Is skipping meals generally an okay habit?

Chuck_Finley

^ That's good advice. I guess I'll give up most of my alcohol. It's a crutch. Maybe I'll drink in moderation one day a week.

I completely change my mind about exercise. I just did 2 of those workout runs I just replied to, and I am winded already. I am really out of shape. Like, I'm sweating and breathing hard.

Who knows, if I drop a few pounds I'll go to the gym. I just feel so self conscious in thin Asia.

Thanks all around guys. I'm sorry I got upset at you Mity if you're reading this. You're right.

Chuck_Finley

The pushups etc weren't hard for me, but those lunges and squats killed me. I guess that answers what I need to work on.

lolabluola

Since May this year I Skip meals daily - Usually stop eating at 7pm and start eating at 11am or Noon.

I'm healthy - I work out - and I've been losing weight - I've lost about 15lbs additional since May-ish

lolabluola

Since May this year I Skip meals daily - Usually stop eating at 7pm and start eating at 11am or Noon.
If I'm hungry, usually if I had an intense workout - I'll have an egg with a salad around 9-10am and break fast early.
I get up at 4am to work out everyday so waiting till 9-10am to have a 'break fast' is really more of a lunch

I'm healthy - I work out - and I've been losing weight - I've lost about 15lbs additional since May-ish

TheSheepFollower

If you feel okay doing that, your not starving yourself,it doesn't cause you to binge,and you still get an appropriate number of calories at the end of the day! Than it's okay!

erickirb

Wow! The amount of bad advice on these forums is staggering!

1. It is not ok to only be eating once or twice a day as a regular practice unless you want to put your metabolism into the crapper. You need to fuel your body at regular intervals to keep up your metabolism and keep your energy up. 900 calories a day is not ok.

2. You don't need to be eating at a deficit. If you are trying to lose fat and gain muscle definition you need to be eating more(good healthy foods---high protein, lower carbs and not beer) in order to lose the fat and gain the muscle.

And lastly Mity was not being antagonistic what so ever. He is trying to give you some straight forward advice. If he or any of us have hit a nerve it's probably because you know it's the truth and don't want to accept it. You are not going to get the body you want by not eating and binge drinking! It's just not going to happen. What do you want more.........partying and an unhealthy lifestyle or do you want a well defined good looking body??? You can't have both! It up to you......decide.

I will say wow to your post
1. Timing does not affect your metabolism. As long as you get your cals, micros and macros the only consideration should be energy level, workout performance, and what fits your life (this could be 6 small meals or 1-2 large, no dif for weight loss/gain) Please do some research on this topic before you spout your opinion as fact.

2. Wrong again. You need to be in a deficit to lose fat, or a surplus to gain muscle (may have a lb or 2 gain of muscle in a deficit if new to training, but that is it). As long as you get min protein and fats, and hit your macro and micros then where the cals from does not matter, though the source may impact performance etc.

And lastly, You can get the body you want with drinking and partying, you just have to fit it into your diet and lifestyle.

I drink 1-2 beer daily and more on weekends, I also eat junk here and there, but the remainder of my diet is good and I put time in at the gym.

icrushit

I'd worry about fitting in extra meals more than skipping any. If you want to do something about being 'skinny-fat', the best way is often to do a little resistance training and add a little muscle to your frame. You won't be able to do that with the way you're living, as you need to break even on calories at the very least, and preferrably eat a little more than you're burning, so you can add that muscle to your frame. This sort of stuff is pretty straightforward, and there are no magic bullets, you simply got to eat more, and work out.

Chuck_Finley

I always used to like doing pullups. Is that a good thing I can do on the off days as suggested by that link? It seems to be a different muscle group and I didn't hate that exercise.

I'd rather not do cardio. I don't like it and I know someone who is very in shape and he never does cardio. Just weight training.
Maybe if I can stick to this and not get winded after 2 sets I'll try to tag along in the future...

erickirb

I always used to like doing pullups. Is that a good thing I can do on the off days as suggested by that link? It seems to be a different muscle group and I didn't hate that exercise.

I'd rather not do cardio. I don't like it and I know someone who is very in shape and he never does cardio. Just weight training.
Maybe if I can stick to this and not get winded after 2 sets I'll try to tag along in the future...

