07/28/2025 Most people eat 3 meals a day, eat when they're hungry, and satisfy their specific food cravings whenever they feel like it. In this post I'll define of a myriad of different strategies you can use to control/take charge of your eating habits/calorie consumption. A lot of these strategies can be used in tandem to achieve your consumption goals. I'll tell you my favorite at the end. ### Calorie Banking Saving calories from one or more days (e.g., eating lighter during the week) to allow for higher-calorie intake on specific occasions, like weekends or special events, while maintaining an overall calorie target. This is mainly used by people who are trying to lose weight. ### Intermittent Fasting Alternating periods of eating with periods of fasting. One would eat all of their food within some span of time and then fast the rest of the time. Typical windows of fasting/eating are 16/8 (eg. 4PM-8AM fasting/8AM-4PM eating window), 20/4, and 24 hour (some people alternate days of eating and fasting). ### Portion Control You can do this using smaller kitchenware, for instance, if you want to consume more, get bigger dishes. If you want to consume less, get smaller ones. [Research](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-43362-002) has shown this can have an effect on the amount of food we consume. As you can see in the below picture below we can trick ourselves into thinking we're eating more or less food with an optical illusion (Delboeuf illusion). Both plates have the same amount of food on them. ![[0_qNxB4HbjhWyLcFnp.jpg]] ### Nutrient Tracking There are 3 macronutrients to track, along with a slew of micronutrients which should be tracked as well. You would want to put all of the food that you ate into a nutrient tracker app to make sure you're meeting your nutrient targets. Here is a [Cronometer Tutorial](https://youtu.be/EsLMz-1857o) to do just that. ### Mindful Eating/Intuitive Eating Focus on hunger cues, eat slowly, and savor food to avoid overeating and improve satisfaction with meals. Listening to the body’s hunger and fullness signals to guide eating habits, rejecting restrictive diet rules. It's generally advisable to eat slowly and chew all your food, as it aids in digestion. ### OMAD (One Meal a Day) Consuming all of your food for the day in a single meal, typically within a 1-hour window, as an extreme form of intermittent fasting. ### Meal Prepping Preparing meals in advance to control portions, ingredients, and calorie intake, often used to maintain consistency. ### My Favorite Strategy This is a combination of Calorie Banking and meal prepping. I eat the same 2 nutrient dense meals everyday (also take a multivitamin). Right now my those 2 meals put me in a calorie deficit. This means that I can overeat a day or two a week and still meet my calorie consumption goals. --- Email any questions, or comments to [email protected]. You can also find me on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/thegregleopold/), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@thegregleopold), and [X](https://x.com/thegregleopold).