Many autistic people eat the same foods day after day. But this approach to food intake has been shown by research to aid in weight loss.
A new study suggests that keeping meals consistent from day to day could make it easier to get rid of belly fat and unwanted pounds anywhere else in your body.
Researchers found that people who repeated meals and kept their calorie intake steady were more successful in a weight loss program than those who frequently changed what they ate.
The study was published in Health Psychology and was conducted by researchers from the American Psychological Association.
The results suggest that simple eating routines may help people stick to healthy habits over time.
How can eating the same foods every day help you bust up fat?
Modern food environments make healthy eating difficult.
With so many choices available at all times, people often need a lot of self-control to stay on track with their intake of food.
Creating routines around meals may help reduce that mental effort. When people regularly eat similar foods, healthy choices can become more automatic instead of requiring constant decision making.
Over time, that consistency can make weight loss plans easier to maintain.
How the Study Was Done
To study this idea, researchers looked at detailed food records from 112 adults who were overweight or obese.
All participants were enrolled in a structured behavioral weight-loss program.
They logged everything they ate using a mobile app and weighed themselves every day using a wireless scale.
This allowed researchers to track both food choices and weight changes very closely.
The analysis focused on the first 12 weeks of the program, which is typically when participants are most engaged and most consistent about recording their habits.
The team evaluated diet structure using two main measurements.
The first was caloric stability. This measured how much a person’s calorie intake changed from one day to the next and between weekdays and weekends.
The second measure was dietary repetition. This tracked how often participants ate the same meals or snacks instead of constantly trying new foods.
Together, these measures gave researchers a clear picture of how consistent each participant’s eating habits were.
People who repeated meals lost more weight. The results showed a noticeable difference between the groups.
Participants who frequently ate the same foods lost an average of about 5.9 percent of their body weight during the study. Those who ate a wider variety of foods lost about 4.3 percent.
Consistency in calorie intake also was important. When daily calories fluctuated more, weight loss tended to be lower.
In fact, for every 100 calorie increase in daily variation, overall weight loss dropped by roughly 0.6 percent during the study period.
Repetition = Simplicity
The findings suggest that simplifying meal decisions could help people build stronger habits.
Instead of constantly deciding what to eat, some people may benefit from rotating a small group of meals they already know fit their calorie goals.
Keeping calorie intake relatively stable may also prevent accidental overeating on certain days.
However, the researchers caution that the study shows a correlation rather than direct cause and effect.
Other factors, such as motivation, discipline or commitment to the program, may also influence weight loss success.
You’ve probably heard that the healthiest way to eat is to “eat a variety of foods.”
But variety doesn’t always equate to good health or maintaining a medically desirable weight.
To some people, variety means a glazed donut in one hand and a Pop Tart in the other.
The best way to go with a repetitive eating structure is to focus mostly on plant based foods and foods with limited to no processing.
If you’re on the autism spectrum and find that your diet is limited to a small variety, then you already know that this routine brings the comfort of predictability.
But whether you’re autistic or not, if you want to lose excess weight, you should try narrowing down the variety of foods you eat — again, focusing on whole or minimally processed items — and see how it goes.
Predictabiliy will remove a lot of frustrating moments of guesswork.
More About that Variety
The results of this study might seem to contradict earlier research that promotes dietary variety.
But those earlier studies usually focus on variety within healthy foods like fruits and vegetables.
The modern food environment includes a huge number of highly processed and calorie dense foods.
Because of that, constantly seeking variety may make it easier for people to drift away from healthier choices.
In that context, a more repetitive diet could actually help people stay consistent with healthier eating patterns.
