The conventional wisdom of consuming three meals a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - has been deeply ingrained in our minds since childhood. However, modern eating habits are evolving, with concepts such as the One Meal a Day (OMAD) diet and eating two meals a day gaining traction. These eating patterns fall under the umbrella of Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) or intermittent fasting, which some find helpful for achieving weight-loss goals. This article delves into the potential benefits and risks of eating two meals a day, comparing it to the traditional three-meal approach and offering insights into how to make it a healthy and sustainable practice.
What is Time-Restricted Eating (TRE)?
The two-meals-a-day approach is a type of intermittent fasting where individuals eat just two main meals, typically skipping breakfast and consuming lunch and dinner within a set window. This eating pattern is designed to give the body extended fasting periods, often believed to boost fat metabolism, regulate blood sugar, and promote better digestion.
As per Nutrition Reviews, TRE refers to an eating pattern when eating is restricted to a certain number of hours each day. For it to be healthy, these two meals should be balanced, containing a variety of nutrients like proteins, healthy fats, fibre, and essential vitamins. The time between meals usually ranges from 16 to 18 hours, allowing the body to rest and reset between eating periods with no calories consumed. For instance, a common TRE protocol is to consume all your meals within an 8-hour window, such as between 12 pm to 8 pm, and then spend the remaining 16 hours fasting.
Potential Health Benefits of Eating Two Meals a Day
The benefits of consuming two meals a day can depend on factors like an individual’s age, health status, and physical activity levels.
- Weight Loss: Those on a weight loss journey might find this approach beneficial in supporting weight management. By consuming two meals instead of three, you might be able to create a calorie deficit and lose weight faster. A study published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism analyzed both normal-weight and overweight people who restricted their eating to a window of 7-12 hours. These people reported weight loss of up to 5 per cent over 2-4 weeks. However, as per the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, your weight loss by following this type of eating pattern probably depends on whether or not you are managing to consume fewer calories within the eating period. If you manage to consume fewer calories, it can produce effective weight loss over time.
- Better Digestion: By eating multiple meals throughout the day, you are just straining your complex digestive tract by not giving it enough time to digest the previous meal. With this eating pattern, there is more rest between meals, and you are more likely to experience reduced symptoms of gastrointestinal discomfort. Also, you might feel fresher throughout the day, for when you eat a heavy meal at lunch, you always tend to feel sluggish as the entire energy of your body goes into digesting the food you just ate. So, eating less will leave you feeling more energized while enhancing mental clarity and focus. Longer fasting periods between meals can give your digestive system a break. It cleans up any leftover food and bacteria, which allows your digestive tract to function more efficiently. As fasting changes when and how you eat, it can promote the growth of healthy bacteria in your gut.
- Heart Health: Many substances in your blood can increase your risk of getting heart disease, and one of these important substances is cholesterol. Bad (LDL) cholesterol puts you at a greater risk of getting heart disease, while good (HDL) cholesterol decreases your risk. A study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that four weeks of following time-restricted eating during an 8-hour window lowered “bad” LDL cholesterol by over 10 percent in both men and women.
- Improved Blood Sugar Levels: It is important to have ideal glucose or “sugar” in your blood. Having excess sugar in your blood can lead to chronic issues like diabetes and damage several parts of your body. By consuming fewer meals, you are giving your body ample time to process and digest food. That can, in turn, help regulate blood sugar levels. Eating two meals a day could help regulate insulin resistance. It can decrease excessive glucose production and curb inflammation.
- Lesser Insulin Secretion: Insulin is a fat-storing hormone that hinders the body from burning fat. If it is produced in excess, fat burning will be inhibited. Every time we eat food, it triggers the release of insulin. Thus, eating only two meals a day instead of three will restrict insulin spikes to only two times a day.
- Time and Money Savings: Eating two daily meals can drastically simplify your eating habits. You’ll spend less time in the kitchen chopping, cooking, and cleaning. As you eat twice and skip snacks, you may need fewer ingredients than usual. This means you can save money with a simpler grocery list and fewer trips to the store.
- Enhanced Cognitive Function: You may feel more functional and clear-headed in the morning if you fast until lunch. Breakfast may cause ups and downs in your blood sugar. Research has shown that fasting mechanisms can influence many aspects of the central nervous system. Your brain and body use different ways to trick you into eating.
- Mindful Eating: Eating twice a day can promote mindful eating.
