comparing consumed calories with the daily calorie intake? We can’t see how many calories we consume. Similarly, we can never really see how many calories we intake because calories and nutrition are absorbed in the intestines. 
  However, most people follow the calorie count strictly from what they ate and always compare them with the assumed consumed calories. I think what is important is the absorbed calories only.
 (Though it might be a theory that is difficult to understand for those with average weight, I believe those with too much or too less weight would understand)

  I think trying to compare everything based on the daily calorie intake is causing various distortions and contradictions. There are those who don’t eat much but are overweight or those who eat much but are slim, never gain weight. It is true that some people who are overweight often eat a lot but it’s because :

 "The first law states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In other words, energy can be converted from one form to another, but the total amount of energy in the universe remains constant. How might this law apply to weight management?

  Is this true for human beings? Actually, no: the human body does indeed exchange matter with its surroundings, principally in the form of the food (matter in) and as waste products such as urine and faeces (matter out). Also, technically speaking, the first law refers to systems in which chemical reactions do not take place. 

  I have a reason I wanted to write such an article. I actually felt I couldn’t absorb enough nutrition and actually sensed this in my intestines when I was extremely thin around 30 something kg. At that time, I couldn’t gain weight regardless of what I ate. Though it was certainly pathological, I thought it was a problem of the amount of the absorption rate.
  And although it was only once, I gained more than 5kg in a short period of time (about 3 days) and I was able to sense at that very moment that I was gaining weight throughout my body. After that, when my weight recovered about 50kg, I was able to keep the weight even though I didn’t eat as much as I did before (since my Base Weight increased).

  However, if body fat is saved as a preparation for starvation (since we never know when we could eat the next time), would the body break down or metabolize the precious energy source in vain? If everyone absorbs in the same way and “those who are thin/slim are using extra energy by high metabolism”, isn’t it unnatural?
  It’s often said that gaining muscle will raise metabolism but isn’t that because we are shown figures such as a shaped up model as seen on advertisements?
  But I actually think that those who are thin have less muscle and those who are overweight have more muscle under their body fat. If that’s the case, it will lead us to believe that those who are overweight with much muscle are easy to lose weight, and those who are thin with less muscle are easy to gain weight which are contradictory.
  This isn’t a good thing for specialists who are just trying to justify themselves such as doctors, nutritionists etc. to explain why people get fat.

First, please read “If there is no need to exercise to lose weight…".

▽I wanted to say the same thing, but since the words of a sports professional is much more creditable so I just quoted him.
The book called “Get Slim with Exercise” always refers to eating habits. Its content is to avoid junk food. Eat traditional Japanese food and dishes that improves metabolism. I think the recent trend is to eat enough and do exercise.

"Faith in the health benefit of physical activity is now so deeply ingrained in our consciousness….
But the question I want to explore here is not whether exercise is fun or good for us or a necessary adjunct of a healthy lifestyle, as the authorities are constantly telling us, but whether it will help us maintain our weight if we're lean, or lose weight if we're not. The answer appears to be no. (P41)  *snip*

▽Other experts took to arguing that we could lose weight by weightlifting or resistance training rather than the kind of aerobic activity, like running, that was aimed purely at increasing our expenditure of calories. (P54)

If we replace five pounds of fat with five pounds of muscle, which is a significant achievement for most adults, we will increase our energy expenditure by two dozen calories a day.

Once again, we're talking about the caloric equivalent of a quarter-slice of bread, with no guarantee that we won't be two-dozen-calories-a- day hungrier because of this. And once again we're back to the notion that it might be easier just to skip both the bread and the weightlifting."  (PP.54-55)

（Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes）

“Body fat is a stored energy so the body won’t use it so easily. Even if you exercise real hard or work hard to get slim in short term, glycogen is mainly consumed, which is the quick energy stored in the liver and muscle. Glycogen is a glucide and when we consume glycogen, the body wants to recover it by gaining more glucides by eating sweet things. *snip*

What we need to pay attention to is that even in half of 200 kcal, 100 kcal is fat, we can’t just simply add it everyday. Please remember the previous article “consumed energy will always come back”. We can’t be sure that we end up taking 100 kcal extra at the end of the day and even if the calorie intake for the day is the same, absorption rate will be higher in order to cover the loss. So, you can see the reason losing weight stagnates at some point.
 

I want to explain how dietary restriction and exercise which are said to be indispensable for dieting are meaningless. “Keep moving without eating will make you slim” is a truth (we can die from that) but we need at least a few meals a day in order to keep our daily life, so in that case, it no longer stands as a truth.
  

