Advice needed

Hi Florie, what works for one person may not necessarily work for you so you have to experiment a bit when it comes to weight loss, as 'dangerous' as this may sound...I think too little food or too few meals may be the cause of your weight gain as your body might be going into starvation mode and wanting to hold onto all the calories it can...eating three or more meals a day helps greatly in increasing the metabolism (I don't mean grazing constantly on stuff)...I for example eat up to 7 smaller meals a day and I am obviously therefore never hungry (apart from after rigorous exercise and then I just eat normally or have a snack before and after my training to make up for the calorie deficit)...my meals are easier to digest and I feel I am satisfied all of the time by doing this (three main meals and three snacks works in the same sort of way I guess)...I am in maintenance (although I do want to lower my body fat percentage further as an experiment) at the moment, so I am not watching my calories particularly...to diet efficiently one needs to take in less calories than needed and to exercise daily (walking more briskly might work for you then if you do walk everywhere anyway) to tone up and not lose lean mass as well as fat...hope this helps...(I do use the slimfast shakes, Atkins bars and protein bars from time to time as meals if I am on the run and I have nothing else available or no time to prepare food)