Hi everyone,
Starting the diet on the 10th. Can anyone tell me if it is ok to have just one meal a day? Was going to stick to water and oxo cubes during the day and have an evening meal.
Any advice much appreciated.

You can do whatever you want and is easiest to you.

Everyone seems to do something different here ….although if you are working during the day … it might be difficult to avoid unhealthy snacks …. and perhaps make you feel tired and irritable. And if you load up on 800 calories at night it might make it difficult to sleep.
And what about doing any exercise of activities during your non eating times?

i find i am usually fine for a little while in the mornings with coffee and cream.

you can have some low calorie and low carbs snacks during the day …. i like sugar snap peas, salad, veggies like sliced cucumber …

then you can save the majority of your calories/carbs for the evening meal …. perhaps save a smidgen of the evening meal to snack on the next day???

Just some suggestions that might be easier for you …. but as i say you can do what you want …. and you can even try different methods out …. and see what works best for you

You might even do different things during the week … and on weekends

Josijo, so many people have succeeded on this diet because it is so filling, nutritious and allows us to actually EAT, I would say that one meal a day will just make you miserable. We can have 3 meals a day and some snack(s) so why deprive yourself. If you are on water and oxo cubes you are not really following this diet and this diet is so much easier than that. As an example here is my days menu:-

Breakfast, scrambled egg and tomato (200 cals) Lunch Chickpea, Chorizo and Spinach Soup (210 cals) Dinner Chicken Stir Fry (340 cals) Total for day 720 and I think my carbs were under 50 grams. I still have 80 cals to have a bedtime snack to avoid the Dawn Phenomenon (raised morning blood glucose).

What is not to like. Why do you want one meal a day, is it for organising reasons, convenience, shift work, is it a necessity. If you can eat 3 meals a day you will feel so much more satisfied and more likely to stick to the diet. Also you want food you can actually chew, drinking your food does not give your body the ‘switch off hunger’ signal that chewing does so you will still feel hungry. You also don’t say if you are diabetic, in which case one meal a day would make your b/g drop while you are not eating. Tell us a little more about yourself, your goals etc so we can better guide you. That is just my opinion.

I’m not critisising you but unless there is a real reason to deprive yourself then don’t. Read the threads, see how we have done and what we do. Drink plenty of water, yes, but have some good nutritious food too.

I did a one meal day today and didn’t have any problems at all. I have been intermittent fasting anyway and trying not to eat much at all before 12:00 when I usually have a brunch or early lunch, followed by an evening meal, but today I was so busy and active that I didn’t miss eating until it was time to get tea ready. I had a lovely, larger than normal low carb meal, and some cinnamon yoghurt for pudding, and a couple of cups of green tea, as the thing I had missed during the day was drinking water. I had nothing all day but a cup of herb tea and a cup of black tea with no milk (a very special one, tastes lovely on its own, I usually do use milk but the packet advised not to.) I am probably going to adopt this as my weekend pattern, when it fits my activities, and keep the two meal pattern for work days.

I should have mentioned I am not diabetic so this may be different if you are.

I can’t manage one meal a day myself, but I have a friend who used a regular 1200 calorie diet who only had coffee with milk during the day and enjoyed the rest of her food budget in the evening. She lost all her excess weight this way and even now keeps it up as a lifestyle. She still sticks to her calorie limit during the week and allows herself to enjoy whatever she fancies at the weekend. She has maintained this lifestyle for a number of years now with no health issues showing up, so if it works for you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t.