No dinner for me

[Bre]

I curious what your thoughts are on not eating dinner. I finished a round of insanity and just didn't have the time to keep up with it everyday after my promotion at work. So because I couldn't do this I cut a meal. Dinner being not needed in my eyes so I didn't eat it and gained nothing back from doing so.

Here is the thing. I have gained a total of 15 pounds and not happy about it. I started eating dinner and I think this could be the cause. So I eliminated it again.

Do any of you skip dinner? If so how do you feel in the morning? I'm curious if this is okay for my body. I feel better in the mornings but very hungry at night. ...

Any feedback is appreciated

 

[Marawan Amer]

All that matters is how many calories you eat per day.

It doesn´t really matter when you eat it. Yes, I admit, it may affect how you FEEL when dieting but it will not hinder your weight loss if you are in a caloric deficit.

If you prefer eating dinner (I definitely do...) so that you don´t go to bed hungry, then please do that because in the long run if you hate your diet, you will probably not stick to it.

You can try to time your meals so that you eat at those times where you feel most hungry. There is no need to go very hungry if you are following a sane diet.

I assume you are not counting calories, correct?

 

[Sunrise1]

Everything I've read and seen suggests that skipping meals is probably a bad idea in the long run. It makes it harder to stick to your diet, leaves you hungry, and (even worse) you may be slowing your metabolism down if you aren't eating enough. You have to make sure you're eating enough, and if you're a heavy person this number can be rather huge. For example, losing 2 pounds a week I eat 2,390 calories a day, but I also currently weight 305 pounds. This number changes as you lose or gain weight.

Let me preface this next statement with a minor qualifier; I am not a doctor, but I work with several at the Obesity Research Center at the UW. Everything I've heard from them is that trying to lose more than two (2) pounds a week is dangerous in the long run. To top that off, losing more than 2 pounds in a week means that those extra pounds probably aren't fat but are "water weight." Problem with water weight is that your muscles are almost entirely made up of water, so losing "water weight" means you're losing muscle mass and thus doing more harm than good. Its the same problem the contestants on The Biggest Loser face, and you can find articles about that pretty much everywhere, but to sum it up, you lose the weight at first and then later you gain it all back and more because you've totally tanked your metabolism. As an example from one of the articles I read on it, one of the contestants, a winner actually I think, gained back 30 pounds or so when he just started drinking beer with his friends again.

Essentially, I'd say cutting out any meals is of dubious value at best and out right harmful at worst.

 

[Wellness Help]

I'm not skipping dinner and I can still lose weight if I keep eating at a caloric deficit. You can have your daily calories in one single meal or distribute it to 6 meals, etc... Of course these two would have minor differences but all in all, your weight loss would roughly be equal in those cases.

Pick the one you enjoy and are able to sustain. For example, I feel fuller and more satisfied if I eat less number of meals and my digestion works better since it has enough time between the meals to digest properly. So I don't prefer 6 small meals but 3-4 larger meals.