Eating Once a Day

Also, it is quite common for me to eat 2,000 calories in one meal after lifting, and usually not long before I've gone to bed. I've probably done that 3 times a week for about the last 3-4 months. If there is any problem with that, I sure haven't experienced it. Do what works for you and ignore the alarmist BS responses about your metabolism and how on earth your body will deal with it overnight. It's hogwash.

Why do you want to wait to start exercising?

There is so much misinformation and bad advice in this thread, it's unbelievable. It makes no difference to your body composition whether you have one 2000 calorie meal a day or five 400 calorie meals a day. The myth of 5 or 6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism running all day was proven completely false like almost a decade ago. It takes AT LEAST 72 hours of zero calorie intake for your metabolism to start changing or slowing down so don't listen to anybody who says meal timing or number of meals a day will affect your metabolism. Insulin spikes do not matter if you are eating at a deficit, or eating as maintenance because anything that gets stored as fat will be utilized later as fuel.

If you eat all of your calories at night, how does your body process all that food, since essentially your metabolism shuts down while you're sleeping?

LOOOOOOOOOL

From personal experience, my brother eats one meal a day and is very over weight. When you are only eating once per day your metabolism is going to be slower... The reason they say breakfast is so important is because it jump starts your metabolism for the day. Even having something as simple as a glass of milk in the morning can start up your metabolism. Also if you eat smaller meals throughout the day it will make your metabolism faster as well. If you are having issues with being hungry even after you are eating, maybe evaluate the quality of the food you are having. Carbs are better earlier in the day because you will use it as energy. Protein/Fiber help to keep you full longer. Also, you should eat salad at the end of your meal instead of before because it helps you to digest the food better. You can ask a DOCTOR or a NUTRITIONIST about this instead of relying on random strangers online who think they know everything. I don't see how you could get all of your nutritional values from eating one 1500 calorie meal per day.

The reason "they" say breakfast is so important is usually that they're trying to sell you their breakfast food. Most of the studies you hear quoted on the Special K commercials are correlations studies not causation studies.

So much crap in this thread. You are not going to lose muscle mass because you save all your calories for an evening meal. Your body does not digest food so quickly that it burns through a huge dinner and starts eating your muscle in less than 24 hours. And your metabolism is not a furnace that needs to be stoked at regular intervals. As long as your heart is beating in your chest, your metabolism is working.

I eat one meal a day. At night. 1700 calories. I'm losing fat and maintaining muscle just fine.

There's an intermittent fasting group on here if you're interested (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/49-intermittent-fasting), or you can read Leangains.com.

I would add that, at first glance, I think 1500 is way too low for you, OP, but it depends on your goals.

finally a voice of reason in here! I also agree that the calories are too low for OP's stats.

If you eat all of your calories at night, how does your body process all that food, since essentially your metabolism shuts down while you're sleeping?

obviously why so many people die in their sleep

Eating once a day is not a problem, although I would think you would want even more calories than 1500, and dfeinitely not 1000. Eating breakfast or 5-6 small meals a day may work for some people. That is what I am curently doing, but I personally lost a lot of weight doing Intermittent fasting and then using a feeding window, at which point I only ate one meal and one snack during a specific time frame each day. It worked great for me during that time. I love BIG meals, and this was what I got. I still lost over 100 pounds, so obviously skipping breakfast and those other 4 meals each day did not hinder my weight loss.

I switched to now eating smaller meals mostly because I work 10 hours a day and it is hard for me to have time to sit and eat a huge meal at one time. I spread it out and mostly eat snacky things that I can have at my desk, and also a salad which I can eat quickly on a ten minute break, etc. If I could I would have continued eating all my calories in one time frame, because it let me eat those big higher calorie meals that I PREFER. As long as you have a calorie deficit, it does not matter what time you eat those calories.

The problem I see here, is that you need MORE calories than 1500.

ETA: also, on the weekends I still just eat one or two big meals. And another pro to spreading my food out is that it is easier FOR ME to fit in more protein, which is something I wasnt focusing on before.

