Once a day

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I have been eating one meal a day , at the end I fell hungry is it a good or bad idea

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  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 1,669 Member
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    Bad.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,126 Member
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    I do one meal a day and it helps me control my eating. I am satisfied with the one meal. It works for me, but it may just not work for you. What is your typical meal? I eat a good size portion of protein, fat, and lower carbs. If I ate higher carbs, I would be ravenous and wouldn't want to stop eating. I figured this out through trial and error. So maybe either try to eat more fat and protein if you are low on that, and less carbs, or maybe it just isn't for you.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 7,516 Member
    edited June 2023
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    As long as you stay within your calorie goals, time of day doesn’t matter. Some folks like @musicfan88 are happy and satisfied with one meal a day.

    Me, I’m looking at my watch wondering when the next snack or meal is, and often killing time or drinking hot tea or gnawing ice cubes (which I happen to like doing, probably to the detriment of my teeth!) to stave things off in between. I find that pre-logging all my meals and snacks really helps, because I know when and what to expect.

    If the one meal a day thing is leaving you hungry at the end of the day, try something else. It’s not writ in stone that you have to do it X or Y way to succeed, and you always have to option to change it up.

    My husband has meeting tonight, so I’m taking an extra, later class than normal and then walking a couple blocks to treat myself to a gyro for a late dinner, which probably means no dessert tonight. So I may substitute an extra earlier snack. 👍🏻

    Prelogging gives me the flexibility to change things up in a whim because I can delete here and add there and have an instant calorie total on my diary.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,269 Member
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    One meal a day is a style thing. It's good for some people, bad for others. It depends on whether and how well that helps you meet your personal goals more easily.

    Feeling hungry may not be completely avoidable in any calorie-cutting scenario, but some of us find we can minimize it.

    The issue is that how to best manage hunger seems to be pretty individual.

    There are timings of one meal a day, or all-day grazing on small snack-sized meals, at the extremes. At the same calorie and nutrient levels, those and any strategy in between will have about the same effect on body weight, fitness and body composition.

    There are various macronutrient mixes that some people find sating, and other people don't. Some people find protein foods more filling, for some fats are more filling, for some it's specific foods (whole baked potatoes and oatmeal are common examples, but those aren't universally filling, either). Within certain nutritional boundaries (meeting minimums of essential nutrients), any combination of macronutrients and food choices can be reasonably healthful and calorie appropriate.

    When it comes to subjective perceived hunger, even things like sleep quality/quantity, exercise volume/intensity/type/schedule, or stress level can matter.

    I'd usually suggest that a person monitor and experiment to find their personal best solution.

    Monitor: Log food, notice days when more/less hungry, learn from that, and adjust toward the habits around the days when one feels more satisfied. (Note that sometimes the exercise effect can be about the previous day.)

    Experiment: If your current habits are leaving you hungry enough that it's hard to stick with appropriate calories and good nutrition, try another set of habits. Repeat for a few days to give the new routine a fair chance. If it's better, keep it. If it's not better, try something else.

    A core thing is to avoid trying to lose weight super fast in the first place. For most people, unless under very close doctor supervision for complications or deficiencies, it would be best to lose no more than 0.5%-1% of current weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that, especially if getting close to goal weight.

    Best wishes!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    I'm guessing your one meals isn't particularly substantial. No, you shouldn't be running around hungry all of the time...I mean being hungry around your normal eating times is...normal...just being hungry all the time isn't.