I had an interesting email this week on the subject of skipping breakfast. Here it is:
Inconversation with my mother and on the subject of diets, she reminded me (as she always does) that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Now my mother is a large lady who has dieted all her life. I was raised withencyclopaedic knowledge of the calorific value of everyday foodsand I have heard this “truth” since I was tiny. This time I challenged her, mostly on the basis that skipping breakfast doesn’t seem to harm me (lifelong slim with plenty of energy and good humour, juggling work and family as most mothers do).
I have always been slow to eat in the morning and am often not hungry until about 10.00/11.00am at which time I am content with a piece of fruit. Skipping breakfast doesn’t seem to slow me down or cause me to snack or eat a huge lunch although I do eat quite substantial meals in the evening (another dieter’s “no-no” as the commute means I never eat earlier than 7.00pm and often much later).
I queried whether the “best meal of the day” mantra was really scientific fact or just lazy repetition of a concept that gained popularity in the dim distant past. I know that Google will deliver pretty much any answer you are seekingbut I did find this in support of myth-busting the breakfast theory. Is it worthy of a blog piece?
She links to this piece which is based on this research which, essentially, showed that skipping breakfast did generally not lead people to compensate by eating more food later in the day. In fact, there was evidence from this study that skipping breakfast generally led to a fewer calories being consumed overall (about 400 calories less being consumed on average). The authors of this study go so far as to suggest that skipping breakfast may be a valid weight loss tactic.
While this study was based on short experiments in a select number of people, its findings do seem to challenge the notion that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’, at least for some people.
Up until relatively recently, I was generally enthusiastic about the idea of eating breakfast. I continue to believe that for some people, it is indeed important for them to eat. Some people tell me, for instance, that they ‘cannot function’ without breakfast, and the idea of, say, leaving for work without breakfast will leave them starving and lacking in energy. Fair enough.
However, in recent times I have come to recognise that some people simply do not seem to be helped by eating breakfast. Some people can hardly face food in the morning, or may simply be not very hungry. The person posing the question about breakfast in the email above seems to be just this sort of person. If she came to me and counselled my advice about her eating in the morning I’d likely suggest she keeps doing exactly what she is doing.
Could it be that eating breakfast is positively contraindicated in some people? I believe so. First of all, I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea to eat when one is not hungry. Also, some people (like the person posing the question) may be very good at burning internal fuel stores (like fat) for energy in the morning, and that is not a process we necessarily want to interrupt with breakfast.
Finally, I’ve heard time and again people tell me that they are less hungry through the morning when they eat nothing compared to when they eat a breakfast. When I enquire what that breakfast might be, 9 and a half times out of 10 the answer I get is cereal and/or toast. One fundamental problem with this sort of breakfast is it will tend to cause blood sugar levels to surge, which may then cause gluts of insulin in the system. This can drive blood sugar levels to sub-optimal levels in the mid-late morning, which in turn can trigger hunger and even food cravings.
Are we really to believe that some rubbishy food first thing that induces a drive to eat more rubbishy food later in the morning somehow constitutes something healthy and the ‘ most important meal of the day’? Honestly, for some people, I believe that breakfast, and particularly this sort of breakfast, is way inferior to eating nothing at all.
It is not like me particularly to sit on the fence, but I also know only to well that our nutritional requirements can vary quite a lot. While some people do well on a decent breakfast, I have little doubt that the person posing the question above is probably not one of these people.
It’s harder for me to comment on her mother’s requirements, but there is obviously the possibility that her beliefs about the ‘necessity’ of breakfast are acutally holding her back.
I have found in life that there is often a lot to be gained from the wisdom of our parents. However, no one is infallible, and occasionally parents have something to learn from their children too. It is possible that is just one of those instances.
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I just asked exactly the same thing over on my site – glad to know I’ve got more expert back up.