If you eat all of your calories at night, how does your body process all that food, since essentially your metabolism shuts down while you're sleeping?

Your metabolism NEVER shuts down, unless you are dead.
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I know there is always an arguement over this but wanted to see what you guys thought. I'm currently on day 4 of eating one meal per day. I eat nothing all day until dinner time when I make dinner for my kids. I decided to do this because I am always hungry regardless of if i eat lunch or not and I haven't been a breakfast eater most of my adult life. What do you guys think is 1000- to 1500 calories a day enough. I'm a male 39 years old 5'9" 178lbs currently. I would like to lose my belly and then focus on exercise after I've lost the weight.

No problem with eating all your food in 1 meal, 3 meals or 6 meals. Whatever suits you best.

Your calories are very low, too low I would say. Why not start higher and adjust depending on what results you get?

Really don't think waiting to exercise until you have lost weight is a good idea at all - exercise now for health and to preserve muscle mass while you are at a deficit. Mix of both strength and cardio would be best.

PS - ignore all the nonsense about metabolism stopping/starting when you sleep/wake and lighting fires - what on earth do they teach in schools these days?

Not nutrition, that's for sure. Well, beyond the Food Pyramid party line (and hell, even that's nonexistent beyond, like 5th grade).

No, your metabolism doesn't "shut down"...unless you're dead. No, you don't need to eat every hour or two. No, it won't mess up your metabolism.

Think about this for a moment - up until very, very recently (and for some people in some places, not even now), food abundance was cyclical or even completely not predictable. You might be able to bag yourself a large animal that would last you for the next two weeks, or you may have to subsist on grubs or whatever you could find that was remotely edible. Even in times of plenty, you were probably too busy tracking and hunting that animal, or foraging for vegetation, to eat even three meals a day, let alone six. Even with the rise of agriculture, extremes in unseasonable weather weren't uncommon, and things like too much rain, too little rain, too hot, or too cold (particularly at the start of the growing season) would lead to famine years, making food scarce for people. During lean times, you may even be lucky if you ate once a day, let alone multiple times per day.

Yet here you sit now, meaning the countless people who came before you and did just that, survived just fine and with metabolisms that were perfectly well-suited to support fertility (ask any woman who's ever been at too low a body fat percentage, or with truly messed up hormones, what it does to their fertility and monthly cycle).

No one on here is going to tell you this is a good idea. You know better than that.

Actually many on here are saying it's a good idea.

There is so much misinformation and bad advice in this thread, it's unbelievable. It makes no difference to your body composition whether you have one 2000 calorie meal a day or five 400 calorie meals a day. The myth of 5 or 6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism running all day was proven completely false like almost a decade ago. It takes AT LEAST 72 hours of zero calorie intake for your metabolism to start changing or slowing down so don't listen to anybody who says meal timing or number of meals a day will affect your metabolism. Insulin spikes do not matter if you are eating at a deficit, or eating as maintenance because anything that gets stored as fat will be utilized later as fuel.

Care to provide citations about the insulin spikes? I've had to sit through training for dietary constraints and education for 3 different diabetics, my brother, my mom, and my dad. What you're saying is completely wrong based on how insulin works and how the glycemic index of foods operates. It also contradicts current medical science on diabetes.

Fat is not utilized as fuel during exercise so long as glycogen is available (free glucose stored in the liver and muscles), and you are rarely ever going to burn that much during casual exercise. Your body favors glycogen because it is significantly easier to metabolize than fat. That's why marathoners tend to not hit "the wall" until mile 20, when your body has to make the switch from burning glycogen over to burning fat.

From personal experience, my brother eats one meal a day and is very over weight.

Your brother eats at a caloric surplus.

When you are only eating once per day your metabolism is going to be slower...

Actually, to the contrary, your metabolism is ever so slightly higher during the first 36 hours of a fast.

The reason they say breakfast is so important is because it jump starts your metabolism for the day. Even having something as simple as a glass of milk in the morning can start up your metabolism.

