Eating most of calories in the evening?

Hello

Bit of a long story I lost a lot of weight with MFP successfully. While I never reached my goal weight I did lose 6st/84lbs I did maintain this within in 7lbs for over a year from June 2015 to the end of 2016 but due to grief I gained 25lbs this weight back purely from overeating lots of takeaways lots of eating out drinking and chocolate so my own fault.

How I lost weight was replacing two of my meals with two protein shakes and eating my calories in the evening. Recently I upped my calories to 1600 a day to lose just a pound a week and tried to split my calories over 3 meals and snacks this just didn't work for me and I overate even though I was eating more.

Has anyone of experience of eating their calories mainly in the evening? I know I was successful with this before but I want some motivation that other people have done it and wasn't just a fluke. I am a veggie so a lot of meals are carb heavy the way I like it haha!

Sorry for the ramble I am hoping that someone can motivate me a little that this can be possible again!

Replies

  • confidenceinrain
    confidenceinrain Posts: 104 Member
    edited February 2019
    I usually have small ish breakfasts and lunches. For example, yesterday my calories per meal were:

    Breakfast 308
    Lunch 307
    Dinner 907

    Today:

    Breakfast 276
    Lunch 264

    which leaves me 1212 for dinner--although a few hundred calories were from exercise. So I probably won't eat all of that* 1212 but I'll have 1000-1100, most likely.

    *I do eat back most exercise calories and lose as expected, but if I have a hundred or so calories left over I might roll them over to tomorrow's meals, which I have often done in the past.
  • BeGrandLike
    BeGrandLike Posts: 184 Member
    (Also: I'm one of them IF-ers, and on weekdays I tend to not take in anything but a couple cups of coffee before lunch. So I'm defo not gonna tell you that you need to eat breakfast, or anything like that!)
  • Jackie9003
    Jackie9003 Posts: 1,105 Member
    edited February 2019
    When I first started I would try to leave as many calories for dinner as possible, mainly because that's when I get bored and would most likely to want to snack, I lost weight doing so.
    Over the past year I've gradually spread it out a bit more evenly over the course of the day but it hasn't affected my rate of loss, that has stayed the same.
    When you eat doesn't make any difference providing you have an overall deficit so you go with what works best for you.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    hollyhoo wrote: »
    Hello

    Bit of a long story I lost a lot of weight with MFP successfully. While I never reached my goal weight I did lose 6st/84lbs I did maintain this within in 7lbs for over a year from June 2015 to the end of 2016 but due to grief I gained 25lbs this weight back purely from overeating lots of takeaways lots of eating out drinking and chocolate so my own fault.

    How I lost weight was replacing two of my meals with two protein shakes and eating my calories in the evening. Recently I upped my calories to 1600 a day to lose just a pound a week and tried to split my calories over 3 meals and snacks this just didn't work for me and I overate even though I was eating more.

    Has anyone of experience of eating their calories mainly in the evening? I know I was successful with this before but I want some motivation that other people have done it and wasn't just a fluke. I am a veggie so a lot of meals are carb heavy the way I like it haha!

    Sorry for the ramble I am hoping that someone can motivate me a little that this can be possible again!

    If it doesn't work for you can't be successful doing it. It is as simple as that.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,879 Member
    Why do you think it would matter?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    You only lose weight by being in a calorie deficit at the end of the day/week, eat at times that suit you.

    If you haven't lost weight, I would go back and make sure you are indeed in a deficit through reviewing your weighing and logging of your intake for inaccuracies.
  • debtay123
    debtay123 Posts: 1,327 Member
    As many others have said- do what is BESt for you- if eating most in the evening work- do it- I eat most of mine in evening and for snacking at night- and it works- THAT is when i can stop relax and enjoy my meal- during the day i may eat a little something to keep going- but yeah I am going.... so I eat most of mine at night-
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
    I eat a small meal mid-day, a larger one at supper time and a snack before bed. Lost and maintain doing this. Meal timing makes no difference in terms of weight loss.
  • garystrickland357
    garystrickland357 Posts: 598 Member
    I eat relatively small meals for breakfast and lunch because I like larger evening meals AND a snack before bedtime. It works.
  • emilysusana
    emilysusana Posts: 416 Member
    I eat relatively small meals for breakfast and lunch because I like larger evening meals AND a snack before bedtime. It works.