I’ve been doing this for a number of months now. In practical terms I’m following the 16/8 intermittent fasting protocol. So, generally I finish my evening meal at 8pm. I then wake up, have a coffee with cream and I’m good to go. I then have lunch around 12pm. I’m certainly not starving even after not eating food for 16 hours. I’ve recommended this plan to all of my personal training clients and most of them are enjoying weight loss because of this. You simply eat as you normally would, without having breakfast. It is an advantage if you are eating low carb/high fat for your evening meal as a dinner piled high with white rice tends to leave you craving food the minute you awake the next day. Sending your kids off to school with a bowl of cornflakes, semi-skimmed milk and a glass of orange juice is setting them up for a day of sugar cravings. Why are we being recommended this by the NHS?
Good question and a good piece – thanks! There is evidence that eating more earlier and less later is a good thing for many of the important markers for health and that similar benefits can be obtained by restricting our eating between certain hours (and not necessarily early in the day) and so on. That debate and research continues. However, I believe the most important thing you have said relates to how easily we miss that we have been marketed to by the big cereal and bread manufacturers and so the concept of breakfast has been distorted into an occasion to eat some of the worst foods any of us consume in our day. Much better to miss THAT breakfast!
Breakfast sets your daily biochemical processes. So it is a timer. Skipping breakfast is not a good idea. If you want to skip a meal, skip lunch. A breakfast without carbs – just bacon and eggs- won’t break ketosis.
What an appropriate post considering its British egg week 🙂 Although I totally understand the point made in this post I personally find that breakfast is important. However regular cereal, oats and porridge do nothing for me apart from muck up my sugar balance for the day.
If I have had an excessive meal the night before I might miss breakfast as a chance to apply the odd intermittent fast. This gives at least 16 hours without food and more than enough time to reap the I.F rewards.
The reason i’m a fan of breakfast is simply that it fuels me for a morning of hard work. Without it I just don’t have the same energy levels.
I also recommend breakfast to the majority of my clients. Many are stressed and the added stress of no breakfast is the last thing they need.
The reason I agree with the post is that I feel we shouldn’t eat just because its meal time. Find what works for you. I would always question the reason why my own clients don’t feel hungry in the morning. Is it sluggish digestion for instance? That said some people get great results eating just once per day.
If you would like some low carb breakfast ideas click hear for a good recipe list.
http://kinectmethod.co.uk/about-kinect-method-fitness/food/recipes/breakfast/
I too was a victim of this mantra/dogma and could not face the day without FOOD any food before going to work or I would do nothing but think/crave food all morning until I had “something” to eat.
After finally working out for myself that grains were the cause of my (our) digestive problems, I decided to be “good” and have porridge (yuck) in the morning as it has “slow release energy” according to the mainstream. Come 10 am I would be willing to eat anything I was so hungry. Then I discovered (not from the mainstream) that eggs and occasionally a small amount of bacon would not do me much harm and might even be good for me. Bingo! Some days if I was busy I would not even think about food until LATE afternoon and could probable make it till tea (diner) time without anything.
Then recently I have heard that “breaking your fast” at around mid day and consuming your last meal (and no snacking later) by 6 or 7 pm had demonstrable benefits to health. After about a week I no longer missed eating in the morning and I’m slowly loosing weight, in fact it is now (as I wright this) 12:30 pm and I could go longer without food if I had a drink of water or other non carb containing drink like black coffee or green tea.
I lend my support to this woman’s views; when in harness I never ate breakfast; just did not feel like eating. Now that I have been retired for many years I have become a night owl and consequently seldom arise in the morning prior to 10 am when again I do not feel like having a meal but, whenever I have to rise earlier, say around 8 am then I become ravenously hungry and my delight is streaky bacon and eggs fried in dripping with occasionally fried bread; simply delicious. By lunch time I would be hungry again!