1. Subconscious can’t understand negative form so however we try “not to eat”, what we see in the brain is food. However strong your will is, we can’t seem to beat the power of the subconscious (said to be 97 to 99%) driven by image, therefore we want to eat even more.
   
   
2. It might work if it’s your favorite sports, but you can’t continue the sports you don’t like.(Takuro Mori)
   
   
3. The exercise will raise your appetite so you will even get more stress by not eating.
   
   
4. People naturally tend to move less during the rest of their day once they do more exercise. （Dr.John Briffa）
   
   
5. Long exercise might consistently increase cortisol concentration and this will promote storing body fat.（Dr.John Briffa）
   
   
6. Though you might get slim once, it’s the same as the dieting of a boxer which is temporary. Doing exercise with an empty stomach tends to create “starvation mechanism” and heightens the possibility of rebounding and gaining even more weight. (my theory)

And I think that the reason why such a wrong view of dieting is still believed is due to the misunderstood view between the relationships of “diet, exercise and weight”.

【related article】→　"Misunderstanding of the relationship between diet, exercise and body weight"
  

■(One study was published in 2006)  Paul Williams (a statistics expert at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Peter Wood (a Stanford University researcher) collected detailed information on almost thirteen thousand habitual runners and then compared the weekly mileage of these runners with how much they weighed from year to year.
Those who ran the most tended to weigh the least, but all these runners tended to get fatter with each passing year, even those who ran more than forty miles a week－eight miles a day, say, five days a week. (P.45)

■In 1977, for instance, in the midst of the exercise explosion, the National Institutes of Health hosted its second ever conference on obesity and weight control, and the assembled experts concluded that "the importance of exercise in weight control is less than might be believed, because increases in energy expenditure due to exercise also tend to increase food consumption, and it is not possible to predict whether the increased caloric output will be outweighed by the greater food intake." (P.52)

In August 2007, the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) published joint guidelines on physical activity and health. Thirty minutes of moderately vigorous physical activity, they said, five days a week, was necessary to "maintain and promote health.”

But when it came to the question of how exercising affects our getting fat or staying lean, these experts could only say:
"It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time, compared with those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling." (PP.43-44)

*snip*

The relationship between exercise and weight is “more complex” than they might otherwise have imagined. (P.45) 
Maybe it’s something other than the calories we consume and expend that determines whether we get fat." (P.46)

(Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes）

Generally, we tend to think that an intake of 100kcal and a consumption of 100kcal are equal. However, I believe this is a big mistake.
Though energy is temporally consumed by exercise, it will basically come back. Of course, if you do exercise without eating anything, you will lose weight but it’s not a healthy way of getting slim.

"The very notion that expending more energy than we take in－eating less and exercising more－can cure us of our weight problem, make us permanently leaner and lighter, is based on yet another assumption about the laws of thermodynamics that happens to be incorrect.
The assumption is that the energy we consume and the energy we expend have little influence on each other, that we can consciously change one and it will have no consequence on the other, and vice versa. (P.77)

Intuitively we know this isn't true.
People who semi-starve themselves, or who are semi-starved during wars, famines, or scientific experiments, are not only hungry all the time but lethargic, and they expend less energy. And increasing physical activity does increase hunger; exercise does work up an appetite. (PP.77-78)

In 2007, Jeffrey Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School and his wife and colleague in obesity research, Terry Maratos-Flier, published an article in Scientific American called “What Fuels Fat.”
In it, they described the intimate link between appetite and energy expenditure, making clear that they are not simply variables that an individual can consciously decide to change with the only effect being that his or her fat tissue will get smaller or larger to compensate." (P78)

（Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes）

Light exercise such as walking and running is necessary for your health but it’s not indispensable for getting slim. That is to say, you can lose weight even while continuing to eat regularly.

■There is a book about this written by a Japanese sports specialist.

After this statement, “How to get slim with 100% meal” was published. Mr. Mori worked in a fitness club for 5 years and though he is a sports coach, he says it’s impossible to lose weight only with exercise.

I want to tell you something interesting that is related to the content of my blog. At the end of this article, I will explain how it is related to my experience.
 

  *snip*

The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the identical logic to explain the obesity epidemic worldwide, blaming it on rising incomes, urbanization, "shifts toward less physically demanding work...moves toward less physical activity...and more passive leisure pursuits." (P.18)

（Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes）

In Japan, this idea is widely accepted and TV programs, magazines on dieting or the majority of specialist explain that high-calorie food and less exercise are the cause of obesity.

