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Ideally, you should strive to build muscle while maintaining low body fat. The best way to accomplish this goal, is to eat exactly according to your needs, no less and no more. Generally, eat three meals a day; eat until you are about 80% full; and never snack. If you have a slow metabolism, you may only need two meals daily. When doing two meals, my personal preference is breakfast and dinner because that works best for my schedule. But make sure that you eat dinner several hours before going to bed, as much as five to six hours ahead of bedtime. If you go to bed hungry, your body will burn more fat than carbohydrates during sleep.

Your appetite is not an accurate gauge of how much food you truly need. Our bodies were designed to protect themselves against famine. Your appetite tells you to eat more than you need so that you can store the excess as fat to tide you through periods of shortage.

A 2019 study described in Science Daily describes the reason for weight gain among older adults:

The scientists studied the fat cells in 54 men and women over an average period of 13 years. In that time, all subjects, regardless of whether they gained or lost weight, showed decreases in lipid turnover in the fat tissue, that is the rate at which lipid (or fat) in the fat cells is removed and stored. Those who didn't compensate for that by eating less calories gained weight by an average of 20 percent, according to the study which was done in collaboration with researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden and University of Lyon in France.

It could be that earlier in human history, the young and active had an inherent survival advantage over the old. The old may have compensated by holding onto fat to help them survive lean times.

Our appetite is definitely not concerned about our appearance. Our appetite is concerned with survival. That is why your appetite should not be your guide. You should only eat until you are about 80 percent full (more or less depending on your own metabolism). And as for snacking, the many little extra meals during the day can easily double your calories.

Tip for feeling full: Let's say that you're skipping lunch but are getting hungry. You can give yourself a feeling of fullness by drinking a large glass of water. Better yet, add supplements to it. Such supplements could include fruit and vegetable extract powders. I use spinach extract. I also add beta alanine for energy.

Also make sure that you are including sufficient protein with every meal. While carbohydrates are essential for energy, protein tends to provide more satiety (or a sense of fullness) for longer than carbohydrates or fats. Protein is also more likely to raise one's metabolism.

If you need to lose weight, eat until you are about 70 percent full instead of 80 percent. You will feel hungry, but there is no easy way to lose weight. Your body wants to gain weight and hold on to it, and has built in mechanisms to resist losing weight. When you eat less, your metabolism will work against you by slowing down. (Check out the concept of adaptive thermogenesis.)

As such, diets, no matter how sensible, may simply not work for many people. Their metabolism slows down to match their reduced caloric intake causing them to lose absolutely no weight. If so, there is still one recourse, and that is fasting.

By fasting, I mean real fasting. During a real fast, you only drink water and keep your calories to zero. I wouldn't recommend an extremely long fast; I would say two to three days at most. A two to three day-fast is enough to lose several pounds and recharge your system. Following the two to three-day fast, maintain a restricted calorie diet to keep you from regaining any of the weight lost during the fast. The recharge to your system caused by the short fast should help you to begin losing weight through normal dieting. If the one two to three-day fast is not enough and you reach a new set point from which you cannot lose more weight, repeat the fast. It may ultimately be necessary to repeat the fast every few weeks until you meet your goals.

If you dropped several pounds while fasting, you probably lost muscle as well as fat. In the interim between fasts, you should concentrate on regaining the lost muscle without simultaneously gaining weight. Emphasize weight lifting while getting sufficient protein in your diet to achieve muscle growth. If you build muscle at the expense of fat, your stomach will shrink even as your weight remains steady.

Dr. Jason Fung is an MD who advocates fasting. You may find his videos interesting:

The best diet advice that I've ever seen are based on the principles of the late Byron Richards. He called his approach the Leptin Diet and it makes perfect sense. It's a well-balanced approach that is based on five simple rules, and it avoids the extremes of many other diets. The Leptin Diet doesn't make false promises. It's a structured approach that helps you eat in moderation and restrain your caloric intake to your needs. The beauty of the Leptin Diet is this: you use it lose weight, and then you follow it for life, so that you never put the weight back on. The diet is maintainable because it does not restrict any major food groups and allows you to eat the same basic foods as everyone else (minus the obvious sugar-laden junk food).

A well-balanced diet consists of all three macro-nutrients, protein, fat, and carbohydrates. The body uses protein to build muscle, bone, hair, and fingernails. Your hair and fingernails will grow faster on a high protein diet. When you lift weights, you will develop muscle faster on a high-protein diet. Despite the emphasis on protein, however, you need complex carbohydrates for energy. 1) Carbohydrates are brain food. 2) The ingestion of carbohydrates results in the release of insulin. Insulin is an anabolic hormone that aids the transport of protein to muscle cells. 3) Stored carbohydrates (glycogen) provide energy to the muscles. The third macro-nutrient, dietary fat, boosts the immune system, provides backup energy, and is needed to absorb the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Saturated fats help boost testosterone levels. Omega 3 fats have been shown to promote heart health.

As a note of precaution, I would stay away from extreme, unbalanced diets. We humans were designed by our Creator as omnivores. Anyone advocating a vegan/low-fat diet or a nearly all meat/no grain diet is going against our design. Extremely low-fat, high-carb vegan diets can cause your blood triglycerides to rise to stratospheric levels. But don't go to the other extreme of the so-called paleo diet. The paleo diet, which is supposedly based on the eating habits of ancient man, is a fantasy. Nearly everything we eat has been modified by man over the ages. You cannot go back to the diet eaten by peoples of the distant past. If you wish to do further research, check out this TED lecture. Moreover, a high protein, low carbohydrate diet will leave you depleted of energy.

In summation, exercise is number 1 for promoting longevity, while diet is number 2. There is a reason for that. The human body is far more resilient than many seem to realize. There are people with bad diets who have normal cholesterol and blood pressure. There are heavy smokers and drinkers who make it to age 100 without lung cancer or liver problems. Ingesting some aspartame is not going to kill you as some of the health phobics believe. Even though a balanced diet is by far the best, the human body can survive on a wide variety of diets. However, a lack of exercise causes the body to deteriorate faster than it should. In other words, inactivity causes premature aging, while exercise and strength training increase your healthspan.

Note: There are no guarantees. Sometimes, seemingly healthy people such as Byron Richards die young. The goal is to make yourself feel the best that you can for the time that God has given you.