THANK YOU! I have lost count of the number of times I’ve had this discussion with people about my weight. My weight never varied – until I was persuaded about 15 years ago to eat breakfast because it was considered bad practice not to. So I relented but of course didn’t cut down on my other meals so gradually gained weight as I was taking in extra calories for breakfast. When I eat breakfast, especially cereal (and that includes porridge oats) I eat all day. If I don’t eat breakfast I eat lunch and dinner and lose weight. So maybe it’s not my lack of willpower and it’s OK not to eat breakfast. It’s not as though I’m out exercising, I’m sitting at a desk most of the day. I’m going back to no breakfast and see how it goes.
I think one of the ways in which we have gone badly wrong is to believe that one-size-fits-all – that there is a single prescription for how to eat which will work for every human being. I too have known people who do better skipping breakfast; on the belief that this would work for me too, coffee was all I took for decades. And I always battled through the morning! Now I eat eggs every day, and if I fail to have a lunch, hunger finally kicks in at almost exactly 4:00 pm – nine to ten hours after my breakfast. It still amazes me.
I think it is an individual thing, just as Slimming Worls works for some people but not all. Earlier this year I did the 5:2 fast and other kinds of fasts on and off for about 6 months and have not lost weight yet others did very well on it. In effect this is what the lady above is doing.
I am one of “those” people! I do quite well having brunch and dinner, with maybe a low carb snack sometime midway between. Been that way all my life.
I believe that eating has become more than just about, well, eating. It is for a lot of us a social happening whether it be breakfast, lunch or dinner. I could quite easily miss out on breakfast, I seldom feel hungry anyway but my OH has, for years, built his day around meals and meal times.
When we had family of course we wanted the children to go off to school nourished, when they came home we fed them because they were hungry. This pattern has established a way of eating which is not about food per se but more about being together as a family. I’m sure meal times are more about social convention than the need to eat frequently, 3 meals a day fits in with the way the whole day has been constructed over time. We are finally child free but the habit of mealtimes continues, it’s a difficult one to break especially when one of you looks forward to food more than the other.
In terms of whether it’s nutritionally necessary, well, perhaps those who are managing perfectly well without breakfast are demonstrating that we don’t need to be fixated on convention and that as long as we are healthy we should do whatever suits us as individuals. I just need to break my own mould 🙂
I am one of the people who doesn’t eat breakfast. I was 10 years old when I told my parents I wasn’t hungry and eating upon awakening made me feel awful, and that I wouldn’t be eating breakfast. My parents don’t eat breakfast either. They agreed and my mother added an extra apple to my recess snack.
My health is excellent. My diet is clean and delightful. My parents have excellent health also.
I think that this kind of dietary rule is not for everyone. Some people want breakfast, others need it, and some like myself, do not want it.
I trust my body more than a rule.
I teach fitness very early two days a week and really can’t face having food of any sort at this time. My weight has always been ‘good’ and quite often I go through the day without evening thinking about food but I do have a huge evening meal. Sometimes this evening meal can be at 10pm because I finish work at 9pm and really don’t fancy anything to eat until I have had an hour of settling down.
One size certainly doesn’t fit all. I teach bootcamp training and I advocate to my clients that they should eat breakfast (hypocritical or what!) however some do and some don’t. The people wanting to lose a large amount of weight find their own pattern and as long as they are eating ‘clean’ ie in line with “Escape the Diet Trap” they almost always reach their goal.
Interesting subject – as always x
After cycling for 2 hours hard each morning I eat the lard leftovers in the pot from the previous night’s supper, and only eat again in the evening. I’ll have a couple of buttered coffees during the morning as well. For supper it’s meat and veggies and/or salads. This way I maintain a weight loss of 40kg(approximately 100 lbs) I achieved last year using LCHF and all my horrible diseases disappeared.
Could never stomach breakfast once I left school (boarding). I always eat about 10/11 ish. I found if I ate early I was always starving and wanted stuff that was filling – carbs.
I’m now diabetic so that is the last thing I should eat.
Must say though, I’ve had very few carbs since diagnosis (2012) I haven’t lost any weight, I even exercise and still not lost a pound. Bummer!
