One of the major contributors to excessive weight gain is food and it’s more likely than less likely that you became fat or obese by consuming more than the required calories your body needs daily. That’s why if you are looking lean or slim people will often tell you that you are not eating properly and that you should eat more.

So, it’s common logic that if you eat too much you’ll get fat because your body wouldn’t know what to do with the excess in your body so it stores it as fat. With that in mind, it also isn’t difficult for anyone to guess that, if they can get fat by consuming too much food, then skipping one or two meals daily should be enough to revert or return them to their former state, right? If you thought that as well, then you may be right or wrong but to find out which path you should take you’ll have to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of doing that. That’s why in today’s guide, we’ll be looking at the advantages and disadvantages of skipping lunch to lose weight.

Pros of skipping lunch 

Lose weight

It’s true that if you skip lunch that you might lose weight and it’s only possible if what you ate in the morning and what you’ll eat later in the evening doesn’t add up to give the 3000 calories (however, women require 2500 calories) your body needs daily. If you practised calorie deficit alongside and it’s well calculated then you could lose up to 500 calories or 1000 calories simply from not eating lunch which can help you lose weight. Skipping lunch is one way to go about losing weight but it poses a lot of health risks to the body and as such health professionals or practitioners often advise against it. Secondly, the weight loss is temporary and the moment you start eating normal again, you’ll automatically regain the weight.

Helps with digestion 

When you eat in the morning, then at lunch, and finally at dinner, your digestive system rarely has enough time to rest and that’s because it’ll be working round the clock to digest the food you have been eating. Skipping lunch gives your digestive system a break as it can now only focus on what you have already eaten for the day.

Time restricted feeding

A lot of research has been done around restricting our feeding window and it has produced positive results that shows restricting your feeding window to 16 hours or more is beneficial to your health.

The potential benefits you stand to gain from time restricted feeding include assisting with weight loss, improving cellular health, lowering blood pressure, and reducing the risk of diabetes. This could mean that having a late breakfast and early dinner is great for the body and okay for the day.

Cons of skipping lunch

Drains your energy

The thing is, for some, skipping lunch could be beneficial to them and for others, it could cause serious health problems and that’s because even though we all look alike from the outside, our insides have different genetic makeup and biological processes that make one person totally different from another. That’s why, something that works for A could be detrimental to B.

If you are having problems with skipping lunch then it’s because there is an issue with the way your body stabilizes its blood sugar. The way cars run on petrol, our bodies run on sugar and when it’s not circulating in the right amount, every organ in the body could get affected. Skipping a single meal, in this case lunch, could lead to a drop in your body’s sugar level. Additionally, without a steady dose of nutrients, your emotional and intellectual functioning could change leading to brain fog and mood swings. Hence, going for a long period without replenishing the body’s fuel will force your body to start using the energy stored in the muscles which further drains your energy.

Reduced nutrition 

Cutting back on lunch simply equates to cutting back opportunities to take in the adequate amounts of minerals and vitamins that your body needs in a day. When the subject of weight loss is being brought up, aside from exercising, you’ll hear people mention calorie deficit which has to do with the total amount of calories you should be consuming daily and the three macronutrients: fat, carbohydrate, and protein. 

But you’ll rarely hear people make emphasis on the micronutrients and that’s because they are required in small quantities by the body but the thing is being small doesn’t mean being ineffective. Those dietary components play a vital role in many body processes such as disease prevention, growth and development, and overall well-being. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, rather than skipping meals, focus on consuming more nutritious well-rounded meals.

Conclusion 

Skipping meals can be both bad and good for your body and whether or not skipping lunch will be beneficial to you depends on your own body and genetic makeup. Rather than taking a risk by skipping lunch, a better way to go about losing weight is getting yourself a sweat shaper sauna vest and use it to exercise 3 to 4 times weekly while observing or performing calorie deficit and you’ll be shocked by the results at the end of the month.