Can Eating One Big Meal a Day Really Help You Lose Weight?

LAST week, it emerged that skipping meals may actually be good for us – and could even help us live longer. Here, solicitor Joel Kordan, 43, who lives with his wife Dawn and their five children in Worcestershire, explains how he discovered the benefits of eating once a day completely by chance.

FLICKING through my newspaper last week, an eminent American scientist was telling the world what I have been telling my disbelieving friends and family for over a year: that far from being bad for you, skipping meals not only helps you lose weight, but may actually benefit your health.

I’ve never been one for diets.

In fact, I have always regarded them with a healthy disdain. I’ve seen friends try the Atkins and various other weight-loss programmes, only to end in failure.

Frankly, I loved my food too much to contemplate trying to give up bread or pasta or eat endless sticks of celery. As far as I was concerned, life was too short. Until, that was, last year.

I had been plagued by gout since 1993, and the pain the condition was causing in the big toe of my right foot was agony. I went to see a specialist and his message was blunt.

He told me that my weight – 16st 6lb – was far too much for my 6ft frame, and that unless I lost weight I would soon lose my big toe.

It was a real wakeup call.

For the first time in years, I was forced to take a long, hard look at myself. I realised that my sedentary life as a solicitor, the long hours and obligatory client lunches, had taken their toll.

Far from being the slim and sporty man I had been in my 20s, I was now quite seriously overweight, and facing the prospect of having a toe amputated at the age of 42.

I’m a man of extremes and I never do things by half. I resolved there and then to do something about my predicament. I reasoned that, as I am so busy during my working day, the easiest way to cut back on food would be to skip breakfast and lunch – and eat only in the evenings.

MY FRIENDS, family and colleagues were all aghast.

They quoted studies at me that breakfast was the healthiest meal of the day. They even told me research showed that people who skipped breakfast were fatter than those who ate a proper meal.

I was undeterred. It seemed to make sense to me, and I decided to do my own thing.

Until my radical diet, I would always have a good breakfast before I left the house – a big bowl of cereal or a couple of eggs and toast.

At lunch, I’d have soup and a sandwich, crisps and some fruit. In the afternoon, I’d think nothing of eating a few chocolate bars to keep me going until my evening meal.

Overnight, I gave all this up.

I simply ate as much as I wanted once a day – usually around 9pm. But I have never counted a single calorie.

I admit I found the diet hard to begin with. For the first few weeks, by lunchtime I found my concentration lagging and I’d have to have a biscuit to ease my gnawing hunger. But I soldiered on – and soon I felt my body was used to my new way of eating.

Each night, I would look forward to eating as much as I wanted. I’d devour a good homecooked meal – often fish or a steak with a huge salad or a big bowl of pasta, several sandwiches, a couple of fried eggs for good measure, a couple of bowls of cereal, and some fruit.

I’d often go to bed so full that my stomach was distended. But the amazing thing was I would sleep better than I used to and wake up feeling great. And soon, incredibly, the weight began to drop off me.

In August last year – four months after my diet began – my weight was down to 13 stone. I’d lost three-and-a-half stone and I felt like a new man.

My gout felt much better and I had much more energy.

Rather than huffing and puffing my way around the garden with my young children, I now had plenty of energy to play football with them. I even bought a bicycle and now cycle 30 miles a week during summer.

I’ve continued to eat this way ever since and still feel fantastic. I haven’t put any weight back on and my gout has completely cleared.

However, my friends and family remained scathing until the latest diet research hit the headlines last week.

Dr Mark Mattson, from the National Institute on Ageing in Baltimore, has just completed a study into the benefits of skipping breakfast and lunch and eating just the one evening meal.

Earlier studies had already shown that rats who ate just every other day lost weight and lived longer than those allowed to eat as and when they liked.

Over time, it was found that they had eaten 30 to 40 per cent less food.

They also had lower blood pressure, clearer arteries and a lower risk of developing diabetes and cancer.

THE initial results from Dr Mattson’s study into what happens when humans fast by day and feast in the evening – just as I do – suggest it may be the key to losing weight, and bring similar health benefits to those experienced by the rats.

Dr Mattson claims the secret lies in our distant past: that our metabolism was set up when we were huntergatherers to expect a mixture of feast and famine.

It’s thought the diet works by coaxing the body into producing proteins and other chemicals normally released during short periods of stress such as exercise. These include compounds that protect brain cells from degeneration, and other cells from cancer.

I have to say I’m thrilled at the news – and not surprised in the slightest.

This diet has made me feel fantastic, and I finally feel as though everything I’ve been telling my friends and family has been vindicated.

I don’t pretend that my diet was ever based on any medical science, and I know that many nutritionists believe people who fast and then blow out overcompensate and end up eating more.

But I feel that, accidentally, I may have hit on the best way yet to not only lose weight – but improve your health to boot.

JOEL KORDAN hopes to bring out a book , called The Logical Diet, later this year.