Maximum calorie intake for a meal?

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Whiskybelly
Whiskybelly Posts: 197 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm new and still getting to grips with balancing my meals throughout the day. I just bought a HRM and I've noticed that I can burn off a thousand calories during cardio workouts in a day - but obviously this puts me in a predicament because that's a big deficit I'm building up.

My question is, what's the single biggest meal I can have that won't leave my body storing excess calories/fat/all that jazz? This will help me figure out if I need to up my intake at breakfast and lunch to make up the deficit, rather than try and eat the deficit as a huge dinner.

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  • cramernh
    cramernh Posts: 3,335 Member
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    Its going to have to be one of those "see what works best for you" type of things.

    I know some people who have their largest meal in the morning, and then taper it off from there.

    Others try to balance it out throughout the day...
  • Whiskybelly
    Whiskybelly Posts: 197 Member
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    I usually have to exercise after work, so I start around half 5. I look at have dinner between half 7 and 8. Maybe it's best balancing out my meals throughout the day but saving up to 900 cals for dinner?
  • Sidesteal
    Sidesteal Posts: 5,510 Member
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    My question is, what's the single biggest meal I can have that won't leave my body storing excess calories/fat/all that jazz?

    You don't need to worry about how your calories are split into your meals outside of personal preference/performance. In terms of fat storage it is irrelevant because you're asking about what happens in a very small snapshot of time that is not relevant when you factor in what happens in a larger segment of time.

    For example, if you eat ALL your calories in 1 meal and you (in theory) gain fat in the short term, you are ALSO spending the other 23.5 hours of the day NOT eating, which means you're spending a good chunk of time oxidizing fat.

    What matters is that fat oxidation exceeds fat storage in the long run. If you're eating in a calorie deficit this will happen on it's own and this happens regardless of how you decide to split your calorie intake into individual meals.

    Looking at acute things usually doesn't tell you the full picture.
  • Ariyuni
    Ariyuni Posts: 7
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    I agree with Sidesteal, it shouldn't really matter when you eat what, as long as it evens out in the end. Make sure you eat enough nutrients and not a lot of empty calories, though.

    Some people say your evening meal should be the lightest, since you go to sleep after and so your body gets an opportunity to store fat. I don't believe this theory, but in your case that should not matter either - you exercise in the evening, which increases your metabolism for 24 hours, anyway.

    Hope this helped!
  • ValerieMartini2Olives
    ValerieMartini2Olives Posts: 3,024 Member
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    It doesn't matter if you consume 900 calories in the morning or 900 calories at night. A calorie is a calorie at any time of the day.
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
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    One more thing - if you exercise in the evening, don't feel like you have to get all those calories in the same day. You can eat them the next day too.
  • UpEarly
    UpEarly Posts: 2,555 Member
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    Sometimes I have meals that are over 1000 calories... occasionally upwards of 1500. It doesn't seem to matter when I eat my calories, as long as I stay close to my target/goal for the day.
  • GauchoMark
    GauchoMark Posts: 1,804 Member
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    just talking from experience, I work out at night and usually burn around 700 calories just in cardio, not counting my strength training. I eat back those calories (and most of the time I have extra from earlier in the day) at about 10 pm and go to bed at 11 or so and it hasn't affected my weight loss.
  • bertel98
    bertel98 Posts: 2
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    My trainer tells me eat within 30 minutes after workout then two hours later. Needs to help refuel your body. It needs to be sensible eating.
  • Whiskybelly
    Whiskybelly Posts: 197 Member
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    Thanks a lot folks, helpful info here. I need to think of it as a continuous process, not just a line of individual days.

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