Something I am realizing is that breakfast is really no good for me. I've never been a huge breakfast person, not even as a child. This post is for all the people who are undecided about breakfast.
I suppose the most common tip you get from everyone for overall health is: "don't forget to eat a well-rounded breakfast!"
Even though I know we are all individual, and so are our diets, I still tried the breakfast thing every now and then. I kept really good track of how I felt after a good sized breakfast yesterday:
thin-sliced, lean salami (100)
1 slice reduced fat cheese (70)
kaki fruit (100)
banana (100)
So, it had a good amount of protein, fat and vitamins.
The entire day I was fighting the biggest, most horrible hunger monster in the universe! I ended up eating 400 calories over my limit. It was a terrible bingey day. I was a bottomless pit.
Today I decided to do without breakfast and fast as long as I could. I felt a bit of hunger the entire morning, but it wasn't too bad. I finally ate around 1pm. The day is almost over and I have not felt like overeating, I've not felt overly cravey or like I need to snack endlessly. I made it comfortably within my 1700.
I read this short article (just google) "Diet: Bigger Breakfast, Bigger Daily Calorie Count"
Besides fighting terrible cravings all day after I eat breakfast, I also feel less energetic.
Anyway, I think I'm going to avoid breakfast consciously for awhile and see how I feel. But, in my personal experimentation to figure out why I am heavier than I comfortable with, I think one culprit may be the social pressure to eat breakfast.
I think if one is comfortable NOT eating breakfast yet still getting everything they need (nutrients, calories, etc.) then they should be fine. Not everyone is raring to go in the morning and probably can do fine eating later in the day as their first meal.
I don't eat a particularly large breakfast anymore (I used to eat HUGE breakfasts which probably kept me at my SW...), only 100-300 calories depending on the plan for the day. However I find that I actually do NEED something in the morning or I'll be starving and go completely off track and over my calories. So I get the opposite effect.
I'm also a morning person and end my eating around 6pm on most occasions (except the occasional meal out with friends).
It's odd how our bodies work! I find it interesting that breakfast can make one person overeat while another could require it to NOT overeat.
I know what you mean. I do, technically, eat breakfast, but I eat it much later than the norm (10:30 - 11:00 on many days). I often will go to a fitness class at 8:30 or 9:30 and eat breakfast after coming home, showering, making the bed, etc. I'm hungry after doing all that. If I eat before I work out, . . . well, let's just say that I can taste my breakfast throughout my workout (sorry---TMI).
Also, when I eat breakfast soon after I awaken, it puts absolutely no dent in my appetite for lunch---in fact, quite the opposite. It seems as if eating breakfast early puts me in "eating mode" and an hour or two later, I'm thinking about lunch.
sontaikle: I think it is interesting to really reflect on why we were actually at our starting weights. I used to think hypothyroid, slow metabolism, etc.
I also think of a lot of what we put in our mouth simply "happens" and that it is hard to realize why we are heavy.
lin43: I agree - I'm definitely always in "eating mode" when I eat breakfast. Then, instead of helping my hunger it makes my hunger worse.
I work swing shifts (4 pm to 12 one week, midnight to 8 a.m. the next.) so I don't eat breakfast...I eat two meals and have snacks. If I consciously ate a breakfast, if I could even pin down a time to have a breakfast, I would definitely be over my calorie budget.
I agree with your point. I was never a breakfast eater. In high school, I wouldn't eat until I got home. In college, sometime I "fasted" even longer (not on purpose). Yesterday, I was home all day and up pretty early, so I decided to make a "big" but still mostly healthy breakfast so I could have energy to study all day. I had three scrambled eggs, light cheese, 1 slice ezekiel bread, and greek yogurt. This was pretty high cal (about 500 cal), but I thought it would give me the energy I needed.
Boy was I wrong! I felt like I couldn't get full for the rest of the day. I was constantly thinking about eating and ended up eating way too much.
At this point, I think it is important for me to eat breakfast, but something much smaller. I normally eat a greek yogurt and a piece of fruit and day to day this keeps me more full than the big breakfast I had yesterday.
It's funny, I'd say that the main pressure regarding breakfast that you encounter on 3FC is people telling you to skip it in favour of Intermittent Fasting. And that can be even after you explain nicely that you prefer to eat breakfast and have serious blood sugar problems if you don't!
