One big meal a day?

They call breakfast BREAK-THE-FAST for a reason. Your body has no food for 9-12 hours. The metablism slows to a standstill once it has digested the food and then goes into a rest period. When you break-the-fast in the morning, you start it back up again and start it working. If you ate every 2 hours, that would be preferable to eating large meals 3 times a day. Keeps your metabolism going at a stead rate all the time.
As to eating one meal - if you are diabetic, or have ups and downs, this type of eating will be HORRIBLE for your body. You're going to eat one meal - your insulin levels, amino acids, not to mention all the other things that your body produces when you eat - are going to go crazy for that one meal.
Additionally, I don't know how you can sit and eat 1500-2000 cals at one sitting. I suppose a burger, fries and a milk shake could do it, but it amazes me to think of one meal and that many cals.
Re: fasting. Yes, we can fast. It's good for the mind, spirit and body. Occasionally. I don't think a nutritionist would tell you that fasting every day is good - and then gorging one meal a day. That's basically what you're doing - gorging.
Lastly - I know that your mind and body significantly slow down when it's hungry and wanting food/nutrition. I can't imaging that eating one meal late in the day is going to be good for your body OR your mind.
Sorry - I just don't think this is good at all. But hey - your bod, your choice.

I work with nutritionist both professionally and personally and I have never heard a nutritionist say it is ok to go all day without eating. Yes when it comes to weight loss your total calorie intake is what matters. If you are only looking to lose weight maybe starving your body is going to work for you but when our bodies go into starvation mode doesn't it preserve the fat and eat away at the muscle???? It's been a long time since I've had physiology or nutrition but I remember something like that.
Everyone has an opinion and people are going to do what works for them the goal for everyone should be to do it in the most healthy way possible. Talk to your doctor, nutritionist whoever but get the info you need to make an informed decision.

They call breakfast BREAK-THE-FAST for a reason. Your body has no food for 9-12 hours. The metablism slows to a standstill once it has digested the food and then goes into a rest period. When you break-the-fast in the morning, you start it back up again and start it working. If you ate every 2 hours, that would be preferable to eating large meals 3 times a day. Keeps your metabolism going at a stead rate all the time.
As to eating one meal - if you are diabetic, or have ups and downs, this type of eating will be HORRIBLE for your body. You're going to eat one meal - your insulin levels, amino acids, not to mention all the other things that your body produces when you eat - are going to go crazy for that one meal.
Additionally, I don't know how you can sit and eat 1500-2000 cals at one sitting. I suppose a burger, fries and a milk shake could do it, but it amazes me to think of one meal and that many cals.
Re: fasting. Yes, we can fast. It's good for the mind, spirit and body. Occasionally. I don't think a nutritionist would tell you that fasting every day is good - and then gorging one meal a day. That's basically what you're doing - gorging.
Lastly - I know that your mind and body significantly slow down when it's hungry and wanting food/nutrition. I can't imaging that eating one meal late in the day is going to be good for your body OR your mind.
Sorry - I just don't think this is good at all. But hey - your bod, your choice.

Such nonsense. Eating 1500-2000cals in a meal is quite easy actually, even made of whole foods and not fast/junk foods

and what's this?

Zauner et al. Resting energy expenditure in short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in serum norepinephrine.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1511-5.

DESIGN:
Resting energy expenditure, measured by indirect calorimetry, and hormone and substrate concentrations were measured in 11 healthy, lean subjects on days 1, 2, 3, and 4 of an 84-h starvation period.

RESULTS:
Resting energy expenditure increased significantly from 3.97 +/- 0.9 kJ/min on day 1 to 4.53 +/- 0.9 kJ/min on day 3 (P < 0.05). The increase in resting energy expenditure was associated with an increase in the norepinephrine concentration from 1716. +/- 574 pmol/L on day 1 to 3728 +/- 1636 pmol/L on day 4 (P < 0.05). Serum glucose decreased from 4.9 +/- 0.5 to 3.5 +/- 0.5 mmol/L (P < 0.05), whereas insulin did not change significantly.