Potential Risks and Considerations
While eating two meals a day offers potential benefits, it's crucial to be aware of the potential risks and considerations:
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- Nutritional Deficiencies: It is essential to include all vital nutrients-proteins, healthy fats, fibre, and carbohydrates-in both meals to avoid nutritional deficiencies. You can eat only two meals every day and still maintain good physical and mental conditioning. However, for it to work, you must ensure the meals are nutrient-dense, balanced, and meet all your daily nutritional requirements. If not, you may experience nutritional deficiencies.
- Overeating: For many, eating two meals a day could be okay if it suits their lifestyle and does not lead to overeating. However, it is crucial to listen to your body. If you feel hungry or fatigued, it may be a sign that your body needs more energy or nutrients.
- Rebound Weight Gain: Dietician Pooja Shah Bhave adds, “It is okay to have just two meals or even just one meal throughout the day if it suits an individual’s body and overall health. It is healthy only if this approach is followed in the long term. However, if individuals only can follow two meals a day plan for a short period, it may not have any benefit. In fact, it may lead to rebound weight gain and other side effects. Two meals a day should never be high calorie and junk food-based as it will not benefit the body.
- Not Suitable for Everyone: This pattern is unhealthy for individuals having Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes mellitus, pregnant females, individuals having severe acidity and individuals having chronic health conditions. Eating two meals a day may also not be appropriate, especially if you have a history of eating disorders or if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, says Mayo Clinic. It may also not be right for you if you take medication for diabetes or low blood pressure due to the risk of low blood sugar, according to the International Diabetes Federation. So, it’s important to speak with your doctor or a registered dietitian first before trying it. A specific health condition such as diabetes may require some moderate adjustments. Meal timing and frequency can affect your glucose and insulin levels.
- High-Calorie Food Choices: The AHA says that people who skip meals like breakfast and lunch and eat a large meal in the evening may have a higher body mass index than those who do not. In addition, research published in 2021 suggests that people who restrict calories can often get very hungry, causing them to choose high-calorie food options like pizza or soda.
- Importance of Diet Quality: The health benefits of eating two meals a day depend on what you are eating during those two meals. You’re unlikely to see health benefits from eating highly caloric, high-fat, or high-sugar meals twice a day, so it’s important to plan what you are eating for each meal if your goal is to lose weight.
The Timing of Meals
To properly follow the two meals a day plan one should keep a nine to ten hours gap between two major meals. The influence of meal frequency and timing on health and disease has been a topic of interest for many years. While epidemiological evidence indicates an association between higher meal frequencies and lower disease risk, experimental trials have shown conflicting results.
Recent prospective research has demonstrated a significant increase in disease risk with a high meal frequency (≥6 meals/day) as compared to a low meal frequency (1-2 meals/day). Apart from meal frequency and timing we also have to consider breakfast consumption and the distribution of daily energy intake, caloric restriction, and night-time eating. A central role in this complex scenario is played by the fasting period length between two meals. The physiological underpinning of these interconnected variables may be through internal circadian clocks, and food consumption that is asynchronous with natural circadian rhythms may exert adverse health effects and increase disease risk.
It has been suggested that late eating is related to increased risk of obesity and CHD and also that a “grazing” eating pattern is related to higher total energy intake and later night-time food consumption.
Manoogan says it's best to not specify the best times to eat, as this can be difficult for people with responsibilities and irregular time commitments, such as those working night shifts. "Telling people to stop eating by 7pm isn't helpful because people have different schedules. If you try to give your body regular fast nights, try to not eat too late or early and try to not have huge final meals, this can usually help. If you’re a morning person, you can have breakfast and lunch, but if your body feels more comfortable with lunch and dinner, you can adjust meals and their timings to meet your needs.
Two Meals vs. Three Meals: What Does the Research Say?
The origin of the firm belief that eating three meals per day is the better healthy choice is a mix of cultural heritage and early epidemiological studies.
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The available epidemiological studies have not primarily investigated cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), but rather some risks factors such as cholesterol and body weight. These studies observed a worsening of blood lipids associated with a “gorging” (a reduced meal frequency, one or two meals daily) diet compared to “nibbling” (the consumption of frequent smaller meals or snacks). In these early studies, authors stated that a reduced meal frequency is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Subsequent studies seemed to confirm these previous findings, reporting a lower age-adjusted total and LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol in subjects who reported eating four or more meals daily, compared to those reporting one or two.
However, conflicting results are depending on the outcome investigated and the methodology used. As also suggested by other authors, the correlation between a reduced meal frequency and a higher risk of CHD in these studies appears to be weak considering the cross-sectional nature of these studies, making it difficult to establish the causality or temporality of this association.