After cycling hard for 2 hours early mornings I’ll eat the lard leftover from the previous night’s supper, if there is any. Otherwise I’ll have nothing until supper time again. I’ll have a few buttered cups of coffee in the mornings and then meat and veggies or salads for supper. Eating this way keeps the 40kg (100lb) I lost last year with LCHF off and ensures I remain in Ketosis, something I’m just addicted to because it feels so great and all my horrible diseases evaporated with it.
I’ve always eaten breakfast (oats and seeds, or a boiled egg), but not necessarily because of hunger, more habit.
My wife, who for years has fought increasing weight (whilst I, on the same diet, wouldn’t look out of place at a graveside) decided to give fasting a go. Out of support, I joined her. We went for the last meal at 7.00pm through until breakfast some 36hrs later. I plummeted from 67k to 56k during the the almost three months, whilst my poor wife lost about a kilo!
Spending the autumn in Italy would have required super-human resilience to maintain the diet so we suspended it for several months. This spring saw us fasting again, although now experimenting with a shorter 24 hour period. Result – the same. I became gaunt, whilst my wife didn’t lose even a pound. Groan!
Very depressing for her, and I know she didn’t cheat. Hormones must play a big part – we’re both in our 60s, and we just must be made differently.
Laturb, I’ve heard that fasting isn’t always the best way for an overweight person to lose weight, because the body goes into starvation mode and the metabolism slows down. Strange as it sounds, your wife is probably better off eating breakfast, but definitely not oats and seeds. If she hasn’t already, I recommend that she read up on a paleo / primal approach that favors protein, fats and veg, along with a regular exercise plan. I’ve known many folks who were finally able to shed weight this way and while they were at it, clear up such chronic issues as acid reflux, joint pain, asthma, and other issues related to inflammation.
This is one of those “general” questions that does not have a simple dictum. Depending on your “dietary” platform, age, current weight, sex, health, etc., the answer could be almost any possibility. Now, having said that, IF you follow the Paleo/Primal nutritional approach, eat two or three meals per day, and are generally healthy, for MOST individuals, breakfast IS the most important meal. This is primarily due to the fact that the brain goes ten or twelve hours without the body having nutritional input. Also, skipping breakfast can trigger the body’s natural protective mechanisms to avoid the starvation state, which would include retaining bodyfat.
Laturb,
Go Paleo, and your wife will probably have no weight problem. (I am 60, and have a 29″ waist)You can contact me thru my blog for assistance, if you wish… http://www.misterpaleo.blogspot.com
Great write up. Like Simon, we are fans of the leangains intermittent fasting protocol, starting the day with a Bulletproof coffee (full fat butter and MCT oil) and having our first meal around 11am/12pm.
Agree completely with what Mister paleo has mentioned. It doesn’t work for everyone, Men in
particular can handle intermittent fasting/missing meals more than women. Women’s hormones and sleep can be drastically affected by long fasting periods (Laturb, 36 hours is quite a long fast).
Likewise if the body is in a state of chronic stress then missing meals can only make matter worse.
Primal/Paleo is the best approach and eating the right real foods when hungry only.
Suzie
Once upon a time I considered breakfast the most important meal of the day. After all, it makes sense. After going for hours without food, the body needs the “re-boot” of a good meal. However, if this were true, why does the “dawn” phenomenon exists? In other words, why is blood glucose commonly higher in the morning. This is a common experience among many and I am sure that this is not true only of people with insulin resistance. I feel like this is a sign that the body does not truly require a meal in the morning. I am a pre-diabetic andI have discussed this matter with another diabetic.
Insulin stability comes from what we eat not what time we eat. When I eat “supper” I make sure that the meal targets insulin stability first. If this happens, I know I will not need to eat again for many hours. I go to work without breakfast. Actually, I don’t eat until after I get home from work. My blood glucose is usually in the 75-85 range when I get home.
mister paleo said:
“…the brain goes ten or twelve hours without the body having nutritional input.”