CONCLUSIONS:
Resting energy expenditure increases in early starvation, accompanied by an increase in plasma norepinephrine. This increase in norepinephrine seems to be due to a decline in serum glucose and may be the initial signal for metabolic changes in early starvation

Ah, but we aren't talking about early starvation here. This is just post-absorptive, not even fasting. You will see an increase in glucagon and epinephrine which are required to liberate fatty acids for oxidation, but it won't cause an appreciable increase in metabolic rate. After about 18 hours you'll see a big spike in cortisol and protein degradation...THAT is fasting. Early starvation happens at about 18hrs-2 days...then you'll see metabolic changes. Decrease in protein degradation, increased epinephrine, etc. But only for a little while.

and courtesy of alloranx

Very true. Check out all the damage intermittent fasting has done to the muscles of these poor people:

http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Client results

Don't they just look so weak, sickly and unhealthy? Nasty, I'd never want to look like them. Practically anorexic:

http://www.chilloutpoint.com/images/2010/08/anorexic-models/anorexic-models-06.jpg
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Fasting just destroys your muscles and puts you into starvation mode where you don't lose any fat:

http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/265/5/E801.short
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/50/1/96.short
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/94/11/4524.abstract
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Fasting is so bad for your health, too! Scientific studies have shown that over and over again, like these:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20300080
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17616757
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16529878
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It wrecks blood sugar:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17522614
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And it ruins your metabolism!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292
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Also, you can't work out while you're fasting! That would be stupid.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3622486
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17489012
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3292504
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w8712615714k8150/

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

It is FINE to go longer than 3 hours between meals. Promise.

But what is ideal?
6 meals spread out works best over one huge feeding a day. Promise...lol

It is FINE to go longer than 3 hours between meals. Promise.

But what is ideal?
6 meals spread out works best over one huge feeding a day. Promise...lol

Comes down to personal preference & calorie goals as I said.

I used to the 6+ meals a day thing & they were generally all smallish meals as total cals were around 2500. I now prefer to fast for the morning & eat the same amount of cals in 3-4 larger meals.

I've also found personally that I sleep much better with a full stomach specifically with a high carb meal close to bed time.

As the body is still processing nutrients from the previous night's meals during fasting phase I see it making SFA difference overall. Although there are a few hormonal benefits of fasting also but I still go by the fact that cals in vs out is what matters most.

Doing IF, it is ridiculously easy to maintain weight & actually hard to gain weight (which is something I would never have thought would happen to me a few years ago). So I like it

Given the debate on the first page of comments....here is what I know from MY experience (no medical evidence or web-magic, just what I know from personal experience). I have battled my weight my entire life. In my very early 20s I had an eating discorder. Fast forward a few years...and I am back to battling my weight. I have lived on the "one big meal a day" plan on most days for a long time - except, there was no plan, that's just how I ate. Obviously, the weight remained and I gained even more over the years. When I first decided to tackle my weight issue, I started doing the 6 Week Body Makeover. This plan consists of 5-6 small meals a day. I dropped 30 pounds in no time and never went hungry - just the opposite actually, not being used to eating, I would have to force myself to eat on this plan.

So, just from my experience, when I was eating 5-6 small meals a day is when I had the most success and the fastest results.

It still is just a matter of calories. My guess is that you weren't tracking your one big meal before and that it was more calories than your 5-6 are now.

Nobody can tell me when to eat. I eat when I'm hungry and that's it. I don't follow any eating schedule.
Someday I eat at 3PM. Other time, I get up at 6AM and my body wants me to feed her right away.
I'm not into eat 5,6 times a day tho.

I've eaten 1000ish calories in bed LOL. Not fat yet.

I've been thinking about looking into IF.. I'm not big on breakfast and most days i dont get hungry until well after noon.
also - i ate about 1600 calories between dinner (8pm) and dessert/snacking last night before i went to bed (3am)...and i was actually down two pounds (from yesterday) this morning