Is it bad to just eat one large meal a day?

SweatLikeDog

I had a Great Dane who ate like this and lived a long, healthy life. BS aside, it's not a problem if it meets your goals.

ashli83

Omg how do you not eat during all that time ? If I did that my whole metabolism would be off.. So what exactly do you eat that consists of that many calories ? I don't see how people say that's ok if getting enough calories Bc you could eat two candy bars and get enough calories for the day you need !

ashli83

BFDeal wrote: »

LOL So you eat 90% of your calories first thing in the morning and then 10% right before bed? How many calories? Just curious. I'm guessing not very many.

I've never heard this ... Crazy if you ask me ... But hey

ObsessedMonster

ashli83 wrote: »

Omg how do you not eat during all that time ? If I did that my whole metabolism would be off.. So what exactly do you eat that consists of that many calories ? I don't see how people say that's ok if getting enough calories Bc you could eat two candy bars and get enough calories for the day you need !

I eat a lot of calorie dense, high fat foods, specifically almonds and other raw nuts. It's relatively easy to eat a large amount of calories in a short period of time for me. It may not be good on my digestive tract, but it's been working in the weight department. I rarely get hungry throughout the day, but I'm starving by 7 am in the morning. I can see how it may skew with some people's metabolisms. Everyone's different I guess.

JAT74

I usually eat 60-80% of my calories at lunchtime but have a protein shake after training in the morning and another one at around 7pm. I try and eat low carb overall, keeping carbs to 60-100grams and protein is at least 80-100g.

If I eat out I save 90% of my calories for that, like tomorrow I'm out with friends at an Italian restaurant so il have 2 slices of garlic bread, beef in mushroom sauce with veg and a couple of glasses of wine. I'll ask them to serve my lunch without the fries and also to serve the sauce separately.

azulvioleta6

Metabolism is much more complicated than CICO. I think it might be a good idea to run this by your doctor.

I would worry that this might set you up for binge eating or other types of disordered eating. Did you just start doing this for dieting or have you always eaten this way?

missafan202

Sounds fine to me aslong as calories are good.

pollymex5000

Eating just one meal a day will throw off your metabolism (making weight loss slow down), and it will throw your glucos levels up and down like crazy. It's best to eat something every two to four hours. Good luck.

MarziPanda95

pollymex5000 wrote: »

Eating just one meal a day will throw off your metabolism (making weight loss slow down), and it will throw your glucos levels up and down like crazy. It's best to eat something every two to four hours. Good luck.

OP, pay no attention to this. Your metabolism isn't really affected by meal timings. It never stops working (until you die) so it's perfectly fine to just eat when you're hungry. I personally don't eat until 4pm some days because I'm not hungry until then, then consume all my calories at 4pm, 6pm and 9pm. Other days when I have to get up early, I'll have a snack at 11 and lunch at 1 etc. It's all about personal preference.

Train4Foodz

I have days that I'm generally not hungry (given that my calorie goal during maintenance is 2700 it's a fair bit to try and eat). I've been known to do the same as @ObsessedMonster before now and just eat plenty calorie dense foods with my protein mix (peanut butter protein mudcakes can be my best friend.. with granola + banana I can easily make them 1600 calories+ whoop)

As long as it fits your day, different things work fore different people! It's all about working out what works for you. Whilst I'm lifting heavy and doing a lot of cardio right now I certainly couldn't do it! I need my energy spread throughout the day.

All the best to you!

icrushit

I'm playing around with IF and meal timing at the moment. My flavour of IF is restricting my eating to between 12- 8pm, and eating my calories over 2 large meals. This is just my flavour of IF, and there are many others. The book Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon is a good place to get a better idea about fasting. His flavour of IF is a 24 hour fast once/ twice a week. 5:2 is restricted calories (500/ 600) on 2 days, and regular eating on the other 5.

When you hear things like 16:8, 14:10, the first number is the number of hours of the fast and the second number the eating hours. Leangains is 16:8 (or 14:10 for women), and the warrior diet is a little more complicated as the author advocates eating certain things during the 'fasting'/ under-eating window (under eating window is the authors preferred way of viewing it). Other than that, the warrior diet is somewhere around a 16- 18 hour 'fast'.

Check it out, and see for yourself. The reason IF helps drop weight is that by virtue of the reduced eating window, you are most likely eating less, thus weight loss. There are a bunch of health virtues of IF that goes beyond just weight loss though, so do your homework and draw your own conclusions I would say. There's some good resources out there, and some good groups here to look.

The only thing I would add, is there may be benefits of eating more of your calories closer to the evening. These potential benefits are of the health variety as opposed to just simple weight loss, and tie into the bodies nighttime restorative and growth processes.

For weight loss though, it's all about creating a calorie deficit. As such, IF can be a good way to do this for people. I'm finding it is for me. As above though, there is potentially more to IF than just weight loss also.

