I know conventional advice on dieting says eat small meals often but...?

Question

... I prefer just to eat just one large (1200 calorie-ish) meal at around 2 in the afternoon as this works for me. How much weight will I NOT lose following this method as opposed to the one above... (bearing in mind the total number of calories eaten would be the same)? Thanks!

lalala: So it's not now I should be worrying about, but later when I start to eat normally again? Thanks for the insight! v helpfull. I may yet change my ways.

Answer 1

I'm not sure but the experts recommend the small frequent meals to keep your metabolism going. One large meal could interrupt that metabolism causing you to lose less weight.

Answer 2

There are a number of reasons for people advocating small meals often, rather than one largish meal of the same total calories. A series of small meals regulates your blood sugar levels, so your body works more efficiently, mood swings are less likely and you don't feel hungry. Also, your metabolism works faster... but not to a quantifiable level so it's impossible to say how many calories you are 'wasting' by eating just one meal. Conventional nutritional doctrine definitely suggests that the most important meal of the day is breakfast. After you've been to sleep, the sooner you 'break fast' the sooner your body kick starts into calorie-burning mode. If you don't eat breakfast, your body stays in a lulled state as it assumes the reason you haven't eaten is a shortage of food. You have to remember that your body almost has a mind of its own. Since your body expects you to break your fast, the fact you don't makes your body enter starvation-mode and frantically store fat reserves in anticipation of a famine.
Overall, since you are comfortable with one large meal at a reasonable time of day, I'd stick with that *except* I'd reduce it to about 1000 calories and move 200 calories forward to have a small snack as soon as you get up. That should make your weight-loss more efficient and reduce the risk of your body getting into a low metabolic state that won't necessarily stop you losing weight now but will make you far more likely to put the weight back on again after your diet is over.

Answer 3

Weight gain and wieght loss vary from person to person, due to your metabolism rate. The diet of eating small meals as compared to eating one huuuuge meal and then not eating for the rest of the day is more benefitial. The small meals like every so and so hours is designed for you to help speed up your metabolism, which in the end you get a bigger benefit of losing weight faster. However, the 1200 calorie at once is probably a little faster in wanting to lose weight in a shorter time, but your metabolism will stay the same/slow down which in the end you wont really gain much out of it. I cannot say exactly how much weight difference it will be in the end, but I do know that the eating small meals will benefit u the most in the long run.

Answer 4

The prima facae answer is that the answer is unknown, despite numerous experts giving advice, very little is known about the effect of meal size and number on metabolism. however, the simple fact is that the greatest obstacle to weight loss isn't maintaining metabolism, it is mantaining weight loss. if you find it easier to eat once a day, then you are more likely to stick to your diet and so even if you lose weight less quickly, you are more likely to more overall weight, you must also be aware that at some point you will stop dieting and try to maintain your new weight and so you should be ready to factor that into your future plans

Answer 5

You probably won't loose much weight. Your body needs nourishment on a regular basis or it starts to store reserves. It can start to add up in pounds if you aren't careful. I had basically drug induced anorexia... and ate once a day maybe and lost no weight and started to gain. Once I returned to eating regular low calorie meals I started to loose weight.