Big dinner or little dinner?

TheViperMan · October 2012

I'm a little hesistant to ask this as I know I'm going to get a wild variety of answers, and might end up more confused than I am now...

So let me share some specific details related to MY diet, and hopefully you folks can hone in on what will work for me.

I eat 3 meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. IF I snack during the day, it's very minimal - perhaps a small cup of apple sauce in the morning, and sometimes some low-fat/low-cal cookies, popcorn, an Atkins bar, or a cup of coffee between 3:30 and 4:30 before heading off to my second job.

WHEN I work my second job, I don't get to eat until 9:15 or 9:30. When I don't work my second job, we'll eat usually between 7 and 8, sometimes a smidge later.

One problem I've always struggled with is wanting to eat more right after dinner. I've tried to keep this to small stuff - maybe 5 bite-size pretzels, or a Weight Watchers ice-cream bar, or even a hard-boiled egg. Sometimes - and I'm not proud to admit it - this will often snowball into ALL of those snacks, and a beer, and suddenly I've added 400 calories at the very end of the day.

What's WEIRD - and the reason I'm writing this - is because every once in a while I'll decide to "cheat," and will grab a foot-long Subway sandwich for dinner after my job - ingesting a whopping 1,200 calories roughly 90 minutes before bed time. And most of the time when I've done that, I've lost a ton of weight by the next morning!

I started a while ago weighing myself at bedtime and again first thing in the morning. I've had that giant subway sub, and between the nighttime and morningtime weigh in, lost 2 pounds or more.

LAST night however, I had a modest dinner of some homemade white chili (approximately 450 calories) and one, 40-calorie piece of candy, played some xbox until midnight, and between my nighttime and daytime weigh-ins, only lost .8 pounds.

What I'm TRYING to figure out is how to maximize my metabolism overnight. I mean, I was STARVING when I went to bed last night! I knew I had a filling dinner and didn't NEED to eat, so I didn't, and expected a considerable weight-loss over night. I'm wondering if - had I eaten a hardboiled egg, maybe some lunch meat, etc, before going to bed - could I have seen a larger weight loss over night?

Don't read me wrong - I'm not stressing about weight loss due to "over-measuring" - I'm trying to figure out how to improve my metabolism throughout both the day and night.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to some suggestions.

katamus · October 2012

Are you saying that you weigh in after dinner and are X amount, but then next morning you weigh less than X amount from the night before?

Everything you consume has WEIGHT to it. If you eat a ton, and weigh 2lbs more at night than morning, it would make sense.

If you're saying you lost 2lbs overnight, from one morning to the next, then you should open your diary.

Weight fluctuates daily. If you're obsessive, weigh once a week or something instead.

TheViperMan · October 2012

Nope - I must not have been clear enough (I was trying to not go into TOO much detail.)

I lose weight every night - sometimes I lose less, sometimes I lose more. What seems odd to me is I seem to lose more overnight if I have a BIGGER dinner, but it's not entirely consistent.

I'm doing some research now, and most of the discussions I'm finding are related to overal daily caloric intake and the impact a small or large dinner might have on that. Nothing is really delving into "overnight metabolism" which is what I'm curious about.

If I were obsessive, I'd have lost my mind a LONG time ago!

I've been maintaining this process now for nearly 7 months. I'm just trying to hone in on some things in the interest of more consistent results.

Thanks.

Capt_Apollo · October 2012

i feel ya. i like really big meals, especially dinner. and eating 3 meals during the day and a couple of small snacks wasn't cutting it.

the i heard about intermittent fasting.

basically, you skip breakfast. there is more to it then that though. so tonight you have a big meal, and then you go to sleep. you fast for a certain amount of hours, and what makes it easier is that you sleep through part of it. a little coffee is acceptable in the morning, but nothing else but water until you break the fast.

first time you do it, just try skipping breakfast once or twice a week. keep that up and see how you feel. then try skipping lunch.

i've only been doing this for a little while. the longest i've ever fasted was 18 hours. i try and do fasts like this a couple of times a week. i've even worked out on an empty stomach. you still eat your daily alloted calories, but you have less of a time frame to do it in.

intermittent fasting is based off the theory that our bodies are capable of surviving with out food for a few days, forcing your body to draw into it's own energy reserves.

i may have missed some information, or got something askewed. so i hope someone a little more experienced with IF will chime in here.

katamus · October 2012

I used to lose more after I ate a bunch... Because I wasn't eating enough to begin with. Could that be it?

Or is it just a fluke?

TheViperMan · October 2012

i feel ya. i like really big meals, especially dinner. and eating 3 meals during the day and a couple of small snacks wasn't cutting it.

the i heard about intermittent fasting.

basically, you skip breakfast. there is more to it then that though. so tonight you have a big meal, and then you go to sleep. you fast for a certain amount of hours, and what makes it easier is that you sleep through part of it. a little coffee is acceptable in the morning, but nothing else but water until you break the fast.

first time you do it, just try skipping breakfast once or twice a week. keep that up and see how you feel. then try skipping lunch.

i've only been doing this for a little while. the longest i've ever fasted was 18 hours. i try and do fasts like this a couple of times a week. i've even worked out on an empty stomach. you still eat your daily alloted calories, but you have less of a time frame to do it in.

intermittent fasting is based off the theory that our bodies are capable of surviving with out food for a few days, forcing your body to draw into it's own energy reserves.

i may have missed some information, or got something askewed. so i hope someone a little more experienced with IF will chime in here.

