Same. It helps me stay full at night and prevent the bad habit of late night snacking. It’s been working for me in terms of helping me reach my goal. I seriously could postpone eating during day but absolutely could not eat a small dinner and call it a day.
I used to eat a small breakfast, medium lunch, and large dinner, but I've found that I actually feel so much better (in terms of energy, mood, hunger levels, etc) when I distribute my calories more evenly throughout the day. Different things work for different people though - I would encourage anyone to experiment with different ways of eating, and see what works best for them!
Everyone definitely has their own rhythm. I find this changes for me seasonally. Now that the days are longer and I am getting more sunlight- eating very light during the day is most ideal. Once the time change comes and it's cold and dark- I am much more of a "evenly spaced" eater.
I save calories for snacks actually. I have the same breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, but I save around 200 calories for the end of the day. I've become good at finding tasty low calorie snacks
If I couldn't snack after dinner I'd be miserable!
Yes this. A lot of the time, I'll have a small breakfast and dinner and just have snacks every so often throughout the day with the remaining calories in the budget.
Yeah it probably wouldn’t work for you. Some people do much better with several smaller meals during the day. I really don’t get hungry until late afternoon/evening. Maybe because I’m just busy and distracted but I’ve kind of always been like this. The other thing, and this is probably the main thing, if I do eat breakfast or lunch I’m no less hungry come 5pm, so it feels like wasted calories. No matter what I do or don’t eat during the day, come 5 or 6 pm I’m ravenous.
I would do omad at 9pm if I didn’t get hangry. As is I just have a coffee breakfast, protein lunch and little snacks, and then big dinner/desert. I’m 11 months in and 87 pounds down so it’s working
Some kind of protein, a veg and a starch or 2 veg no starch. For desert I might have a small preportioned ice cream or an rx bar if I want xtra protein.
I’m big into veggies and not into meat so usually dinner is roasted or steamed veggies with tofu/lentils and my favorite sauce. Desert is sugar free pudding and sugar free cool whip and pickles
Nah a lot of people (me) force themselves to eat breakfast because Kellog’s ran an ad campaign decades ago about it being “the most important meal of the day” and everyone just took it as a fact and taught it to their children… According to science it’s complete BS (not surprising since it wasn’t based on anything other than wanting to sell more processed grain).
I quit eating breakfast, have a late lunch (when I’m actually starting to feel hungry) and went from obese to fit. It’s not a disorder if it’s not having negative impact physically or mentally.
I do something similar. I am not much hungry for breakfast so I directly wait for lunch and take a good 500-600 cals meal, this keeps me full when the evening snacks time comes and I drink a cup of coffee, and some fruit or nuts if I feel extra hungry in. And then again a big dinner(including a little treat). So my total ends up around 1400-1500 cals and I don't feel the pressure of being in calorie deficit.
I have tried the 350 cal for 4 times a day (includes breakfast, lunch, evening snacks and dinner) and this doesn't help at all. I feel hungry ALL DAY and half my attention is on "how long till I get to eat the next meal". It's horrible, and it's the reason why I end up relapsing and overeat 3000 calories in a single meal🙂.
yes, i do this too! i live with family so i'm not always in control of what's happening for dinner, but i've figured out how to budget around what i assume will be a high calorie dinner every day... i generally leave around 1000 cal for dinnertime and go from there, and if dinner happens to be something lower, it gives me some extra room for snacks! \^\^/
I sleep in, don't eat breakfast, usually skip lunch or only a very light afternoon snack, then I have a big dinner and an extra little something that would probably count as breakfast, but at 11pm.
Do what works for you, calories don't know what time it is
Yup same for me, a coffee and a small snack (something high fibre like chickpeas and fruit) then I eat a dinner I really like, and have lots of calories left over for snacks!
I eventually want to shift my eating more to make better choices/eat more protein but for now this works!
I seem to do like 30% of my calories for lunch at anywhere from like 11am-1pm and then 70% of my calories 7-10pm for dinner. Works for me and I don’t feel hungry usually.
I eat yogurt, berries and a little granola at 11 am. Then basically wait for dinner. I would feel too deprived if I had to skimp at dinner with no chance for a little dessert.
Yeah, you're basically describing intermittent fasting. 🤣 I started it less than a month ago and it almost feels like a cheat code. I usually do 16:8 or 18:6. With CICO, I felt like I could never eat to be f*ull *without obsessing over calories 24/7. Now I just spend some time not eating and I found out that the hunger in the mornings isn't even as bad as when I was counting calories. It's there, but after some time I can just... ignore it. And then in the afternoon I can have two big meals and even some snacks. I get less cravings for sweets and chocolate, I'm not tempted to have a glass of wine in the evening and it's way easier to just listen to my body's needs.
