Skipping A Meal On Fat Loss Diets – Do Or Don’t?
As you progress along your fat loss diet, you may wonder what the impacts of skipping a meal would be. You’d think that since the goal of a fat loss diet is to eat less food than normal, that skipping a meal would actually work to your benefit.
This, however, is not always the case.
Here are some of the things you need to know about skipping a meal while on a weight loss diet.
Hunger Control
One of the biggest reasons you shouldn’t be skipping a meal while on a weight loss diet is because of hunger. You likely don’t need me to tell you that if you skip a meal while on a low calorie diet, it’s only going to be a matter of time before your stomach is screaming. It’ll grumble, it’ll rumble, it may even start feeling quite painful.
When you’re dieting, your not taking in as many calories as your body would ideally like, and as such, you’re going to feel hungry. Skip a meal and you’re really asking for that hunger demon to come on strong. For this reason, many people find eating more regularly really helps them stick with their diet.
Total Calorie Intake
Next up, you should consider the impacts on your total calorie intake. Obviously while trying to lose fat you will be limited with how much you should be eating. If you eat too much, you aren’t going to see fat loss, so carefully monitoring this will be important.
You don’t want to regularly skip meals over the long term because if you aren’t eating enough on a daily basis for a few weeks or longer, you will see your metabolism slow. For example, if you should be consuming 1200 calories on your diet but you skip a meal and only eat 900 and this is a regular thing, you’re going to see negative consequences because of it.
Energy Levels
Also keep in mind that skipping meals on a regular basis will influence your energy levels. This is especially the case if you’re skipping meals prior to your workout or immediately after it’s finished. It’s very important that you are feeding your body energy on a regular basis to get you through your daily activities, so if you’re skipping main meals, you’re going to feel tired, sluggish, and likely be less active because of this (therefore cutting down on your overall calorie burn).
Later-Day Eating Behavior
Also have a look at how skipping meals impacts your eating later on in the day. Many people find that when they skip breakfast or lunch, it causes them to actually binge later on in the evening, taking in even more calories than they otherwise would have. So in all retrospect, they think they’re doing their diet a favor by skipping that meal, but they make up for this later on in the evening.
Usually when you eat your meals more evenly spread throughout the day, you’ll find you’re simply not as hungry later on during the day.
Metabolic Rate
Last is considering what skipping meals will do to your metabolic rate. This is one where there are many people get misled, believing that skipping a meal is going to significantly slow your metabolism. While above we discussed it would, keep in mind this is over a longer period of time.
If you skip a meal here or there, it’s really going to influence your metabolic rate all that much. So don’t panik too much over one skipped meal. You may want to eat more at your next meal to make up for it (or alternatively eat both meals at once), but as long as you’re constantly making an effort to get your meals in as you should, it’s not going to be a huge problem.
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