However, what we have to consider here is that obesity is spreading in poor layer, too.

Between 1901 and 1905, two anthropologists independently studied the Pima (Native American tribe in Arizona), and both commented on how fat they were, particularly the women.

What makes this observation so remarkable is that the Pima, at the time, had just gone from being among the most affluent Native American tribes to among the poorest.

The Pima used to be hardworking farmers and hunters, so it is said, and now they're sedentary wage earners, like the rest of us, driving to the same fast-food restaurants, eating the same snacks, watching the same TV shows, and getting fat and diabetic just like the rest of us, only more so. The tribe was relying on government rations for day-to-day sustenance.

Why would the Pima get fat on the abundant rations and not on the abundant food they'd had prior to the famines? Perhaps the answer lies in the type of food being consumed, a question of a quality rather than quantity. (PP.19-22)

<1925-30>
Two researchers from the University of Chicago studied another Native American tribe, the Sioux living on the South Dakota. Fifteen families, with thirty-two children among them, lived "chiefly on bread and coffee." This was poverty almost beyond our imagination today.

Yet their obesity rates were not much different from what we have today in the midst of our epidemic. But the researchers noted another pertinent fact about these Sioux: one-fifth of the adult women, a quarter of the men, and a quarter of the children were "extremely thin".

This combination of obesity and malnutrition or undernutrition (not enough calories) existing in the same populations is something that authorities today talk about as though it were a new phenomenon, but it's  not. Here we have malnutrition or undernutrition coexisting with obesity in the same population eighty years ago. "(PP.23-24)

(Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes )

<2005>
This is from a 2005 New England Journal of Medicine article, "A Nutrition Paradox - Underweight and Obesity in Developing Countries," written by Benjamin Caballero (Johns Hopkins University).

Caballero then describes the difficulty that he believed this phenomenon presents:
"The coexistence of underweight and overweight poses a challenge to public health programs, since the aims of programs to reduce undernutrition are obviously in conflict with those for obesity prevention.”

Put simply, if we want to prevent obesity, we have to get people to eat less, but if we want to prevent undernutrition, we have to make more food available. What do we do? " (PP.30-31)

( Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes )

I want to explain my consideration based on 1 and 2.
First of all, in order to consider “obesity”, isn’t it too simple to believe that “obesity increased since we became wealthy”? 
 

In addition, those who get fat easily try to eat simple light meal since they ate a lot the day before. The idea of offsetting an over intake of calories from yesterday, eating less today, is wrong. 

That is to say, even if someone is said to be wealthy, in regards to  food, there are many things in common with groups in poverty with a high rate of obesity. As Mr. Gary says, what is important now is the “quality” of food rather than the “quantity”.
  

I will explain that underweight and overweight can coexist through the previous content mentioned earlier in “The coexistence of underweight and overweight poses a challenge to public health programs”.

▽I repeat that when I was very thin about 30kg, at first I was eating a lot of high-calorie food but I couldn’t gain any weight. And then, I realized that I can gain weight by creating “intestinal starvation”.

So, even if they eat similar food in the same group, it may lead to a different result in the body. Some people who digested all the food they ate in their whole intestines may have become obese. However, those who did not digest all the food in their whole intestines remained underweight.

A small difference sometimes makes a big difference in the result. Whether or not they are overweight is not based on the amount of intake of calories they eat.

It is said that “eating too much and not enough exercise are the cause of gaining weight” but here is an interesting experiment related to it.

(Citation from “Why We Get Fat?” by Gary Taubes)

 "In the early 1970s, a young researcher at the University of Massachusetts named George Wade set out to study the relationship between sex hormones, weight, and appetite by removing the ovaries from rats (females,obviously) and then monitoring their subsequent weight and behavior. The effects of the surgery were suitably dramatic: the rats would begin to eat voraciously and quickly become obese.

The rat eats too much, the excess calories find their way to the fat tissue, and the animal becomes obese. This would confirm our preconception that overeating is responsible for obesity in humans as well.

The way Wade explained it to me, the animal doesn't get fat because it overeats, it overeats because it's getting fat. The cause and effect are reversed. (PP.89-90)
*snip*
The evidence that fat tissue is carefully regulated, not just a garbage can where we dump whatever calories we don't burn, is incontrovertible. (P.94)
Those who get fat do so because of the way their fat happens to be regulated and that a conspicuous consequence of this regulation is to cause the eating behavior (gluttony) and the physical inactivity (sloth) that we so readily assume are the actual causes." (P.93)

Though you might think the rats’ story is different from my story, I want to tell of my experience of “gaining weight not because of eating more”.

