question for all you nutrition buffs out there

[Thor Von Clemson]

So I was thinking about this today. I usually go all day without eating. I eat breakfast, the occasional snack (powerbar etc) during the day, then eat dinner at night. So from 0730 to 1800 I basically eat nothing and drink lots of water.

I work next door to a perkins, mcdonalds, and taco bell and I was wondering if it is more healthy to eat a greasy meal at lunchtime or to not eat at all and wait till I get home for dinner. I think your body pretty much absorbs whatever you eat if you do not eat all day right?

Anyone?

[RacerX]

My take: you need to fuel your body at regular intervals. Quit starving yourself. Why not brown bag it? Much healthier (and cheaper) than fast food. Or, starting next month,, have the wife start making your lunches....I think that's part of the wifely duties

[Thor Von Clemson]

Actually ron, I brought lunch from home all the time until about 2 weeks ago. Whether it was leftovers or a bag of chips and a sandwich I always brought food while still drinking lots of water.

Then one day I left the fridge open overnight. I came in the next day all excited to eat my food (eating food is one of my favorite things to do afterall) and it was open. From then on, I stoppped bringing food...?

I brought some leftovers earlier this week and (one of the benefits of still living with my parents) some food from my parents house yesterday.

Maybe I should change I usually go without eating to somedays I go without eating.

Anyways, for those days off, is it better to wait to eat or eat something unhealthy?

[fett]

I don't know how old you are. I'm 55, and I think healthy? My body tells me to eat 1 really good meal in the afternoon. Like 2000 calories or more. Balanced and all that. I take my dump in the morning and life is good. You will know when you have to eat. If you need a snack, go for it. The 3 meal a day stuff never made sense to me. Why would I want my GI system always cranking? As for eating "Brown Bags" , I wouldn't recommend it.:ROTF: :ROTF: :ROTF:

[rjohnstone]

You're supposed to eat a good breakfast, a modest lunch and a small dinner.
That's the rule of thumb anyway.
The point being, breakfast should be your biggest meal as it prepares you for the day. Remember, you are "breaking the fast" from sleeping all night. This is normaly the longest period of time the body should go without food.
Lunch should be a smaller meal than breakfast as you body doesn't need the big kick like it did when you first woke up, just something to get you through until dinner.
Here is where everybody screws up... Dinner is supposed to be the smallest meal of the day, not the biggest.
Dinner should always be small as you are going to be going to bed soon and your metabolism slows down considerably when you sleep.
If you have a huge dinner, all it will do is turn into fat or god knows whatever since you will not burn it off while sleeping.

[RacerX]

Well, I hear that a lot of people skip meals, I usually ask them, "Don't you get hungry?" and they answer no...which is weird...,you'd think the human body tells you that you need food...maybe they ignored this for so long, that warning system part of the body shut down. IMO it's not healthy to go long periods without fueling. My situation: I eat every 2-3 hours...not full meals but something...carrot sticks, sunflower seeds, snacks, something....if I don't I'll get growls and hunger pains. Anyway, my opinion is that we are machines in a sense, you don't starve your car, so why starve your body?

Is your wife gonna fix your meals? You're going from living at home to living w/ a wife...so did you make this deal? Hope so. Seems like you are doing enough - she should do that for you, man. When I had a gf, she made all my meals, definitely took care of me. If not, can you fix meals yourself?


EDIT +1 on what RJ said

[fett]

That's why I eat a very big lunch. And then I want to take a siesta.:ROTF:

[fett]

Have any of us on this forum "really" been hungry? The urge to eat is not the same as the need to eat. Just ask all those porker kids running around.

[Thor Von Clemson]

Lets see.. I am 22, 5'7" and weigh roughly 165 pounds. Not a whole lot of fat.

I am pretty much always hungry for some reason or another. I joke with my fiance about how if we ever have boys she is going to have to cook like mad.

I eat breakfast at 0700 which usually consists of a bottle of water, bowl of cereal, maybe some fruit. Not to get to personal (although I am sure there are those of you on this board who are proud of their regular poops) but I usually take a dump around 0900. I then get hungry around 1000 and either go all day without eating or eat a moderate sized lunch around 1400. I eat dinner around 1830 and I must admit, dinner is usually huge unless it is after 2000.

Fett, I hear ya about eating a big lunch and wanting to sleep. When I did low voltage, we used to joke about eating a big lunch and productivity being cut in half afterwards.

Ron, she likes to cook and is excited to cook for me. She is also a very good cook. The only problem is she has a tendancy to cook waaay too much food, which in the long run I guess is not really a problem.

[El_Kabong]

A large breakfast gets your metabolic system going so you can burn calories during your active hours. If you don't eat, your body will use the energy from stored fat, but will also slow down your metabloism, in order to conserve your resources. That's the simple reason why 70's crash diets never kept the weight off after the initial unexpected lack of incoming energy.

Dinner should also be not later than 4 hours before you go to bed.

Taking into consideration that on average, it takes ten minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that it's full, most of us eat too much. Japanese stop eating when they feel 80% full. It is one of the many reasons why their bodies are more lean and have less heart related illnesses due to dietary intake. And yes, many feel very hungry. Imagine eating breakfast at 6:30, getting $5 for a cafeteria lunch from your 'minister of finance' and then not eating again until you get home at 9pm or so.

[HoWheels]

So I was thinking about this today. I usually go all day without eating. I eat breakfast, the occasional snack (powerbar etc) during the day, then eat dinner at night. So from 0730 to 1800 I basically eat nothing and drink lots of water.

I work next door to a perkins, mcdonalds, and taco bell and I was wondering if it is more healthy to eat a greasy meal at lunchtime or to not eat at all and wait till I get home for dinner. I think your body pretty much absorbs whatever you eat if you do not eat all day right?

Anyone?

You are going to wreck your metabolism by doing this.
Optimally, you should eat several small meals throughout the day. Bring a loaf of bread and some lunchmeats with you to work.
I wouldn't recommend eating PowerBars unless you are doing something super strenuous and need extra fuel, because those things are packed with calories, and don't make a good 'snack.'

-a

[axeman81]

Ron is right. HoWheels too..The only thing you're doing right is drinking lots of water. Regular intervalled eating ensures your blood sugar stays on a pretty even level....if you don't eat more than once or twice a day, you will have low blood sugar for most of the day and then get a spike when you actually DO eat...I bet you feel pretty tired/sleepy after those one or two meals!
The reason for this is that the brain produces melatonin when your blood sugar is high...melatonin is used in pharmaceuticals (sp) to produce sleeping pills

Low blood sugar effects: feeling tired or "low", no energy, short tempered manner, your body consume muscle tissue and body fat (in that order!!) to produce energy when it doesn't get any meals.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin