The human body was designed to survive. The way it survives during times of famine is to:

1) Lower metabolic rate, to use as few calories as possible.
2) Burn off lean tissue (muscle) as fuel.
3) Store as much fat, as possible, in order to have a reserve of calories on hand.

Most people skip meals or eat too few calories during the day, by doing this you are putting your body into starvation mode, which the body treats as a famine and lowers metabolism.

And most people also come home at night and eat a big meal followed by a few snacks, by loading up on calories at night you are signaling your body to store up fat.

The right thing to do is eat several small meals throughout the day to let your body know there is plenty of food available and so will raise metabolism and burn more calories and not feel the need to store fat.

These meals should be the types of foods the human body was designed to use, such as lean meats, fish and fowl, along with fresh raw fruits and vegetables.

Early humans ate what they could hunt and gather, they ate no refined foods, no sugar, no wheat, no grains and they did not drink milk past infancy and that was human milk not the milk of another species.

When modern people stray from this, by eating refined foods, candy, bread, chips, cows milk, ice cream, etc., they tend to get fat and develop all kinds of health problems.

Strength training is very important because it builds or at least maintains lean tissue and therefore keeps your metabolism high thus burning more calories.