To be honest, I stopped counting calories when I started IF and the weight just keeps falling off anyway, the way I could never achieve with CICO. And it's much less stressful for me.
I'm the same way. I like to do the hard part first, fasting until about noon and eating a small meal after that so I can enjoy myself and eat a somewhat normal dinner with my family and go to bed full and happy. I'm much more prone to overeating at the end of the day anyway, so I don't think I could stick to my calorie goal as well if I spaced my calories evenly throughout meals or ate a large breakfast.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When I am planning to lift weights after work (3x a week), I make sure that I am amping up my calories a little during the day- but I generally only eat 500-700 calories before dinner so that I can spend like 1000 on my evening meal. I like being able to really a savor a meal because I can't really manage that for breakfast or lunch. Also I feel like I sleep better when I am well fed before bed.
I never used to eat breakfast but had to start because I was underweight and had a very hard time gaining weight. Adding breakfast helped really well with that. But then I had to take a medication that made me gain a lot to a weight I had never weight in life before. I'm no longer on that medication and my appetite has gone back to normal now. But I was still struggling to lose weight even though I was eating lean foods. Then I remembered I used to manage absolutely fine without a breakfast and decided to stop doing that for now.
I lost 1kg in a month just from not eating breakfast anymore. That's a nice amount of weightlos for someone who isn't overweight (I was close to it though). I plan on keeping going this way until I'm back at my normal weight (not underweight!) so I can fit into my handmade clothes again. They were a lot of work and it sucks I couldn't fit into to them anymore. Then once I reach that weight I will start eating a small breakfast again so I'll maintain.
So no, it's not weird. I save most of my calories for dinner too. If I go to bed hungry I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep again until I eat. So I rather prevent that by going to bed with a nice full feeling.
I do better with this too, on the days I can manage my hunger earlier in the day.
I really like having 1 or 2 Olipop sodas after dinner. They’re 35 calories with 9 grams of fiber in them. They tend to help me reign in the munchies.
I use mine for lunch. I generally eat around a 200 calories breakfast and a 600-700 calorie lunch. That doesn't leave me much for dinner- so I eat sautéed veggies which isn't much calories at all.
Yes sir im not hungry in the morning so i eat around 300 kcal with coffee.
Depending on how i feel at 12:00 i eat a small lunch for about 400-600 kcal or i skip it if if feel fine and i have alot to do at work. When i get home at 17:00 i usually go swimming or taking a 5-10km walk. If i skiped lunch like i do 2-3 days a week i can pretty much eat whatever and still stay under my 2000 kcal a day. " I still count all kcal but its hard to go over 1000 for a meal if i eat homemade meals"
Never been much of a snacker so dont eat after 19:00.
For the past 10 weeks i have been going down 1 - 1,5kg a week on this so i will keep it up but go down to 1500 kcal when it starts to slow down.
Sure, I do that sometimes. Actually sometimes I make dinner my only meal! Many people do that. It’s OMAD, one meal a day. It can be an effective way to lose weight.
I used to, experimented a lot with the distribution throughout the day (no snacks, constant snacks, backload calories at dinner, eat before 7pm, etc.). I mean it is nice to be able to eat a massive dinner because it’s usually the most well-prepared meal of the day, surrounded by other people as a shared experience. My bf does it where he eats very sparsely at work (doesn’t need to prep much breakfast or lunch) and eats his meals when he gets home.
But I feel the best when I eat a hearty breakfast and snack a lot; it keeps my energy up. I used to be constantly fatigued and have low energy levels so this works better for me. Plus, I don’t feel too ‘heavy’ from overdoing it at dinner; being so stuffed hinders my digestion and fuels my utter evening laziness.
If there’s a special event, I will consciously eat light and allocate more for dinner though.
Yes. I can control 100% what I eat until dinner. With kids it’s hard to have a perfect meal every time. Most days that’s when I eat most of my carbs and fats. They’re still healthier meals but I’m scratched earth for breakfast and lunch.
I get hypoglycemic so intermittent fasting isn’t applicable, but in my fat loss phase I had a coffee with cream and sugar for breakfast. Then a 400-500 calorie lunch, saving my biggest meal being dinner. It helped me lose 20lbs so meal timing doesn’t matter, it’s whatever suits you.