Your metabolism never stopped and doesn't need to be jump-started.

Also if you eat smaller meals throughout the day it will make your metabolism faster as well.

No, it really doesn't work that way. Thermic effect is proportional to total calories. Given the same number of calories, meal frequency means jack.

Carbs are better earlier in the day because you will use it as energy.

Carbs are just as good at night or any other time of the day for the same reason.

There is so much misinformation and bad advice in this thread, it's unbelievable. It makes no difference to your body composition whether you have one 2000 calorie meal a day or five 400 calorie meals a day. The myth of 5 or 6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism running all day was proven completely false like almost a decade ago. It takes AT LEAST 72 hours of zero calorie intake for your metabolism to start changing or slowing down so don't listen to anybody who says meal timing or number of meals a day will affect your metabolism. Insulin spikes do not matter if you are eating at a deficit, or eating as maintenance because anything that gets stored as fat will be utilized later as fuel.

Care to provide citations about the insulin spikes? I've had to sit through training for dietary constraints and education for 3 different diabetics, my brother, my mom, and my dad. What you're saying is completely wrong based on how insulin works and how the glycemic index of foods operates. It also contradicts current medical science on diabetes.

Fat is not utilized as fuel during exercise so long as glycogen is available (free glucose stored in the liver and muscles), and you are rarely ever going to burn that much during casual exercise. Your body favors glycogen because it is significantly easier to metabolize than fat. That's why marathoners tend to not hit "the wall" until mile 20, when your body has to make the switch from burning glycogen over to burning fat.

If you actually become diabetic, your body does not handle insulin properly anymore. Advice for a diabetic concerning insulin does not apply to someone who does not have the disease.

Care to provide citations about the insulin spikes? I've had to sit through training for dietary constraints and education for 3 different diabetics, my brother, my mom, and my dad. What you're saying is completely wrong based on how insulin works and how the glycemic index of foods operates. It also contradicts current medical science on diabetes.

Fat is not utilized as fuel during exercise so long as glycogen is available (free glucose stored in the liver and muscles), and you are rarely ever going to burn that much during casual exercise. That's why marathoners tend to not hit "the wall" until mile 20, when your body has to make the switch from burning glycogen over to burning fat.

1- the OP is not diabetic.

2- When you're in a deficit, where is your body going to keep conjuring glycogen from? This has nothing to do with marathon runners because they don't eat a deficit before their run.

Thank you, 100% correct, OP is not diabetic, I never mentioned that this advice was for diabetics, of course if you are diabetic then yes you should worry about simple sugars, yes you should worry about insulin spikes, yes you should worry about your blood glucose level, but for the majority of the population, it does not matter.

Secondly, the glycemic index is a joke. The way they tested it is they fed people only that specific food by itself as a meal, and they were fed that food in a completely fasted state, and they monitored how it affected their blood glucose level. How often is this how you eat food? Do you not eat for 12 or 16 hours and then eat a meal of only white rice, for example, by itself? I know I sure don't. When high GI foods are consumed in a balanced meal with protein, which they usually are for most people, the effect of that food on blood glucose, and therefore on insulin spikes, and therefore on fat storage is almost negligible.

Also, right on about the glycogen. Stored fat is broken down to replenish glycogen, it doesn't come from thin air. Also, hitting the wall is referring to your body completely running out of glycogen stores and switching over to ketones from stored fat as the main source of fuel, which yes during a marathon would be very painful, but you do not have to completely deplete all your glycogen stores before your body replenishes them. It is true that glycogen is mainly used as a fuel during exercise, but when eating at a deficit, fat is broken down to restore the glycogen, that's the definition of a caloric deficit, you are burning more energy every day that you are taking in meaning that energy has to come from energy already stored in your body aka fat.

thread is full of broscience, lol. EAT HOWEVER MANY MEALS YOU WANT, it makes no difference as stated by everyone with above average physiques and strength in this thread.