Too few calories???

lauraldrum

Im counting macronutrients and calories. I'm eating 6 small meals a day and staying below 1360 calories.

I'm a sleeper and on the weekends I SLEEP - (I know it's probably not good for me) I will sleep until 12 or 1pm easily. So by then I've already missed two meals.

My question is - do I eat more frequently or heavier meals to get to my macro/calorie goals or just eat as I normall would?

Today, for example, I was only awake for 12 hours so I ate 4 small meals = 750 calories.

Is this okay.

(And yes, I Took a sleep test last week - results come in March to see if I have sleep apnea)

vixtris

I would start out eating how you normally would, but track everything you eat in your MFP diary. After a week or so, you can see if you think you need to make adjustments to for macros or calories, or however you want to go about working at it.

750 cals is not ok for weight loss. The amount of meals per day doesn't really matter, though. If you eat too little, your body will just hold onto the fat because it thinks its going to need it later when it doesn't get food (but it does and then continues to hold into it because its not enough) Get what I'm saying?

williamwj2014

^holding onto fat is such a myth that isn't true LOL.

Just have bigger meals? It makes no difference how many meals you have in the day..
I'm quite the opposite, I sleep late thus my meals fit into my schedule..like right now, I'm having my 5th (and final) meal of the night and will go to bed in about 2 hours. I got a class at 11 am so I get plenty of sleep. If you sleep more than 8 hours, you're overdoing it for sleep and should probably wake up earlier.

vismal

The body will not hold on to fat of you eat to little. That doesn't make any sense. When you don't eat enough to fuel your body it needs to use stored fuel (fat). If eating too little caused your body to not burn fat, what would the body be running on?

That being said, there are plenty of reasons why eating 700 calories a day is a horrible idea, fat loss stopping simply isn't one of them. If you sleep late just eat more at each meal. Timing of nutrients is mostly irrelevant. There's no need to eat 6 meals a day unless you prefer to. On days when you can't, or days you just don't want to, it makes no difference to eat the same calories but less meals.

jumblejups

Do you find it difficult to have more than 4 meals when you sleep in, eg too filling for the hours in the day? If so, then you can just add more calorie-dense foods to your meals. Maybe some avocado, nut butter, that sort of thing.

On work days I would normally have 3 main meals and 2 snacks, more or less. On days off I would normally have 2-3 main meals and 1-2 snacks. But at the moment I have days where I sleep until 2pm (eek!), because I'm up in the night with baby and up in the morning with toddler, so on other days my husband takes over and leaves me to sleep. I have a calorie goal of 1480, I meet it on those days even though I'm only eating between 3pm and midnight, because I have cheese and bacon and stuff

RodaRose

I sleep on the weekends too. On the weekends, I eat twice a day. Usually those are two biggish meals.
Whenever you need to add more calories, add fat like mayo, butter, nuts, cheese, full fat salad dressing.

lauraldrum

I should mention that the 6 meals are really 3 meals with 3 snacks.

Seems like most of you are suggesting that despite the fewer "awake" hours I should still try to meet my macros goals - in other words --> eat larger/more dense meals.

NoelFigart1

If I seriously sleep in (I tend to be an early to bed/early to rise type of person, but say I've slept 9 or 10 hours that night) it's probably a weekend, and I'm more likely to eat a big ole brunch and then dinner, myself.