Meh, no disrepect or anything, but I'm not gonna buy in to this theory.

I like breakfast, and there is ample research to support the belief that a good, healthy breakfast of protein and a few carbohydrates really jump starts the metabolism. Besides, breakfast literally means "Break Fast[ing]." You're just prolonging the fast, which doesn't necessarily do anything. If you're hungry in the morning, then your body is read to burn some fresh calories.

Not saying your method is flawed, but it's not my cup of tea. When I'm hungry, I get upset, irritable, short-tempered, even light-headed. I don't need that at 8am!

The base question I'm asking is "should I have a big dinner or a small dinner to maintain a fast-burning metabolism over night?"

WendyTerry420 · October 2012

Do whatever works for you.

Personally, I do about 400-500 each for breakfast and lunch, then around 800-1000 calories for dinner. But that's because that's what i like to do. It doesn't affect weight loss at all, only total calories effect weight loss.

SideSteel · October 2012

Meh, no disrepect or anything, but I'm not gonna buy in to this theory.

I like breakfast, and there is ample research to support the belief that a good, healthy breakfast of protein and a few carbohydrates really jump starts the metabolism.

Not saying this to be an asshat, but can you find any research to back up the above claim? I specifically am interested in something showing a metabolic advantage to eating breakfast. The only research I'm aware of will show you that people who eat breakfast AND lost weight from it, did so because they ate less. For them, breakfast caused them to ingest fewer calories.

It USED to be believed that thermic effect of feeding (diet induced thermogenesis) was based on frequency, but it's now been adequately refuted. It's caloric and macro based. In short, it doesn't matter when you eat as far as the feeding effect on net thermogenesis.

The base question I'm asking is "should I have a big dinner or a small dinner to maintain a fast-burning metabolism over night?"

The answer is that you should focus on total intake and personal preference. Feeding time will have a negligable effect on thermogenesis and additionally, what happens at night won't necessarily indicate the net effect over weeks or months.

Please see the attached research here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/529002-a-compliation-on-meal-frequency

EDIT: Let me be clear --- please see the external sites that I've listed inside the above link. I'm not suggesting you read my above post and just take my word for it. I've referenced multiple sources and pubmed research.

Capt_Apollo · October 2012

i feel ya. i like really big meals, especially dinner. and eating 3 meals during the day and a couple of small snacks wasn't cutting it.

the i heard about intermittent fasting.

basically, you skip breakfast. there is more to it then that though. so tonight you have a big meal, and then you go to sleep. you fast for a certain amount of hours, and what makes it easier is that you sleep through part of it. a little coffee is acceptable in the morning, but nothing else but water until you break the fast.

first time you do it, just try skipping breakfast once or twice a week. keep that up and see how you feel. then try skipping lunch.

i've only been doing this for a little while. the longest i've ever fasted was 18 hours. i try and do fasts like this a couple of times a week. i've even worked out on an empty stomach. you still eat your daily alloted calories, but you have less of a time frame to do it in.

intermittent fasting is based off the theory that our bodies are capable of surviving with out food for a few days, forcing your body to draw into it's own energy reserves.

i may have missed some information, or got something askewed. so i hope someone a little more experienced with IF will chime in here.

Meh, no disrepect or anything, but I'm not gonna buy in to this theory.

I like breakfast, and there is ample research to support the belief that a good, healthy breakfast of protein and a few carbohydrates really jump starts the metabolism. Besides, breakfast literally means "Break Fast[ing]." You're just prolonging the fast, which doesn't necessarily do anything. If you're hungry in the morning, then your body is read to burn some fresh calories.

please show me said research.

all studies that say that breakfast is necessary or 'jump starts' the metabolism fail to state certain things such as what kind of foods are consumed (are they eating breakfast foods, or last nights leftovers?) and how soon from waking up do they eat breakfast.

the more i research intermittent fasting, the more it makes sense to me.

stines72 · October 2012

i always eat a 440 calorie dinner

magerum · October 2012

I lost quite a bit of weight without breakfast. I train fasted every day... *continue going on here*

I'll stick with results. Oh I typically eat 2200 calories between 6:30 pm and 9:30 pm. 1000 calories by noon.

dg09 · October 2012

90% of my calories at lunch after AM workout. Training fasted is the best.

twinketta · October 2012

Personally, I don`t think you can increase your metabolism overnight.

We are brought up from being babies to eat during daylight hours, and this pretty much establishes our eating process as we grow up.

Night time is for rest and recuperation, unless you work a night shift.

I may be wrong?? But if you live your day during the day, then this is the time that you need to feed your muscles/body and rest in the evening whilst you sleep?

Big dinner or little dinner?

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