Good luck with things. I find trying out different things to find out what works best for us individually is a very good thing, and wish you luck finding what works best for you

Added:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/100058-5-2-fasting

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/49-intermittent-fasting

By the way, you may face hormonal issues the longer the fast, so just bear that in mind too, if you're experimenting in some way that's largely different to what you have been used to. That is why the fasting length recommendations tend to be slightly longer for men, as it seems to be that men can tolerate longer fasts than women due to the aforementioned hormonal aspects. This may or may not hold true for you.

SomeNights246

Last semester, I had morning classes. I was on campus from 9 am to about 3 pm. Afterward, my sister and I would sometimes stay out paying bills and running errands until about 5. I had a small breakfast. If I didn't, I'd be famished (one of the classes was a PE one), but other than that I wouldn't generally eat until dinner. In which I'd eat most of my day's calories in one sitting. While my body had trouble adjusting to eating so much in one sitting (health related), it didn't cause weight gain as I was still eating within maintenance.

SomeNights246

ashli83 wrote: »

Omg how do you not eat during all that time ? If I did that my whole metabolism would be off.. So what exactly do you eat that consists of that many calories ? I don't see how people say that's ok if getting enough calories Bc you could eat two candy bars and get enough calories for the day you need !

Your body adjusts to it.

Honestly, the whole concept of three meals is pretty recent. Many of our ancestors thrived off just two, or even one. My sister did her research topic for Medieval history on their diet. Many families would eat tea and toast for breakfast, and then not eat again until supper. Which wasn't the same time as dinner traditionally is now. Anyway. It's not a new concept, nor is it too crazy.

bunnypy

Ya ur tummy even flattens, I have 100 calories (mostly a fruit) in the morning around 800 calories for lunch then around 350 calories (yoghurt mostly) for supper, and it works perrrrfectly for me

FitPhillygirl

If it works for you there is nothing wrong with it, but I would not be able to go through my day to day activities without eating something small every 2 to 3 hours.

Spiderkeys

In my experience, this is how I got obese, and I couldn't understand why I kept piling on pounds, I mean I only eat 1 meal a day, what's going on ?... Until I realised it was always a big meal and it was a night before bed, and an ate.an average of 5'000 calories per day. Worse time of the day to even go near food, and always couldn't sleep if I couldn't go to bed feeling full and satisfied, but still even today if I ate all my 2'000 calories in 1 hit would just confuse my body, and probably begin to gain, so I keep at 2 meals a day and sometimes a little snacking in between, works for me.

agentcranberry

I think the protein intake point is a good one. You can only digest a certain amount of protein per meal, so it will only grab what it can as it passes by. If you eat the right amount of calories and you eat it all in one go, you'll end up absorbing a small amount of protein but more of the easily digestible things like fats and sugars, then you may be smaller, but will be made up of more fats than muscles. ie you'll be small but squishy!

JenniDaisy

Spiderkeys wrote: »

In my experience, this is how I got obese, and I couldn't understand why I kept piling on pounds, I mean I only eat 1 meal a day, what's going on ?... Until I realised it was always a big meal and it was a night before bed, and an ate.an average of 5'000 calories per day. Worse time of the day to even go near food, and always couldn't sleep if I couldn't go to bed feeling full and satisfied, but still even today if I ate all my 2'000 calories in 1 hit would just confuse my body, and probably begin to gain, so I keep at 2 meals a day and sometimes a little snacking in between, works for me.

That's not how your body works. If the human body got 'confused' we would not have lasted this long as a species.

Roxiegirl2008

If it works for you and you are getting all the nutrients needed to remain healthy then go for it. I could not do it because I like to graze through out the day. That just works best for me.

itsclobberintime

Not at all provided that it is sustainable for you.

Tea_Mistress

I eat 2 decent meals a day, I prefer to just eat until I'm satisfied at breakfast and that keeps me full enough to not need lunch- I'm a healthy weight

ndj1979

nope…as long as you hit your calorie/micro/macro goal for the day that is fine….

ndj1979

myfatass78 wrote: »

It matters when you think about protein. I haven't looked at your diary so making a general statement. If you are eating all your protein in one meal, your body cannot absorb it all at once. The body can handle about 50grams of protein at a time.

totally false…I sometimes get 60-90 grams of protein in one meal and have no issues…

away with you broscience!

ndj1979

Spiderkeys wrote: »

In my experience, this is how I got obese, and I couldn't understand why I kept piling on pounds, I mean I only eat 1 meal a day, what's going on ?... Until I realised it was always a big meal and it was a night before bed, and an ate.an average of 5'000 calories per day. Worse time of the day to even go near food, and always couldn't sleep if I couldn't go to bed feeling full and satisfied, but still even today if I ate all my 2'000 calories in 1 hit would just confuse my body, and probably begin to gain, so I keep at 2 meals a day and sometimes a little snacking in between, works for me.

this is just wrong….

if that was case then all the people in concentration camps would get "fat" when they ate their one meal on every third day ….

ndj1979

azulvioleta6 wrote: »

Metabolism is much more complicated than CICO. I think it might be a good idea to run this by your doctor.

I would worry that this might set you up for binge eating or other types of disordered eating. Did you just start doing this for dieting or have you always eaten this way?

meal timing has no impact on metabolism…

plenty of people do intermittent fasting and lose weight, and have no medical issues...