You don't need cardio, and if you do any you will have to eat even more to compensate for the cals burned. Check out the 2 books/programs I mentioned, they have pull ups, dips, squats, push ups etc. and the program tells you when to do what, and keep in mind, resting the muscles is just as important than working them. Follow the program as is, don't try to add anything to it, not until you are intermediate/advanced in training

Wetcoaster

Wow! The amount of bad advice on these forums is staggering!

1. It is not ok to only be eating once or twice a day as a regular practice unless you want to put your metabolism into the crapper. You need to fuel your body at regular intervals to keep up your metabolism and keep your energy up. 900 calories a day is not ok.

2. You don't need to be eating at a deficit. If you are trying to lose fat and gain muscle definition you need to be eating more(good healthy foods---high protein, lower carbs and not beer) in order to lose the fat and gain the muscle.

And lastly Mity was not being antagonistic what so ever. He is trying to give you some straight forward advice. If he or any of us have hit a nerve it's probably because you know it's the truth and don't want to accept it. You are not going to get the body you want by not eating and binge drinking! It's just not going to happen. What do you want more.........partying and an unhealthy lifestyle or do you want a well defined good looking body??? You can't have both! It up to you......decide.

I will say wow to your post
1. Timing does not affect your metabolism. As long as you get your cals, micros and macros the only consideration should be energy level, workout performance, and what fits your life (this could be 6 small meals or 1-2 large, no dif for weight loss/gain) Please do some research on this topic before you spout your opinion as fact.

2. Wrong again. You need to be in a deficit to lose fat, or a surplus to gain muscle (may have a lb or 2 gain of muscle in a deficit if new to training, but that is it). As long as you get min protein and fats, and hit your macro and micros then where the cals from does not matter, though the source may impact performance etc.

And lastly, You can get the body you want with drinking and partying, you just have to fit it into your diet and lifestyle.

I drink 1-2 beer daily and more on weekends, I also eat junk here and there, but the remainder of my diet is good and I put time in at the gym.

+1

SingRunTing

I appreciate that you're attitude has changed as this thread has evolved. It's great to see someone change their views as they learn from the advice of others instead of just holding fast to their opinion regardless of new information.

I just wanted to add two points:

1. Please don't just pick 1500 calories from midair and stick to that. Either use MFP's calculator by selecting 0.5 lbs a week and eating back most of your exercise calories (just beware that MFP tends to over calculate exercise calories) or use a TDEE calculator like the Scooby one and eat that amount. Picking a random number with no basis just isn't a great idea.

2. Walking is a perfectly acceptable exercise that you can do outside of the gym and fully clothed. Just a thought if you wanted to add some cardio (not that you have to).

Good luck on your goals!

icrushit

Basically, my diet layout is this. MFP suggests I hit 1800 calories a day. It says I need 2,300 to live. I'm a 26 year old male, 180 pounds, 6 feet tall and very lazy. I think that number is outrageously high.

1800 calories is what your body would need every day for your normal bodily functions if you were in a coma. 2300 is around what your body needs every day for normal functions even if you do effectively nothing but sit on your *kitten* all day.

njadh51

Hi Chuck...yes very much depends on the person. I started at 328 lbs and eat anywhere from 1300-1800 cals per day trying to keep those nutritionally balanced, lots of water per day, etc. I have my "spike days" every couple of weeks that helps me in boosting my metabolism...but again that also depends on the person. I feel fine, have lost 34 lbs in 4 months and still losing. I walk and now ready to start strength training knowing that mostly doing it via calorie control won't work forever. I like my beer (and wine) too...but have had to limit that to a couple of evenings a month. Saying booze is empty calories is not saying anything you don't already know. But the issue is it takes the liver 1 hr to metabolize one ounce of alcohol. So do the math based on how many drinks you would have at a sitting.While its doing that, proper metabolization of fats is impeded so in that way its not just the calories from the booze that need to be considered. As one poster advised, just walk for now. Its true its mostly cardio, but there is some strength benefits as it will tone and build your quads which are the biggest muscles that burn most calories.

Kalikel

I skip breakfast every day. You can skip meals and still lose.

If you want to save up all those calories to drink them, you can do that and still lose weight.

Not the healthiest way to do it, but I'm sure you knew that before you made the choice.

Enjoy!!

wibutterflymagic

Wow! The amount of bad advice on these forums is staggering!

