Not eating enough during the day - looking for advice on where to start

rs270501 · April 2019

Hey! I tried to run a quick search, but I didn’t see anything pop up. I have three kids, work from home, and usually am just running all day and don’t eat nearly enough. I generally end up snacking on whatever is left over from what I make the kids and then my first full meal wnds up being when I eat dinner at night. I know this is an unhealthy habit and I’m working to change it, but my question is do I need to eat the recommended amount to start losing the baby weight again? What’s the best way to approach this? Most often it’s the other way around, people eating too much and needing to eat less, so I don’t see much information out there in this. Any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated! Thanks!

MichelleSilverleaf · April 2019

If you're not currently losing weight then the issue isn't that you're not eating enough. Weight loss happens in a deficit, and if you were truly not eating enough your weight would be on a downward trend. Best to get a food scale, start weighing what you're eating and track it.

ConfidentRaven · April 2019

I try to plan my day working from dinner (my usual big meal) backwards, the night before so it’s one less thing I’m dealing with during the chaos of the day. I also make my lunch of overnight oats before I go to bed or whenever I have a spare few moments the day before I want to eat them. They’re great for breakfast too, but my kids are usually not as hectic in the morning as they are in the afternoon.

As long as you’re counting the calories in the food you snack on and plan around them accordingly there’s no reason you can’t continue what you’ve been doing if it’s working for you. Depending on your schedule intermittent fasting could work for you too.

As for do you need to eat the recommended to lose weight, yes. You can eat less, but for overall mental and physical health most people probably won’t recommend that route.

Danp · April 2019

There are a few misconceptions in your post.

Firstly you can't gain weight by not eating enough. Weight management is a simple equation. Eat more calories than you use and you'll gain weight. Eat fewer calorie than you use and you'll lose weight. It's really that simple. If you're gaining weight then the fact is you're eating more calories than you're using so eating more will only exacerbate the problem. In cases like this it's almost invariably that you're significantly underestimating how many calories you're eating. The solution is to accurately track everything you eat. This means weighing all your food and logging to the gram and logging everything that passes your lips. This will reveal how many calories you actually eating as humans suck at estimation.

Secondly, there is nothing 'unhealthy' about eating your calories at night and not eating during the day. In fact many people, myself included eat the vast majority or even ALL of their calories at night. Meal timing and frequency is a very individual thing. Some find eating small meal frequently keeps them happy, some (like myself) tend to snack lightly during the day then eat the vast majority (like 75-80%) of their calories at night. Some fast all day eating nothing then have One Meal A Day (OMAD). And then there's everything in between.

The most important thing is maintaining a calorie deficit, how you go about that really doesn't matter. So if eating loads of carbs, or mostly protein, or high fat helps you stay in a deficit then do that. If eating take away every meal or cooking at home helps you stay in a deficit then do that. If 1 meal, 3 meals or 10 meals a day helps you stay in a deficit then do that. Forget the rules and just do what works.

G'luck.

sijomial · April 2019

Plan better, log better, don't worry about when you eat - worry about how much you eat over the course of entire days and weeks (for weight loss) and what you eat (for an overall healthy diet).

Don't overcomplicate or go searching for far-fetched reasons why you aren't losing weight until you have eliminated by far the most common and likely reason for not losing - eating more than you think.

If you want help with accurate food logging then an open diary helps enormously.

amusedmonkey · April 2019

Leftovers are a slippery slope. They can add up quickly if you don't account for them. Your issue is not "not eating enough", but most likely, not accounting for everything you are eating and not logging accurately. You don't need to go out of your way to create an eating routine. If your current routine works for you, continue doing what you're doing, but make sure to weight and log every single bite you eat.

csplatt · April 2019

I agree this was confusing - you are eating at the amount of calories you need if you are staying the same weight; you are eating more than you burn each day if you are gaining. If you want tips to spread out your meals throughout the day so you don't overeat at night, I recommend making your food for the following day after your kids go to bed at night! Use tupperware, weigh it out, and it will be waiting for you.

staticsplit · April 2019

Def spread it out more! I'm in maintenance but I aim for 350ish for breakfast, 400-500 for lunch, about 400 for snacks (sometimes split to morning/afternoon of about 200 each), 400-600 for dinner, and if I'm still hungry/have the calories, about 300 as a dessert. I rarely want to binge if I've fed myself decently during the day.

Not eating enough during the day - looking for advice on where to start

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