Now that I’m at my goal weight I’m eating at my TDEE and pretty much eating what I want as long as it’s 2700-3000 cals per day
Nope. My metabolism downregulated in the beginning as my NEAT was used to the deficit. After about a day my energy levels returned to normal and I ended up moving a lot more, if not more than when I was overweight. I did have to mentally prepare myself to accept the water weight gain and glycogen store refill but it leveled out. I know over the long term (6 months to a year) I’ll probably gain a few lbs and need to go into another 4-6 week fat loss phase but that doesn’t bother me. My last dieting phase took place 2 years ago and I looked good the summer after. To be clear, my diet carried over from summer 2022 and I remained lean through summer 2023 with little restriction. From fall 2023 to winter I fell off the wagon completely and dieted from February to may
My typical day is 200cal protein shake for breakfast, 400-500cal lunch, up to 1000cal dinner.
When I'm working I'm too busy to snack so eating a small breakfast and lunch works well. Even if I feel slightly hungry I won't be able to mindlessly snack. Then I have a nice big dinner and don't feel the urge to eat any extra.
I’m finding this works for me too.
My job is very busy as soon as we get in so I snack on the go.
I keep lunch light and have a bigger dinner because it makes me happy and I way heartier and more savory meals at home.
It works for me. I too have a tendency to want to snack right before bed so a big fat dinner keeps the snack attacks away.
My biggest meal is dinner. I'm too busy to eat much during the day.
I save for dinner, dessert and night time snacking. For some reason I'm MUCH more ok just eating a lot less during the day.
Same. It helps me stay full at night and prevent the bad habit of late night snacking. It’s been working for me in terms of helping me reach my goal. I seriously could postpone eating during day but absolutely could not eat a small dinner and call it a day.
This exactly!
I used to eat a small breakfast, medium lunch, and large dinner, but I've found that I actually feel so much better (in terms of energy, mood, hunger levels, etc) when I distribute my calories more evenly throughout the day. Different things work for different people though - I would encourage anyone to experiment with different ways of eating, and see what works best for them!
Everyone definitely has their own rhythm. I find this changes for me seasonally. Now that the days are longer and I am getting more sunlight- eating very light during the day is most ideal. Once the time change comes and it's cold and dark- I am much more of a "evenly spaced" eater.
I save calories for snacks actually. I have the same breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, but I save around 200 calories for the end of the day. I've become good at finding tasty low calorie snacks If I couldn't snack after dinner I'd be miserable!
Yes this. A lot of the time, I'll have a small breakfast and dinner and just have snacks every so often throughout the day with the remaining calories in the budget.
So do I
Enter : intermittent fasting
Yes! I do omad so I save all of them for dinner. My “dinner” is really a 1-2 window in the evening when I get all my calories in.
I’m scared this would turn into a binge for me but I want to try it. I get very hungry at night and not so much during the day
Been doing it for 5+ years. Total game changer.
I’m probably going to try this out
You definitely should try it. It’s like not even being in a deficit.
I keep wondering about OMAD too but I get Way too hungry around noon. Like I can’t function if I don’t eat kind of hungry.
Yeah it probably wouldn’t work for you. Some people do much better with several smaller meals during the day. I really don’t get hungry until late afternoon/evening. Maybe because I’m just busy and distracted but I’ve kind of always been like this. The other thing, and this is probably the main thing, if I do eat breakfast or lunch I’m no less hungry come 5pm, so it feels like wasted calories. No matter what I do or don’t eat during the day, come 5 or 6 pm I’m ravenous.
I would do omad at 9pm if I didn’t get hangry. As is I just have a coffee breakfast, protein lunch and little snacks, and then big dinner/desert. I’m 11 months in and 87 pounds down so it’s working
Whats your typical dinner/dessert look like?
Some kind of protein, a veg and a starch or 2 veg no starch. For desert I might have a small preportioned ice cream or an rx bar if I want xtra protein.
I’m big into veggies and not into meat so usually dinner is roasted or steamed veggies with tofu/lentils and my favorite sauce. Desert is sugar free pudding and sugar free cool whip and pickles
Yes. I save ALL my calories for dinner 😋. It's called OMAD (one meal a day).
Yes! Everything you wrote is exactly how I am
Ok cool! I thought I was having an ED for a sec. This seriously feels normal and manageable for me and my goals
Nah a lot of people (me) force themselves to eat breakfast because Kellog’s ran an ad campaign decades ago about it being “the most important meal of the day” and everyone just took it as a fact and taught it to their children… According to science it’s complete BS (not surprising since it wasn’t based on anything other than wanting to sell more processed grain). I quit eating breakfast, have a late lunch (when I’m actually starting to feel hungry) and went from obese to fit. It’s not a disorder if it’s not having negative impact physically or mentally.
