Chris Martin reveals he only eats one meal a day, but what's a nutritionist's verdict?
Just days after his ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow revealed her diet mainly consists of bone broth and vegetables, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has revealed his own dietary preferences – stating that he eats just one meal per day.
Martin, 46, revealed that he was inspired to try the meal plan by fellow musician Bruce Springsteen, and said that he stops eating at 4pm.
“I actually don’t have dinner anymore. I stop eating at 4[pm] and I learned that from having lunch with Bruce Springsteen,” Martin told Conan O’Brien on an episode of the host’s series, Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend.
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“I was lucky enough to go over there to lunch the day after we played Philadelphia last year. I was on a really strict diet anyway. But I was like ‘Bruce looks even more in shape than me’ and Patti [Springsteen’s wife] said he’s only eating one meal a day. I was like, ‘Well, there we go. That’s my next challenge.'”
While Martin didn’t disclose what his solitary meal consisted of, he joked that Springsteen’s was a “flank of buffalo with a steroid sauce”.
The NHS recommends eating three balanced meals per day or, if you’re older and find you have a decreased appetite, to eat smaller meals and nutritious snacks. So is eating one meal per day ever a good idea?
“One meal a day is unlikely to provide all the energy you need,” explains registered nutritionist Luxey Dayanandan, who is also the head of wellness and nutrition for Restaurant Associates.
“For a balanced diet we need a variety of different nutrients that we must obtain through our diet, and this would come from several meals and snacks to ensure we have variety to be able to nourish our bodies.”
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Not only is eating one meal per day not allowing the average person to consume enough nutrients, but Dayanandan says it can cause symptoms such as dizziness and nausea, as well as having an impact on your concentration, memory and performance.
“Long-term effects can result in vitamin and mineral deficiencies due to not having a balanced diet that provides you with these all-important nutrients,” she adds.
While eating three square meals per day is the norm, it may not be an eating pattern that you find fits in with your lifestyle or hunger levels – so how can you find the right eating pattern for you?
“I would always advise looking at it from a holistic perspective so consider not just your diet but your lifestyle. How much activity do you do? What are your sleep patterns like? What stressors are present in your life? What does your day look like?” Dayanandan says.
“This can be a helpful starting point to understand what your diet should focus on, but simply put, try to have a varied balanced diet with wholegrain carbohydrates, plenty of fibre from a variety of sources such as fruits, vegetables and pulses, and some fat in the diet.
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“This may look like three meals in a day for some people with a couple of snacks in between or it could be five to six smaller meals throughout the day. This really depends on your own lifestyle and what would work for you in the long-term.”
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