To eat one meal a day

[Lemonite]

Trying to lose the last 10lbs to get to my goal weight.

It's the most stubborn 10lbs in the bloody world. I track every calorie, I drink only water, exercise a lot, no snacking between meals or takeaways, no treats, no booze, essentially no fun whatsoever!

But it's not budging. And that's at 1300-1400kcals a day, consistently. But the past 2 months I've not lost a gram.

So - that must be my maintenance kcals. Would it be unreasonable to eat one meal a day (dinner) of around 800-1000kcals to just get this 10lbs shifted? Would it mess with my metabolism?!

Any tips I'd appreciate!

• Maybe cut back on the exercise though it does seem a little intense if you’re only going to do one meal. I literally do no exercise and eat a massive meal with most of my calories for the day in though so please take care of yourself xxx

I mostly eat one meal a day or at least fast till mid-late afternoon. I also don't eat sugar/aspartame/UPF and not much gluten or high carb food.
I feel very good on it, the whole lack of energy/blood sugar issues thing is just the first few days while you adjust. Once you're used to it it feels absolutely fine.
I do it for weight control but also health benefits. Our digestive systems really weren't designed to be constantly working.

don't do anything you can't sustain, otherwise what is the point? You'll possibly lose it, but then will regain when you revert to a less drastic pattern.

I'm sorry and I know you probably won't believe me but previous posters are right when they said it sounds like you have an unhealthy attitude towards this. A healthy attitude towards food and exercise combined with being 10lbs over where you'd like to be is far better than an unhealthy attitude towards both (no matter what weight you might be with that). As people have pointed out - if you do this, and lose the weight, how are you going to maintain? Are you going to live the rest of your life only eating one meal a day?

I do weights too, and measurements and how you feel in your clothes/going up stairs/doing day to day activities is a better measure than weight. Your body can't necessarily put on muscle and lose fat at the same time - it's often a bit of one then a bit of the other. Discouraging? Can be, but only if you're worried about numbers rather than health. Best way to burn calories is to have lots of muscle, best way to build lots of muscle is to eat enough to fuel your exercise - and to get good rest, which includes at least one day off per week and good sleep.

I really hope you get to a point where you like your body, whether that's through weight loss or muscle gain or both - but please don't sacrifice mental health (disordered attitude towards food/exercise) to get there. It's really not worth it and so hard to unlearn.

Have you looked at any of the Body Coach workout plans, healthy nutritional meals (focussed on macros rather than calorie counting)

4-5 HIIT workouts per week to ramp up calorie burn

lots of water

no alcohol

includes healthy snacks

It's hard work but rewarding - you already work hard, something like this could be the game changer for you.

Sounds as if your muscle mass has increased your BMI - I wouldn’t worry about that at all given your fat levels (DS is a power lifter, his BMI is about 28 but he has increased muscle mass and low body fat).

I’d ditch the scales and think more about toning exercises rather than pushing yourself to lose weight. Pilates might be worth trying?

Be careful OP.
Skipping meals might loose the weight but it won't keep it off. You'll also find it very hard to revert back to eating more as you'll gain and feel bad about it. Trust me, I've been there.
Your body needs more then one meal a day.

One meal a day sounds like an utterly miserable way to live.

It's depressing that so many women feel starving themselves is the way to go, to look good. Also encouraging others to do the same.

Speak to a professional - a nutritionist.

It's fine for some people, we all have different metabolisms and different needs

If you have to get one meal day to use 10lbs then your goal is unrealistic.

I think it's fine to do or you can fast until 3pm, for example, and have a shake or similar and then a bigger meal around 6/7pm?

To everyone saying what's the point if she can't maintain it, she's maintaining weight now by eating 1400 calories so once she's dropped this weight she can go back up to that.

Why don't you measure fat % instead? you are excising a lot, your weight might be more muscle than fat?

1000 cals a day for a couple of weeks over 1-2 meals will kick start you again. Lots of info. around on weight loss plateaus but you can get through them.

• starvation mode and it messing up your metabolism (for what is being described here) as a theory has largely been debunked
• lots of scientific evidence for health benefits of time restricted eating so chomp within a 6-8 hour window or just 1 meal if you can manage that
• if you’re doing weight resistance training (and I mean proper weights not just 5kg kettlebells during HIIT), you will weigh more through muscle but will look leaner. At these calories levels you want to do that and not lose weight from muscle loss. So if you really have lean muscle you’ll also burn more fat so TDEE probably isn’t that far off

This is where the meal replacements come in handy as they contain the nutrients you require. The main issue with vlcd is nutrients, it is hard to create a menu for 800 cals with everything you need included.