Besides the fact that this makes no discernible
sense, the brain works quite well on ketones and
a bit of glucose that the body will make out of
fat and protein. This will happen whether or not
there is “nutritional input.”
This is yet another cultural issue that people assume to be natural. Not all human beings are British or have been colonised by Britannia… In many other countries there is no such emphasis placed on breakfast: I grew up in Brazil where the biggest meal of the day was lunch. Breakfast is literally called ‘morning coffee’, and a lot of people thrive on little more than a cup of café. People usually go out to have a proper meal for lunch – no such thing as eating a sandwich at your desk (culturally frowned upon) – and then dinner at home is a mixed bag, with some people eating a lighter version of lunch and others having a snack. So my point is, look beyond your culture before you make sweeping statements about how people “naturally” thrive better.
I have started having a large pot of Greek Yogurt, with half a cup of oats, perhaps some berries, a serving of nuts and a scoop of protein powder and most days I am still hungry 3 hours later.
For me the really bad thing is how patterns of work require so many people to rush off into the day without allowing their bodies to wake up and without being able to ‘tune in’ to what their body is really ‘telling’ them. Now I’m retired I can do just the opposite-some days I’ll feel like eating soon after I get up-sometimes only 2/3 hours later-most likely a function of how much/how late I’ve eaten the night before. When I think of the stress caused by rushing around first thing in the day no wonder some people ‘dont feel like eating’! To me that that is just as relevant as complex theories about different nutritional needs-if not more so. If everyone was really ‘tuned in’ to only eating what/when/how much their body was telling them to consume so many dietary problems would disappear!
What works for me is low carbohydrate breakfast… in our home NO GRAINS pass my lips 🙂 and no starchy vegetables either. I chose this lifestyle to manage type 2 DM and it works. I am on no diabetes medications and morning fasting bloods are at 5 – 5.3’s which is very acceptable (Australian numbers).
I have discovered that carbs and sugar spikes and insulin spikes = hunger
For goodness sakes, eat toast or cereal or (saints preserve us) both for breakfast and it is no wonder you get ravenously hungry mid morning as all that sugar high his rock bottom and sends a message of FEED ME to you brain.
Yes it is a matter of personal choice – but please make it an informed choice.
M Mackenzie,
Cultural influences are not simplistic. Where one lives can influence one’s diet on many levels. This does not alter human biology, however, at least not to any significant degree that I am aware of. Brazil has a distinct “multi-class” construct that strongly influences dietary habits. I would hazard a guess that you were from the “middle class” ? Recent research has shown that the lifespan and health of Brazilians, PARTICULARLY women over 60, is deteriorating…
probably in all likelihood from the ever-increasing influence of “western” junk food.
Wayne,
Are you ovo-lacto vegetarian ? Make sure the yoghurt is FULL-FAT, NO ADDED SUGAR, skip the oats and use a hefty amount of protein powder based on egg-white, whey, or hemp. Make that a handful of nuts, add half a banana, and you should be good until lunchtime…
I think there is a disconnect between the literal meaning of the word ‘breakfast’ and the culturally underpinned idea that it is, or should be, exclusively the meal eaten immediately upon rising from a full night’s sleep (or whatever time of the day you sleep/wake!).
‘Breakfast’, literally, is ‘breaking the fast’ and is the first meal one consumes after any period of fasting.
So yes, it can be applied to having something to eat on rising from a full night’s sleep – where you may not have eaten for around 8-12 hours – or it could be the first meal you eat after 16 or even 24 hours or more of fasting.
So a person who does not typically feel hungry on rising at 8.00am, having slept for 8 hours and having eaten their last meal 4 hours before retiring to bed the previous night, may have their first meal of the day at lunchtime and ‘break their fast’ after 16 hours.
It is still, literally and technically, ‘breakfast’!