When I was very thin about 35kg, I couldn’t eat anything since my stomach was heavy . Especially, food with oil was the worst.  I tried hard in order to gain weight but nothing was added to my body.

One day, I realized that I can gain weight by creating “intestinal starvation” so I ate mainly easy-to-digest carbohydrate and tried to make my stomach hungry (by not taking fiber or fat). I gradually gained weight in this way. And when I weighed about 50kg, I had more muscles and no discomfort in stomach. I was able to eat more than before.

Those who didn’t know my experience told me “you’re gaining weight because you’re eating more” but that wasn’t true. The order was “After my body became able to gain weight, I gained weight by eating and got more muscle and appetite. As a result, I was able to eat more than before”. So, the reality was completely the other way.

However, could it that individuals who are naturally lean are simply more likely to end up as elite long-distance runners or cyclists? In other words, might their natural leanness cause certain people to be more active, rather than the other way round?

There's actually some evidence for this. In one piece of research, the relationship between physical activity and body fatness in children over a 3-year period was assessed. It was found that the more sedentary children were, the more fat they carried.

I agree with this opinion but I want to add my opinion.
I think it’s reasonable to think those who are thin aim to be a marathon athletes or soccer players. At least, they know that they won’t gain weight by eating more. They take 3 well-balanced meals/day and that prevents “intestinal starvation” and keeps their current condition (while getting a little more muscle).
That is to say, it’s not that they are consuming calories of what they eat more by doing sports. Taking 3 well-balanced meals make it unnecessary to stock body fat.

On the other hand, those who stay at home a lot playing TV games or reading books tend to eat less. Sometimes, it’s only hamburger, only french fries or noodles.

Let’s see it again here using a “delivery center” example. A delivery center is a place where they sort packages and send them out everyday. There is a delivery center A with a capacity of 500 packages and a delivery center B with a capacity of 800 packages.
  

I guess you already know what I want to say. Here again we have 3 ladies of different weights eating the same thing.
A: 90kg, B: 60kg, C: 45kg
  

Now, A orders a large bowl of rice. Regarding intake amount, you might think “she is fat because she eats a lot”. However, if we take their weight into account, since rice is a carbohydrates which is easy to digest, it can be said that A is still eating relatively less compared to B or C.

So everything depends on the relation between the person’s “digestive capacity” and “food type”. Those who feel hungry soon might be in “starvation status” more often than others, even if they take the same amount of food.

Many people say “eating too much fat is the cause of gaining weight” as if it’s common knowledge. There lies the belief that “it's  the calories that makes us obese” and therefore, fat with 9kcal per gram which is more than twice of carbohydrates and proteins (4kcal per gram) is said to makes us easily obese.

Dr. Natsui says from his own experience of a carbohydrate restriction diet that “no matter how many calories I take from fat, it doesn't make me fat. I was able to get slim without standing starvation and with a good health condition.”

John Briffa observed in the relative experiment doing various diets, that a low-fat diet has no effect on becoming slim and that a rich-fat diet is more effective to getting slim, while taking hormone secretion, etc. into account.

Though fat is high in calorie with 9kcal per gram, it takes longer to digest compared to carbohydrates or proteins so:

•  Foods high in fat helps keep a sense of being full.
•  Fats won’t increase blood sugar level.
•  Fats sustain energy for a long time.

In the case where the “Base Weight” itself increases, it will work as rather (*) a deterrent force. (* for those who have a higher digestive ability for fat, may not experience a deterrent force)

For example, if a thin person wants to gain weight, excessive fat will be a hindering force to gaining weight. Have you ever wondered, “why was he/she not getting fat despite the fact that he/she was eating high calorie foods, such as cake, fried foods and meat?” Actually, less-fatty foods are easier to gain weight.

As the 2 authors I’ve mentioned above said, “less carbohydrates and more fat will make you slim” is correct. I struggled a lot with eating fatty foods because of having a weak stomach, so I want to explain from that perspective.

It’s not that “carbohydrates are the cause of gaining weight and they are the ultimate bad guys” but rather it’s the difference of characteristics between carbohydrates (*) and fat usage. (*here, I’m referring to polysaccharide such as cereal and starch, but not to sugar)

Fat is difficult to digest so eating fat often leads to undigested food in stomach and intestines. In turn your appetite will settle down and relatively, the absorption rate and absorption amount decreases.

On the other hand, with carbohydrates, they are digested rapidly and make nutrition diluted. So carbohydrates and fat content, it can be said to have the opposite effect, even though a diet has the same calories.