If you do better without breakfast, then by all means don't eat it, just as you should ignore the popular wisdom that calories are more likely to stick on you as fat if you eat supper later. (Although some people find that late eating is more likely to trigger binge eating, which is a different matter.) My own personal theory is that it's down to body clock type: night owls who are most alert in the evening tend to eat more as the day goes along and not be too keen on breakfast, whereas early birds prefer a big breakfast and a small supper. I'm a semi-reformed night owl (on treatment for circadian rhythm disorders so that I now fall asleep at the relatively early hour of midnight or so), and I go for a small breakfast myself, about 200cal of porridge. Anyway, if my pet theory is right, then a bias towards early morning people in research could explain why we've had so many years of people assuring us that a big breakfast is the best thing for everyone.
Out of curiosity, have you tried eating a very small breakfast, and if so how did you feel on it? A few nuts, a small piece of fruit, coffee with milk in it, something like one of those? And while we're talking about my body clock theory, how would you categorise yourself in terms of being an evening/morning person?
I totally agree- this whole thing is about finding what works for us and what doesn't. Those studies about breakfast show CORRELATION not CAUSATION. They correlate people who eat breakfast with people who weigh less. That doesn't mean that that's ALL that's going on. Maybe people who make time to prepare themselves food in the morning are also the type of people who make time to pay attention to what they're eating the rest of the day. And I do think it's true that for SOME people, not eating breakfast leads to binging at lunch or dinner, but that's far from a universal.
That said, Sweetpeach- I am also a student and staying focused studying all day is hard for me , too. Do you think that it may have had nothing to do with how much breakfast you ate and instead maybe had something to do with being at home all day when you're usually not (being around food and alone is super hard for me) and studying (which to me is boring and stressful and so I end up letting my mind wander and think about food...or tv...)? If the no-breakfast thing works for you, by all means do it, but like the studies, it is dangerous to conflate correlation with causation.
I completely agree. On the days I eat a big breakfast are the days that I have a higher calorie count total.
Plus I kind of hate wasting calories in the morning because I am never truly hungry in the morning.
My own personal theory is that it's down to body clock type: night owls who are most alert in the evening tend to eat more as the day goes along and not be too keen on breakfast, whereas early birds prefer a big breakfast and a small supper
If your theory is correct, then I'm an exception: I am definitely a morning person. I get up every morning between 5:30 - 6:00 (I haven't slept past 7:00 more than a handful of times in my adult life), walk my dogs, make coffee (black), do some form of exercise (often two hours, depending on whether I follow my usual moderate walking w/ a fitness class at the gym), and oftentimes do some housework---all of this prior to eating!
I'm just not hungry until much later in the morning.
This is a very interesting post! I like the topic and some of the comments!
I'm somewhere in the middle I guess. If I eat before 8, then I must carefully figure out what times I'm going to eat the rest of the day or else I'll over eat. But, if I wait until 12ish, then I get too famished and then eat too much as well!
Most days my breakfast is between 8-11 depending on the day. I keep it small, bowl of cereal and a banana. When I work out early, I have half a banana before the workout and then the other half afterward. Then cereal around 8-10ish and then I'm fine.
It varies, but usually around 10:30, sometimes a bit later. Then, if I'm working that day, I often skip lunch because I'm just not hungry. I may have a snack (an apple or something) later in the day before dinner.
hmm, I constantly go back and forth on this. I feel like I 'should' eat breakfast but im not really hungry in the morning. Also, when I eat a big breakfast I always go over my calorie limit.
ps..this is weird but I have a hard time have coffee (I drink it black) without a piece of toast or something..
My own personal theory is that it's down to body clock type: night owls who are most alert in the evening tend to eat more as the day goes along and not be too keen on breakfast, whereas early birds prefer a big breakfast and a small supper.
Like lin I too am an exception to this. I'm an early bird who likes to be in bed by 10 PM, but I have never been able to eat in the morning.
Unlike all other times of the day when I really would be most happy eating food continuously until I either ran out or someone took it away from me, I have absolutely no desire to consume anything in the mornings. It's bizarre.
In high school my mom would make me drink a Slim-Fast, which I think was fine then. I think it's more difficult for growing teenagers to go without eating, especially during school, for long periods of time. I drank this most mornings for 8+ years until earlier this year, when learned a great deal more about proper nutrition.
Now I don't eat anything before noon. I'm a converted IF-er and really appreciate eating this way. Not only does it fit with my natural eating habits but it helps me from snacking later on.
The only time I eat breakfast is if I'm going for a run that's more than 45 minutes long.
Breakfast Musings