A very recent and extensive study published by Kahleova and colleagues investigated 50,660 adult members of Seventh-day Adventist churches in the United States and Canada. The results showed that eating one or two meals daily was associated with a relatively lower BMI compared with three meals daily. Interestingly, they found a positive relationship between the number of meals and snacks (more than three daily) and increases in BMI. Furthermore, the change in BMI was related to the length of the overnight fast: the longer the overnight fast, the lower the BMI.
The Role of Breakfast
Generally speaking, those who consistently eat breakfast have a lower risk of weight gain compared to those who skip breakfast; moreover, those eating their largest meal at lunch or dinner have a greater risk of an increased BMI. Moreover, Cahill et al. in 2013 discovered an interesting association between coronary heart disease (CHD) risk and frequency of consuming breakfast. Authors reported data coming from 51,529 healthy males (monitored from 1992 up to 2008) and concluded that “eating breakfast was associated with significantly lower CHD risk”.
Both dinner and breakfast skipping increased 24-h energy expenditure, concomitant with a longer fasting period, but skipping breakfast may elicit higher postprandial insulin concentrations and increased fat oxidation, suggesting a metabolic inflexibility that may lead to low-grade inflammation status and impaired glucose homeostasis.
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Cahill et al. published a large prospective study from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study on 26,902 American men aged 45 to 82 years. They found that men who skipped breakfast had a 27% higher risk of CHD compared with men who regularly ate breakfast (RR 1.27; 95% confidence interval CI 1.06-1.53).
Making Two Meals a Day Work for You
If you’re considering adopting a two-meals-a-day eating pattern, here are some tips to make it a healthy and sustainable choice:
- Prioritize Nutrient Density: To reap the benefits of eating twice a day, add more complex carbs, dietary fiber, lean protein, vitamins, and minerals to your meals. Plan for healthy, satisfying meals with plenty of lean protein. Consider heart-healthy fish with vegetables. Or opt for Mediterranean or DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet staples like whole grains with plenty of fruits and veggies instead of high-fat and sugar-sweetened foods. Ensure you are getting enough fiber and healthy fat through your two meals a day.
- Listen to Your Body: If you feel hungry or fatigued, it may be a sign that your body needs more energy or nutrients.
- Stay Hydrated: Drink plenty of water throughout the day, especially between meals.
- Avoid Processed Foods: Focus on whole, unprocessed foods to ensure you're getting the nutrients you need.
- Consult a Professional: Consulting a qualified dietitian is advised to ensure you’re getting the right amount of food. Before you begin a diet of only two meals per day, speak with your doctor or a registered dietitian. They can help determine a healthy weight range for you and create a safe, sustainable weight loss plan. A registered dietitian can also help create a nutritious eating plan that supports your goals while making sure you’re getting plenty of nutrients.
Meal monotony
You can eat the same meal or snack every day. But should you? That depends on whether the meal you’re repeating: Is nutrient-dense. “Our bodies need a variety of vitamins and minerals to stay healthy,” says Sedlacek. “If you’re eating the same food every day, that food needs to be nutritious. Fruits and vegetables are the best nutrient-dense foods that everyone can - and should - eat every day.”Meets your health needs. If you have a health condition, you might have certain dietary needs. And eating food every day that isn’t ideal for your health needs could lead to health issues over time. “If you have diabetes, make your repeated food something lower in added sugar and aim to balance your plate,” Sedlacek advises. “The same goes for eating low-sodium foods if you have high blood pressure.”
Pros of eating the same food every day
There may be some advantages to pressing “repeat” on your healthy food choices. When you eat the same thing every day: Healthy habits could become easier For those focusing on a healthy eating plan, having a go-to healthy food can help you stick to your goals. Counting calories isn’t as complicated Counting calories can be helpful if you’re trying to lose weight, but it isn’t as simple as reading the nutrition facts label. You have to determine your serving size and include everything on your plate - and you must repeat the process every time you have a meal or a snack. But when you have the same meal, you count those calories once and carry on. You save time and energy Grocery shopping takes time - and meal planning can be a job in itself. Having the same bowl of oatmeal for breakfast or salad for lunch can simplify shopping and planning. You might eat less Variety is the spice of life, but studies suggest it can also make it easier to overeat.
Cons of eating the same food every day
But eating the same thing every day isn’t right for everyone. Consider the potential drawbacks of meal repeating before you adopt this practice. Your gut needs variety Even if you enjoy the same food every day, your gut microbiome may not. You might miss nutrients If you're not careful, eating the same thing every day could lead to nutrient deficiencies. No single food can give you all the vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and protein your body needs. You could get bored Food boredom is a real thing - and some people are more likely to experience it than others.