A friend has lost weight and kept it off by eating only an apple until noon. I reckon he cut 400 calories a day by doing this, and that is what he needed to do to lose. Finding a way to lose that you can stick to is 75 percent of the battle…
I fear that ‘breakfast’ was invented by a certain cereal company. I grew up in the 1970s when cereals became mainstream and were the ‘modern’ and healthy way to start the day. They even boasted on the side of the packet that they had ‘vitamins’, but it wasn’t for decades that I discovered the the vitamins were synthetic and added because cereals are barren calories.
I now rarely bother with breakfast, but if I do eat it (high protein, high fat), I probably won’t want to eat for the rest of the day. There is nothing quite like a ‘hotel breakfast’ with an all you can eat buffet where someone else has done the cooking and there are lots of low carb options. A plate of deviled kidneys, bacon, and kippers would set anyone up for 24 hours without needing any more food 🙂
My gut reaction is that we are told that breakfast is important is because somebody else said it without any scientific study involved. And it gets repeated ad infinitum…
I find it surprisingly easy to be 60 and have a 72 cm/29 in. waist! But it’s not low-carb., it’s genetics. As Laturb points out, two people can eat the same food with very different results.
I eat fairly LC, having been persuaded by friends 8 years ago that it should reduce the risks of a lot of diseases. But as diet doesn’t affect my weight by 1 kg, I don’t feel it’s necessary to get into VLC diets of <<100 g/day.
I found especially useful arguments and advice re. LC diets on perfecthealthdiet.com, also diabeticmediterraneandiet.com. I don't eat exactly the same as either of them advocates, but I'm fairly close.
The authors of the Perfect Health Diet suggest that VLC diets could be risky to healthy people and only worth it to people who have already developed problems; e.g., diabetes. I'm probably better off spreading my bets among healthy foods as much as possible, especially when there is conflicting advice from different sources.
“My gut reaction is that we are told that breakfast is important is because somebody else said it without any scientific study involved. And it gets repeated ad infinitum…”
I think you’ hit the bullseye there, as a mantra it’s right up there with “five a day”, “total alcoholic units” and “BMI”, none of which have any scientific, researched and/or proven basis in fact. One was dreamt up by a group of green grocers looking to increase sales, the second by a few blokes who just agreed between them what they thought was about right and the last is again just an estimate that is used to support a theory, not wholly bad but not particularly accurate either.
As for the vexed question of weight loss for some but not all, I’ve said before that I fully believe that there is more to to than just food in, exercise it out. I think Bill Lagakos and his theories about calories is getting there, Dr. Jack Kruse has some interesting theories too and Dr. Stephen Sinatra provides a very thought provoking read regarding the causes of heart disease and the role of cholesterol.
Paleo also has a certain appeal but as with a lot of these “diets” weaning yourself off a lifetime of eating very differently is not an easy task and although I have changed my diet a lot over the years I still haven’t found the right balance for weight loss. Cutting carbs saw a few pounds go but nowhere near as many as needed. I hope to move towards paleo but I can see problems ahead trying to fit this into mine and my husband’ s meal plan as he is not a huge fan of change especially to his food.
I have just found this which I like very much from this link:
http://tinyurl.com/k3fheqp
The human body has evolved to:
Drink: Clean water (No chemicals)
Eat: Natural Foods (Local, Seasonal, Unprocessed)
Exercise: Natural ratio of Total Energy Expenditure to Resting Metabolic Rate = 2:1
Modern humans = 1.4:1, adding a 10 mile walk daily would cover this mismatch!
Sleep: 8hrs a night
– See more at: http://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/community
Alex, directly associated to what you said, everyone fasts. If they didn’t no one could eat breakfast. When I began fasting, I called the first meal of the day breakfast, no matter what time of the day it was. Soon, I began calling the first meal of the day, my fast-breaking meal because people couldn’t get their brains around a 3PM meal, breakfast. I think that humans originally ate less frequently and would wager that a morning meal did not exist 200 years ago.
I also found the history of meal times very interesting as there was nothing definitive about when to eat…It just depended on the culture.
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq7.html#mealtimes