Actually its not over the top. I have some background in this type of thing, and she is right - the 88% number is practically useless in telling us anything about breakfast's use in weight loss. From a statistical standpoint looking at only the percentage of the one group- the correlation between utensils and weight loss could actually be stronger than that of breakfast and weight loss! There are other life qualities that people who ate breakfast and lost weight could have had in common, or it could be just coincidence - it happens. The only thing that tells us is that there should be a follow up, more specific study. Drawing any conclusions from that study is premature.

I would be interested in knowing how many in the successful AND unsuccessful group ate breakfast, and if the difference between the two is statistically significant. That would be more telling. Yet, still would require a follow up study.

I over eat when I have breakfast. But I always stay around or under my calorie goal if I don't eat until after noon. I'd rather have one small meal at lunch and a huge meal at dinner than three medium sized meals throughout the day (plus all the snacks I'd throw in because I ate breakfast).

The original stat was not in reference to weight loss but maintience but that is besides the point.

Viewing the data in a vaccum is the only place you could make your argument. Given there is a massive amount of data showing correlation between breakfast/health markers/obesity there is certainly something more going on than what utensil someone is using. That's not to say the 88% number is a good number. That is why I asked for the organization.

Of course you have to look at a number of factors especially study design. Here is a really good example.

Consumer Reports recently ranked which diets work and here is their list.

No. 1: Jenny Craig Diet
No. 2: Slim-Fast Plan Diet
No. 3: Weight Watchers Diet
No. 4: Zone Diet
No. 5: Ornish Diet
No. 6: Atkins Diet
No. 7: NutriSystem Diet

Number one ranking of Jenny was based on a study where participants were eating Jenny food for two years and 92% of the study participants "adhered" to the program. Important caveat - the particpants were given the food for free.

Really? You give someone free food and they take it? No kidding?

I say "adhered" because clearly they were not sticking to the program as the average participant lost only 16 lbs over two years. (The study was also funded by Jenny)

Does Jenny Craig also own Slim-Fast? I've only heard of the occasional celeb losing weight on Jenny (and then gaining it back). Slimfast is worse for maintaining weight loss.

And what is the Ornish diet??

When i want breakfast I'll eat it. Sometimes I eat breakfast for lunch then I wait a hr and eat a snack then at 8 or 8:30 pm I'll eat dinner. Some days I'll eat all three. Its up to u. If it wrk for u hun then do it. :-)

I was just talking about this in another thread... when it comes to weight loss, it often seems that experimenting and customizing food plans is strongly discouraged.

"Someone" has to create diets, but we're not really encouraged to see ourselves as qualified to do so for ourselves (at least not until we right a book and get it published). Very often the diet book authors do NOT have professional credentials, but we "trust" the cabbage soup diet author but not ourselves to create a diet for us.

When we're "not dieting" we're not afraid to eat whatever we want without any plan at all, but when we are dieting, we don't trust ourselves to follow a plan unless someone else created it.

Tweaking a plan or creating one is often seen almost as sacreligious.

We're not encouraged to experiment, I think because we're so intolerant of weight loss failure. We're afraid to try anything that we're not assured has a proven track record. We'd rather not try than try and fail.

This has definitely been my problem. I don't like that my metabolism gets going so early if I eat breakfast because I feel like I have no control over my hunger or eating schedule when I'm so hungry!

Interesting point. I'm not on a specific plan like Atkins, Dukan or Weight Watchers but I still find myself wondering if it's "acceptable" to make tweaks like eliminating breakfast or changing my eating schedule to shift everything a bit later in the day. I'd like to be able to trust myself to try out tweaks without falling totally off the wagon!

I actually eat less throughout the day if I eat breakfast pretty early.

That said, I rarely eat breakfast as soon as I roll out of bed. Although I wake up ravenous most days, the idea of eating makes me feel sick. I would say that I break my fast with a meal about 2-3 hours after I wake up, and it's usually a bowl of chili or a turkey sandwich. Not sure if that counts as breakfast or not.

Weird how this seems to be the norm. Stranger, even, that I didn't start making real progress until I started changing things around the way I saw fit. I wish I would have spent more time figuring out what I wanted and not what some diet told me to do.

These days I prefer to wait a couple hours to have breakfast. I usually go for a few rounds of coffee first. It was a hard practice to break, because all of the conventional wisdom says to eat within a half hour or hour. I used to find myself bounding out of bed and eating quickly, only to wish I had the calories to spend later on in the day. It wasn't until I started pay more attention to eating intuitively that I realized I'm not truly hungry until a few hours later in the day. I find now that if I wait a couple hours, have my coffee, and then eat something sensible, I have a much easier time controlling my hunger throughout the day. Again, I wish I would have paid more attention to myself a long time ago! I think there's a lot of great diet advice out there; but some of it just doesn't quite apply to me.

And on a totally different note....Kaplods-I went to Illinois Wesleyan also! Haha, small world!

I do not eat breakfast most days and if I do it is very little. This helped me go from 25% Body Fat to maintain 9% body fat, but enough about me.

If you want to look into Intermittent Fasting more take a look at Martin Berkhan's site just google for Lean Gains.

Also there is the Warrior Diet site, and the eat-stop-eat ebook. I don't know much about either of those, just heard about them in passing.

If you are worried about any health issues you can look on Mark Sission's site he has a very good post about the health benefits of intermittent fasting.

I totally agree, I experiment constantly with my nutrition based on my goals.

The problem with most people is that they do not understand or want to learn the basics of endocrinology, biochemisty or nutrition to know what to experiment with.

Most people just want to be told what to do, and want some one to give them an answer if it is not working.

I'm a breakfast eater and I didn't used to be, but I am often very hungry in the morning, after I work out. And since I am home all day with my kids and cooking every meal (standing in the kitchen prepping, cooking, or cleaning for a good four hours a day, minimum) I have to eat to help me not be so snacky while standing around and making all that food :)

I do find that I will eat a TON at breakfast if I don't actively stop myself, but it doesn't make me eat LESS in the evening, so to have enough calories to make it through the day without overeating I have to keep my breakfast light. 300-450 calories for me is usually Kashi and milk with some coffee or two eggs, a slice of wheat toast, and the aforementioned coffee. It works well to keep me satisfied until noon but doesn't break the calorie bank for dinner.

With respect we don't know what, if any, health benefits one gets by intermittent fasting. Almost all the research done is with rats and the rest of the data is just correlational data.

Not a hater - I've been IFing for almost two years now.

Cool!

Yes, it's the most important part of the day! It's to kick start your brain. For healthy breakfasts, I usually eat bananas, low-cal cereal like fiber1, oatmeal, and black coffee. Does any one have any more ideas?