1. It is not ok to only be eating once or twice a day as a regular practice unless you want to put your metabolism into the crapper. You need to fuel your body at regular intervals to keep up your metabolism and keep your energy up. 900 calories a day is not ok.

2. You don't need to be eating at a deficit. If you are trying to lose fat and gain muscle definition you need to be eating more(good healthy foods---high protein, lower carbs and not beer) in order to lose the fat and gain the muscle.

And lastly Mity was not being antagonistic what so ever. He is trying to give you some straight forward advice. If he or any of us have hit a nerve it's probably because you know it's the truth and don't want to accept it. You are not going to get the body you want by not eating and binge drinking! It's just not going to happen. What do you want more.........partying and an unhealthy lifestyle or do you want a well defined good looking body??? You can't have both! It up to you......decide.

I will say wow to your post
1. Timing does not affect your metabolism. As long as you get your cals, micros and macros the only consideration should be energy level, workout performance, and what fits your life (this could be 6 small meals or 1-2 large, no dif for weight loss/gain) Please do some research on this topic before you spout your opinion as fact.

2. Wrong again. You need to be in a deficit to lose fat, or a surplus to gain muscle (may have a lb or 2 gain of muscle in a deficit if new to training, but that is it). As long as you get min protein and fats, and hit your macro and micros then where the cals from does not matter, though the source may impact performance etc.

And lastly, You can get the body you want with drinking and partying, you just have to fit it into your diet and lifestyle.

I drink 1-2 beer daily and more on weekends, I also eat junk here and there, but the remainder of my diet is good and I put time in at the gym.

Interesting. Are you a certified fitness trainer? All the information I just gave is from a certified trainer who followed that information and turned his body into something all of you would be envious of.

Timing does matter. You can't eat once a day or even twice a day and expect to keep up your energy and metabolism in order to function properly in the long run. Sure people do it for short times because they are on a "diet" vs changing their eating lifestyle but in the long run your body won't help you and is most likely fighting against you and making it harder for you to accomplish what you want.

I'm not saying you CAN"T eat junk but it can't be on a regular basis. Eating healthier without all the sweets, carbs and junk is going to help you accomplish what you want to accomplish faster. Eating fewer carbs even if you are eating a higher amount calorie wise is still going to allow you to lose weight because when you eat carbs if you don't use the energy right away that they give you your body turns that into glucose and stores it as fat. Eating fewer carbs makes your body turn to the fat you already have in your body for energy.

@mity, it sounds like you probably have a better grasp on what to eat so yes, a few beers and some junk periodically isn't going to hurt but when someone is just starting out like the OP and their diet is @#$% and expect to change their body without changing their diet it's not going to happen.

lemurcat12

Timing does matter. You can't eat once a day or even twice a day and expect to keep up your energy and metabolism in order to function properly in the long run. Sure people do it for short times because they are on a "diet" vs changing their eating lifestyle but in the long run your body won't help you and is most likely fighting against you and making it harder for you to accomplish what you want.

What's the source for this? I mean an actual published source, not something a trainer said, because I could list a lot of old wives tales that trainers have said.

I think the "eat 6 mini meals to stoke the metabolism" has more to do with doctors thinking that if people never get hungry they are less likely to overeat than anything actually scientific. It reminds me of some nutrition book I read once where the author recommended that people go veggie not because he thought being vegetarian was actually more healthy than eating meat sparingly, but because he assumed people would cheat. I also think plenty of doctors give lower calorie recommendations than they actually expect people to eat for that reason. It's too bad, because it's disrespectful and messes up the people who are overly fastidious about compliance.

Anyway, I'd go absolutely insane and quit if I had to eat a bunch of stupid mini meals. Luckily three regular meals seem to work fine for me, and did when I maintained for several years too. That I regained had nothing to do with too few meals as that I started pointlessly snacking, among other things, when I wasn't hungry at all. I have no reason to believe my metabolism is less than average even now--the TDEE calculator is pretty much right on or even a bit low.

Now, I don't skip meals according to the norms in my culture, but it's not like this is some universal human imperative of how to eat, just because it's normal in the US, and lots of people don't tend to be hungry in the morning or in the middle of the day when they are busy or the like. Why shouldn't they pay attention to what works for them rather than forcing themselves to eat at times they aren't hungry?

Logically speaking, why would your body care whether you ate, say, twice vs. three times, if you got the same amount of calories?

erickirb

Wow! The amount of bad advice on these forums is staggering!