    Same here. I’m busy during the day and enjoy having lots of calories to work with for dinner and snack (or dessert).
  • PixelPuff
    PixelPuff Posts: 901 Member
    I'm also of the type that prefer to have a large meal at the end of the day. Something satiating about it! I don't really care for breakfast. I get nauseated in the mornings; not pregnant, this has always been an issue. For lunch, I prefer to have something sustainable, but not very heavy in calories. Maybe a snack to nosh on either before/after...

    And a big *kitten* dinner. Yum~.
  • brittlb07
    brittlb07 Posts: 313 Member
    edited February 2019
    Today I ate 90% of my calories for dinner. What can I say? I really wanted a Stromboli for the first time in months! But I stuck within my calories! I’m all for the big dinners, too! When I eat too heavy too early I find myself craving the same big meal later on. That’s why intermittently fasting has worked well for me. I don’t eat breakfast, have a small 250-300 lunch, and eat about 900 calories for dinner with maybe a 100-200 dessert smoothy or banana with peanut butter snack.
  • whatalazyidiot
    whatalazyidiot Posts: 343 Member
    brittlb07 wrote: »
    Today I ate 90% of my calories for dinner. What can I say? I really wanted a Stromboli for the first time in months! But I stuck within my calories! I’m all for the big dinners, too! When I eat too heavy too early I find myself craving the same big meal later on. That’s why intermittently fasting has worked well for me. I don’t eat breakfast, have a small 250-300 lunch, and eat about 900 calories for dinner with maybe a 100-200 dessert smoothy or banana with peanut butter snack.

    It's definitely all about what works for you as an individual. I am the complete opposite. If i skip breakfast, I am basically fighting a binge all day. But you learn this stuff through trial and error. We all reach our deficits in different ways.
  • Danp
    Danp Posts: 1,561 Member
    Yep, no matter how much I eat during the day I'm always really hungry at night.

    Generally I'm never really hungry throughout the day and a light breakfast and maybe a bit of an afternoon snack is all I need so I tend to split my calories up 10-15% in the morning (coffee and maybe toast) 5-10% (cheese and crackers, maybe a snack bar of some sort) and then eat like 75-85% of my calories for dinner and desert each night.
  • hollyhoo
    hollyhoo Posts: 9 Member
    Wow I did expect so many responses! Thank you so much for the encouragement that eating late and heavy does work as long as you are in calories! I really focused on it yesterday and feel so much better today for doing that!

    Honestly thank you so much for replying to me I really appreciate it!
  • hollyhoo
    hollyhoo Posts: 9 Member
    AoifeFitzy wrote: »
    First, I wanna say: gaining weight when you're stuck in a pit of grief isn't "your fault"! Yeah, in an ideal world we'd all eat/exercise well all the time, no matter what life throws at us. But this world is far from ideal, and it's so normal and human to end up making the easy choice when our life as a whole is too damn hard to deal with. I'm so sorry to read that you went through such a difficult time. And I'm glad to hear that you're at a place now where you have the spare emotional/mental/physical energy to tackle getting your body back to a healthier place.

    As for eating calories in the evening: if it works for you, then why not! Some people do find they need meals spaced throughout the day to feel good. And on the other end of the scale (geddit.. scale..) you have the OMAD-ers who eat all their calories in one hour of the day.

    If you're feeling healthy and well, and you're losing weight at a sensible rate, and you're doing it in a way that fits your own lifestyle and needs? Awesome! Keep doing the thing!

    Thank you so much for your lovely message! I should have worded it a bit better I know its not my fault but I didn't want people saying my diet wasn't sustainable or something like that!

    I wish I could do OMAD but I feel like I could probably eat 3000 calories in that one hour :D