Comrade's advice column

I've skipped breakfast and lunch and barely had anything for dinner for the past three days.
And the weird thing is, I actually look fatter to myself. I feel gross and bloated.
So why is this? I thought skipping meals was supposed to do the opposite.

I know that skipping meals is bad, just I can't think of anything else to make me look skinny. I'm only 105 lbs and 5' 4", but weight isn't my issue. I don't look as skinny as I want to be. I run, do sit-ups, eat healthy, blah blah blah. It's not working.

But I would like to know why the skipping meals is making me more bloated.

Skipping meals shuts off your metabolism, putting your body into "stingy mode" where the food you DO eat ends up being "saved" as fat, instead of processed immediately as you normally would. Ever see pictures of kids in Africa where their ribs are showing but they have huge bloated stomaches? That's malnutrition, and that's what you're doing to yourself.

(The theory is that this kind of behavior is a survival mechanism, and evolved during times of hunger and famine in the past, where people who had the "stingy gene" would have a higher chance of survival)

But anyway, skipping meals is actually doing you more harm than good. That's the reason they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that's why they say that it may be healthier to eat five "mini-meals" in a day instead of the standard three.

TL;DR: Skipping meals makes you fat and bloated, not skinny. Don't do it. Eat all your meals, and snack often.

By the way, at 105 lb 5'4", you're a stick. You should be trying to GAIN a few pounds, not lose them.

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(Rating: 5) Thank you. But I am sick of people telling me that I'm a stick. Because I don't see myself as that.

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