1. It is not ok to only be eating once or twice a day as a regular practice unless you want to put your metabolism into the crapper. You need to fuel your body at regular intervals to keep up your metabolism and keep your energy up. 900 calories a day is not ok.

2. You don't need to be eating at a deficit. If you are trying to lose fat and gain muscle definition you need to be eating more(good healthy foods---high protein, lower carbs and not beer) in order to lose the fat and gain the muscle.

And lastly Mity was not being antagonistic what so ever. He is trying to give you some straight forward advice. If he or any of us have hit a nerve it's probably because you know it's the truth and don't want to accept it. You are not going to get the body you want by not eating and binge drinking! It's just not going to happen. What do you want more.........partying and an unhealthy lifestyle or do you want a well defined good looking body??? You can't have both! It up to you......decide.

I will say wow to your post
1. Timing does not affect your metabolism. As long as you get your cals, micros and macros the only consideration should be energy level, workout performance, and what fits your life (this could be 6 small meals or 1-2 large, no dif for weight loss/gain) Please do some research on this topic before you spout your opinion as fact.

2. Wrong again. You need to be in a deficit to lose fat, or a surplus to gain muscle (may have a lb or 2 gain of muscle in a deficit if new to training, but that is it). As long as you get min protein and fats, and hit your macro and micros then where the cals from does not matter, though the source may impact performance etc.

And lastly, You can get the body you want with drinking and partying, you just have to fit it into your diet and lifestyle.

I drink 1-2 beer daily and more on weekends, I also eat junk here and there, but the remainder of my diet is good and I put time in at the gym.

Interesting. Are you a certified fitness trainer? All the information I just gave is from a certified trainer who followed that information and turned his body into something all of you would be envious of.

Timing does matter. You can't eat once a day or even twice a day and expect to keep up your energy and metabolism in order to function properly in the long run. Sure people do it for short times because they are on a "diet" vs changing their eating lifestyle but in the long run your body won't help you and is most likely fighting against you and making it harder for you to accomplish what you want.

I'm not saying you CAN"T eat junk but it can't be on a regular basis. Eating healthier without all the sweets, carbs and junk is going to help you accomplish what you want to accomplish faster. Eating fewer carbs even if you are eating a higher amount calorie wise is still going to allow you to lose weight because when you eat carbs if you don't use the energy right away that they give you your body turns that into glucose and stores it as fat. Eating fewer carbs makes your body turn to the fat you already have in your body for energy.

@mity, it sounds like you probably have a better grasp on what to eat so yes, a few beers and some junk periodically isn't going to hurt but when someone is just starting out like the OP and their diet is @#$% and expect to change their body without changing their diet it's not going to happen.

Wrong again... and btw, trainers are educated in the fitness aspect, very little on nutrition, that is not their expertise.

The trainer used that method to get into shape, but as long as he got the same calories, had similar energy levels for his workouts, and hit his protein goals he would had the same results. correlation =/= causation.

He did it that way and it worked, but if he ate one meal and hit the same numbers he would have had the same results, more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes.

one8ygirl

Wow. You're drinking more liquor TWICE a week than your total daily calories of actual nutrition for your body for any given day, and you are wondering if it's okay? Dude. Your problem is not skipping meals, it's totally messed up priorities. My Fitness Pal cannot help you with that.

Butrovich

I want to be able to drink and I want to lose 10-15 pounds of fat with minimal exercise. I know this sounds crazy but I just wanted to know if it was possible. I'm feeling very unmotivated right now. I feel like quitting altogether at this point..

900 calories in beer (Friday) is not going to help you lose weight. "In general, alcohol intake is associated with bigger waists, because when you drink alcohol, the liver burns alcohol instead of fat," says Michael Jensen, MD, an endocrine expert and obesity researcher with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn

Plus, dropping that low in calories per day will end up in a complete weight-loss plateau.

_lyndseybrooke_

Calories can't tell time. It doesn't matter when you eat, as long as you're getting a sufficient number of calories.

I personally think it's crazy to choose beer over delicious meals, but that's just me. If I skip a meal, something is seriously wrong with me.

Also, I assume you're not tracking macros. If you are, 1000+ calories of beer isn't going to do you any favors. If all you care about is weight loss, it's your prerogative.