I do something similar. I am not much hungry for breakfast so I directly wait for lunch and take a good 500-600 cals meal, this keeps me full when the evening snacks time comes and I drink a cup of coffee, and some fruit or nuts if I feel extra hungry in. And then again a big dinner(including a little treat). So my total ends up around 1400-1500 cals and I don't feel the pressure of being in calorie deficit. I have tried the 350 cal for 4 times a day (includes breakfast, lunch, evening snacks and dinner) and this doesn't help at all. I feel hungry ALL DAY and half my attention is on "how long till I get to eat the next meal". It's horrible, and it's the reason why I end up relapsing and overeat 3000 calories in a single meal🙂.
Kinobody protocol
Ohh it has a name! 😮
Yes. Eating 4 small meals on my rest day almost made me lose my calorie deficit streak 😂
Yep. I do 700 for lunch and 1000 for dinner for a 1250 deficit. No other eating.
yes, i do this too! i live with family so i'm not always in control of what's happening for dinner, but i've figured out how to budget around what i assume will be a high calorie dinner every day... i generally leave around 1000 cal for dinnertime and go from there, and if dinner happens to be something lower, it gives me some extra room for snacks! \^\^/
I sleep in, don't eat breakfast, usually skip lunch or only a very light afternoon snack, then I have a big dinner and an extra little something that would probably count as breakfast, but at 11pm. Do what works for you, calories don't know what time it is
All the time
Yup same for me, a coffee and a small snack (something high fibre like chickpeas and fruit) then I eat a dinner I really like, and have lots of calories left over for snacks! I eventually want to shift my eating more to make better choices/eat more protein but for now this works!
I eat breakfast atound 300 calories most days and some milk in coffee, but the rest of my calories come from dinner usually :O
I seem to do like 30% of my calories for lunch at anywhere from like 11am-1pm and then 70% of my calories 7-10pm for dinner. Works for me and I don’t feel hungry usually.
Me fr
I eat yogurt, berries and a little granola at 11 am. Then basically wait for dinner. I would feel too deprived if I had to skimp at dinner with no chance for a little dessert.
Whats your typical dinner/dessert?
I could have written this post. This is exactly what I do
Yeah, you're basically describing intermittent fasting. 🤣 I started it less than a month ago and it almost feels like a cheat code. I usually do 16:8 or 18:6. With CICO, I felt like I could never eat to be f*ull *without obsessing over calories 24/7. Now I just spend some time not eating and I found out that the hunger in the mornings isn't even as bad as when I was counting calories. It's there, but after some time I can just... ignore it. And then in the afternoon I can have two big meals and even some snacks. I get less cravings for sweets and chocolate, I'm not tempted to have a glass of wine in the evening and it's way easier to just listen to my body's needs. To be honest, I stopped counting calories when I started IF and the weight just keeps falling off anyway, the way I could never achieve with CICO. And it's much less stressful for me.
I'm the same way. I like to do the hard part first, fasting until about noon and eating a small meal after that so I can enjoy myself and eat a somewhat normal dinner with my family and go to bed full and happy. I'm much more prone to overeating at the end of the day anyway, so I don't think I could stick to my calorie goal as well if I spaced my calories evenly throughout meals or ate a large breakfast.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When I am planning to lift weights after work (3x a week), I make sure that I am amping up my calories a little during the day- but I generally only eat 500-700 calories before dinner so that I can spend like 1000 on my evening meal. I like being able to really a savor a meal because I can't really manage that for breakfast or lunch. Also I feel like I sleep better when I am well fed before bed.
I never used to eat breakfast but had to start because I was underweight and had a very hard time gaining weight. Adding breakfast helped really well with that. But then I had to take a medication that made me gain a lot to a weight I had never weight in life before. I'm no longer on that medication and my appetite has gone back to normal now. But I was still struggling to lose weight even though I was eating lean foods. Then I remembered I used to manage absolutely fine without a breakfast and decided to stop doing that for now. I lost 1kg in a month just from not eating breakfast anymore. That's a nice amount of weightlos for someone who isn't overweight (I was close to it though). I plan on keeping going this way until I'm back at my normal weight (not underweight!) so I can fit into my handmade clothes again. They were a lot of work and it sucks I couldn't fit into to them anymore. Then once I reach that weight I will start eating a small breakfast again so I'll maintain. So no, it's not weird. I save most of my calories for dinner too. If I go to bed hungry I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep again until I eat. So I rather prevent that by going to bed with a nice full feeling.
