For decades now, the conventional advice from trainers and weight loss specialists has been this: “Eat three meals a day plus two snacks.”

The big question is whether or not it’s true.

And the answer (drum roll and envelope please) is …

… sometimes. But not always. Many people do absolutely great on three meals a day with no snacks, and sometimes, on some days — (gasp) — even two.

See, the conventional advice was built upon the “truth” that “grazing” is always a better eating strategy for weight loss than eating three (or, god forbid, two) “solid” meals a day. Eating three meals and two snacks was supposed to keep your blood sugar even throughout the day, keeping cravings at bay.

Well, maybe. But the truth of the matter is that people are far more variable and individual than we often acknowledge. And there’s a downside to the “five meals a day” theory, a downside which may affect some people more than others.

For one thing, eating every two hours guarantees that your insulin is going to go up five times a day instead of, say, three. For many people, that means more hunger, not less. Insulin is not only the fat storage hormone, it’s also the hunger hormone. In fact, the whole “Carbohydrate Addicts Diet” got started when one of its creators, a (then) very-overweight Rachel Heller, found that she experienced a lot less hunger on one particularly busy day when she “forgot” to eat.

Three meals a day — each with a beginning and an end — is making a comeback as a weight-loss strategy, snacking be damned. Celebrity nutritionist JJ Virgin now advocates eating three meals a day, the first meal within an hour of waking up and the last meal at least three hours before bed. And recent research has demonstrated — at least in rats — that “intermittent fasting” actually has some major health benefits.

The point here is not that the old information was wrong and the new information is right. The point is that there are huge individual differences in how we respond to food, and no one strategy — including the “five meals a day” strategy — works for everyone. We need to stop blindly following conventional wisdom and start paying attention to our individual differences when it comes to weight loss. (In fact, that’s not a bad strategy to follow for everything, but that’s another column.)

Ellen Langner, the Harvard psychologist, puts it brilliantly in her book “Mindfulness,” when she says that “certainty” is the enemy of mindfulness. When we blindly follow a strategy, for weight loss or for anything else, we often stop paying attention to the individual cues that tell us whether it’s the right thing to do in our particular situation. “Certainty is a cruel mindset,” she wrote. “It is uncertainty that we need to embrace, particularly about our health. If we do so, the payoff is that we create choices and the opportunity to exercise control over our lives.”

So if three meals and two snacks per day works for you, great. Keep it up and carry on! But if it’s not working, don’t assume it’s because there’s something wrong with you. It just might be that you need to try a different strategy.

And three meals a day — each with a beginning and an end point, and with no “snacking” in between — might be one technique worth trying.

Most of us wish there was an easy way to increase our metabolism without having to exert any extra effort. And according to recent research, maybe there is — getting up into the mountains. And you don’t even have to take up hiking or skiing — A study published recently in the medical journal Obesity suggest that simply being at a high altitude can help obese people slim down.

Here’s how they tested it — Dr. Florian J. Lippl and his team at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany selected 20 obese men and monitored their regular eating and exercise activities for week while in Munich, which is at an elevation that’s on par with sea level. Then they sent them to an air-conditioned facility in the mountains that was at an elevation of over 8,000 feet above sea level. Once there, the men could eat whatever and didn’t increase their exercise. Then they were brought back down and monitored for an additional four weeks.

As it happens, the participants lost an average of 3.3 pounds when they were at a high altitude, mostly from eating less. That doesn’t seem like much but statistically speaking, it’s a fairly significant amount when compared to their weight loss at sea level. The study was small, so it might not work for everyone. Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition told MSNBC that even though these men saw some benefits, if they stayed in the mountains they would likely adjust to their surroundings, but their habits would stay the same.

There’s more to weight loss then just a change of scenery. Read about how one couple finally stopped dieting and lost weight together. So what is it about the mountains that whittles away the weight? The researchers believe it had to do with the participants eating less at a high altitude — it’s thought that they ate about 700 calories less per day than they would at sea level. Another theory is that the elevation boosted metabolism, and the men were burning more calories without doing anything. But both of these factors still leave one big question unanswered: Why?

Perhaps the best theory on why altitudes affect weight has to do with the so-called hunger-hormone Leptin, which reduces appetite. It works similar to HCG diet which is mentioned on hcgdietdropsprotocol.com. Lippl and colleagues believe that the low-oxygen environment at 8,000 feet above sea level causes the body to produce more leptin, which leads to less hunger and subsequently less calorie consumption.

But don’t start house-hunting in Colorado just yet — this was just a small study, so it’s impossible to know for sure whether altitude definitely causes weight loss. According to Live Science, Lippl and colleagues are planning a more comprehensive study.

Most elite athletes follow a fairly strict diet — after all, fueling their bodies properly is an important part of the job. But is it possible to take it too far?

Dwight Freeney of the Super Bowl-bound Indianapolis Colts was recently profiled by “Sports Illustrated,” and writer Lee Jenkins holds nothing back when describing some of Freeney’s unorthodox practices. In addition to the hyperbaric chamber in his bedroom and the laser beams in his basement (used to treat sore muscles), Freeney follows a diet that, as Jenkins puts it, “makes supermodels look indulgent.”

The diet is called Sari Mellman’s Dietary Progression, and it’s based on blood, which is drawn every couple of months and analyzed to determine what foods will work best for your body, and which foods your body is likely to reject. For example, Freeney had suffered from head to toe cramping, and his coaches kept telling him to eat bananas. After having his blood analyzed, it was determined that bananas were actually part of the problem, according to “Sports Illustrated.”

So, what can he eat? Well, what he can eat and what he does eat are two very different things. Freeney’s body does better with tomatoes than with lettuce, and prefers pork to chicken. But the defensive end is stricter than that.

For example, Freeney ate nothing but beef and pinto beans from Wednesday morning until the Sunday afternoon kickoff against the Jets. He knows exactly what weight he wants to be — 262 pounds against a passing team, and 267 against a running team — and he won’t let anything stand in his way of achieving that weight. Even if he goes out to a restaurant for dinner, Jenkins wrote, “he brings his ingredients with him and instructs the chef on how he wants it prepared — no oil, no pepper, no garlic, no garnish, no powder and certainly no pan spray.” Even snacking on a sprig of parsley makes him feel guilty.

Before you start feeling too sorry for him, though, know this: Freeney does allow two cheat days, during which he can gain up to five pounds (which, of course, he loses by Thursday).

His teammates call him a lab rat because so many of the things he relies on to stay at the top of his game have yet to be scientifically proven. But, looking at his stats, it’s clear that something is working for him.

Do you think this extreme type of diet is dangerous, or just part of the job for a professional athlete?