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all. OMAD can be hugely beneficial for health, whether you have weight to lose or not.

Look at Dr Jason Fung, as suggested earlier, but also Dr Pradip Jamnadas (cardiologist) and Dr Mark Mattson (neuroscientist), who all believe that the eating-all-day pattern of three meals with snacks in between promoted by modern food manufacturers is unhealthy and not how humans evolved to eat.

Sounds like your body would be going into starvation mode and clinging on to all the "fat" . I wouldn't of thought you are eating enough calories for the amount of exercise your doing. try and up your protein intake a bit . Even if its just an extra chicken breast or half of one in your meals .

I don't think starvation mode is a thing

It's a crock of shit.

Starvation mode I mean.
No such thing.

Are the calories you are consuming containing nutrition that keeps you full and your body uses properly? Rice, oats, plants, beans, lentils, etc?

Or are they processed foodstuffs?

Your body will use them differently.

I have been overweight and underweight, not massively overweight and people think I'm very slim because I'm tall but I have been overweight. I ate lots of dairy and processed stuff.

I didn't "go on a diet", I streamlined my diet (we all eat, we are all "on a diet" all the time) I made that diet 90% good stuff, fresh foods that were going to nourish my body. And I didn't restrict myself as such from the crap, rather I left little room for it by filling up with things like big salads with chickpea tuna or brown coconut rice.

Delicious stuff that doesn't add excess weight because my body uses it for nutrition. Then I stopped craving the cakes, processed sugar, and processed vegan stuff as I was full for the most part from the good stuff.

I think this works. I don't think it's as simple as counting calories and I know it's not because it never seems to work.

You're not eating enough calories and your metabolism has slowed right down. This happened to me and I switched to 5:2 to shake things up a bit. You eat your maintenance calories for 5 days of the week and 800 calories for 2 days. Doing this, I started losing 1-2 lbs a week again and also enjoyed food again!

Just don't start on a fast day; have a couple of non fast days first. And spread your fast days out, don't lump them together or it's hard! I have Mondays and Thursdays as my fast days. Also, I weigh myself on a Friday morning, after my fast day.

I'm now at my goal weight and I've been maintaining by carrying on with 5:2 and eating more on my non fast days. This includes cake!

Maybe you're just at the weight you're supposed to be at. Sounds as though the number on the scales is totally dominating your life, which is far more unhealthy than an arbitrary 'goal'.

I feel like I've wandered into a 90s thinspiration chat...

I've been trying to lose weight healthily over the past 6 weeks because I'd reached my heaviest weight ever and felt and looked bloody awful- I was particularly carrying a lot around my middle. Too much processed crap, too much food in general, basically sedentary. My two year old lifting my belly up and weight lifting it alongside my five year old asking me why I was so fat tipped me right over the edge. Anyway....

Podcasts got my head straight and set me on a path I am really enjoying. Firstly the "a thorough examination" podcast with the van Tullekan brothers on BBC sounds changed my head about what food actually is. Dr Rangan Chattergee has a really good one called feel better live more. There's some really good episodes. I really enjoyed the Satchin Panda (all about eating windows and the benefits they have on EVERYTHING) episodes and Valter Lungo's (all about fasting and fast mimicking diets- FMD). Lots of excellent peer reviewed science (rather than "that's not good for you" tutting based on nonsense and diet industry woo).

Now I am in a lot worse condition than you- I started at 14st9 and I'm 5'6". I've been following 16:8 for 6 weeks now (2 meals a day, no breakfast and no snacking), have been aiming for at least 70000 steps a week, have been doing yoga on the fiton app daily and have completed one 5 day cycle of FMD which I'll repeat monthly until I lose the weight I need to (3st 5lb to go...). I haven't calorie counted other than on the FMD and I eat mainly plant based with the very occasional odd bit of dairy. I don't eat meat or fish and have cut out all UPFs and sugar. I'm now 13st5 and absolutely loving the way I'm eating now. One thing I really noticed about the FMD days were that I was noticeably losing my weight on my stomach- Valter Lungo goes into detail on how FMDs target abdominal fats.

You sound like you're incredibly fit and are doing everything right. Please be kind to your body and mind. You need to rest as much as you need to move. Would those last 10lbs make a difference or are you being unnecessarily harsh on yourself based on the scale? When someone is as fit as you sound (a "gentle" 5k as an off day would probably kill me atm!) the scale might not be your friend in terms of telling you what you need to know.