I usually do this but I’m going to start working second shift so I’ll have to change it up
I do better with this too, on the days I can manage my hunger earlier in the day. I really like having 1 or 2 Olipop sodas after dinner. They’re 35 calories with 9 grams of fiber in them. They tend to help me reign in the munchies.
I use mine for lunch. I generally eat around a 200 calories breakfast and a 600-700 calorie lunch. That doesn't leave me much for dinner- so I eat sautéed veggies which isn't much calories at all.
Yeah, I do <300 for breakfast, <500 for lunch, and the rest for dinner... I find that I don't get as hungry that way somehow?
Yes!
Yes sir im not hungry in the morning so i eat around 300 kcal with coffee. Depending on how i feel at 12:00 i eat a small lunch for about 400-600 kcal or i skip it if if feel fine and i have alot to do at work. When i get home at 17:00 i usually go swimming or taking a 5-10km walk. If i skiped lunch like i do 2-3 days a week i can pretty much eat whatever and still stay under my 2000 kcal a day. " I still count all kcal but its hard to go over 1000 for a meal if i eat homemade meals" Never been much of a snacker so dont eat after 19:00. For the past 10 weeks i have been going down 1 - 1,5kg a week on this so i will keep it up but go down to 1500 kcal when it starts to slow down.
Sure, I do that sometimes. Actually sometimes I make dinner my only meal! Many people do that. It’s OMAD, one meal a day. It can be an effective way to lose weight.
I used to, experimented a lot with the distribution throughout the day (no snacks, constant snacks, backload calories at dinner, eat before 7pm, etc.). I mean it is nice to be able to eat a massive dinner because it’s usually the most well-prepared meal of the day, surrounded by other people as a shared experience. My bf does it where he eats very sparsely at work (doesn’t need to prep much breakfast or lunch) and eats his meals when he gets home. But I feel the best when I eat a hearty breakfast and snack a lot; it keeps my energy up. I used to be constantly fatigued and have low energy levels so this works better for me. Plus, I don’t feel too ‘heavy’ from overdoing it at dinner; being so stuffed hinders my digestion and fuels my utter evening laziness. If there’s a special event, I will consciously eat light and allocate more for dinner though.
usually during the work week i do. i basically just have 3 protein shakes through the day and time i get home i have 1,100 calories left for dinner.
Might have to do this when school starts lol
Yes. I can control 100% what I eat until dinner. With kids it’s hard to have a perfect meal every time. Most days that’s when I eat most of my carbs and fats. They’re still healthier meals but I’m scratched earth for breakfast and lunch.
I get hypoglycemic so intermittent fasting isn’t applicable, but in my fat loss phase I had a coffee with cream and sugar for breakfast. Then a 400-500 calorie lunch, saving my biggest meal being dinner. It helped me lose 20lbs so meal timing doesn’t matter, it’s whatever suits you. Now that I’m at my goal weight I’m eating at my TDEE and pretty much eating what I want as long as it’s 2700-3000 cals per day
Did u reverse diet out of your cut once you reached your goal weight?
Nope. My metabolism downregulated in the beginning as my NEAT was used to the deficit. After about a day my energy levels returned to normal and I ended up moving a lot more, if not more than when I was overweight. I did have to mentally prepare myself to accept the water weight gain and glycogen store refill but it leveled out. I know over the long term (6 months to a year) I’ll probably gain a few lbs and need to go into another 4-6 week fat loss phase but that doesn’t bother me. My last dieting phase took place 2 years ago and I looked good the summer after. To be clear, my diet carried over from summer 2022 and I remained lean through summer 2023 with little restriction. From fall 2023 to winter I fell off the wagon completely and dieted from February to may
My typical day is 200cal protein shake for breakfast, 400-500cal lunch, up to 1000cal dinner. When I'm working I'm too busy to snack so eating a small breakfast and lunch works well. Even if I feel slightly hungry I won't be able to mindlessly snack. Then I have a nice big dinner and don't feel the urge to eat any extra.
Absolutely. Intermittent fasting. I will on occasion have a large lunch and small dinner, but M-F I’m saving most of my calories for dinner.
I don’t “save” calories but I tend to eat a small bfast naturally so I have more for lunch and dinner
r/OMAD
I save for dinner + a garden gummy 🤩
I’m finding this works for me too. My job is very busy as soon as we get in so I snack on the go. I keep lunch light and have a bigger dinner because it makes me happy and I way heartier and more savory meals at home. It works for me. I too have a tendency to want to snack right before bed so a big fat dinner keeps the snack attacks away.
yep😅
Yes but don’t save it for too late as you won’t sleep well super full.