4 ms·

I'm with you. Breakfast has always felt very skippable for me. My body doesn't seem to crave it in any way. I'd grown up listening to the conventional wisdom: e

I'm with you. Breakfast has always felt very skippable for me. My body doesn't seem to crave it in any way. I'd grown up listening to the conventional wisdom: eat a hearty breakfast, or else you'll be so hungry you'll snack all morning and afternoon. But I never really found that to be the case. Really, I experienced the opposite effect, as you've described. Whenever I eat breakfast, I find myself hungry again anywhere from 30 to 60 mins later. When I don't eat breakfast, my hunger sort of quiets down and doesn't reemerge until later.

shostack 11y ago
It's weird how that works. Like you I never feel the urge to have breakfast. Like, never. Sometimes I'll eat it if its available because I'm a lean guy and it has always been hard for me to put on and retain mass. However more often than not I don't have breakfast on the weekends. And if I'm really engrossed in something, there have definitely been times when I skip lunch too. I haven't really experimented or tested the impact of this yet, but I wonder how it ties in alertness/energy levels. I'm normally a zombie in the morning and don't get productive till the afternoon and evening.
pc2g4d 11y ago
I basically never eat breakfast and see no negative effect, but when I tell people this they immediately get concerned about my wellbeing. The "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" idea is deeply ingrained in our culture.
- mutagen 11y ago
  I typically do better having breakfast, a hearty breakfast allows me to have a light lunch without heavy cravings. I've tried skipping breakfast with mixed results. I've also tried moving my eating period to breakfast & lunch with skipping dinner with some positive results, although it can be tough when I'm with others eating or drinking after work. I do agree though, that the concept of breakfast being important is bunk. Everyone is different and as these IF studies show, no one meal is all that important.
- hackaflocka 11y ago
  A conspiracy theory states that breakfast is the most blah blah was invented by the agri-lobby to up the sales of cereal etc.
  - carlesfe 11y ago
    It's not so conspiranoic; the agri-lobby managed to get cereals and grains (+pasta) in the base of the food pyramid, where it should be at the top, since they're essentialy refined carbs. Granted, in the 50s we didn't have the same scientific knowledge as we do today, but the food pyramid was "invented" by them for their own benefit, make no mistake. Remember when butter was good for you because it lubricated your arteries?[1] Or when doctors were associated with smoking?[2] This sort of propaganda easily permeates into popular culture and can cause a lot of harm. Refined carbs are 90% guilty of the worldwide obesity pandemic. [1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/d4/5b/78d45b7a6ad02cdb81b811225aa73a46.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/d4/5b/78d45b7a6... [2] http://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-smoke1804/3.jpg http://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-smoke1804/3.jpg
  - tdkl 11y ago
    ""[I]n many ways, the breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it is the meal that gets the day started," Lenna F. Cooper, B.S., writes in a 1917 issue of Good Health, the self-proclaimed "oldest health magazine in the world" edited by none other than Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the co-inventor of flaked cereal. "It should not be eaten hurriedly, and all the family, so far as possible, should partake of it together. And above all, it should be made up of easily digested foods, and balanced in such a way that the various food elements are present in the right proportions. It should not be a heavy meal, consisting of over five to seven hundred calories," Cooper's article continues. Granted, Kellogg did hold an M.D. degree, but there's no denying he had a product to sell." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-important-history_n_5910054.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-impo...
    - jschwartzi 11y ago
      "It should not be a heavy meal, consisting of over five to seven hundred calories" is still good advice. That's about how big my breakfast is. Yes, I weigh it and count the calories.
- miseg 11y ago
  I agree. But it makes me think too, other cultures have a strong emphasis on breakfast, and that doesn't necessarily include cereals (but it would include bread). Like France, Germany, and Finland. I'm in Ireland, where people are definitely under the Kellogg's influence.
- dubyah 11y ago
  That was the topic of last week's Healthcare Triage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw
- _khau 11y ago
  Agreed. I listened to the advice of family and friends for the early part of my life and ate breakfast as others do, but it always made me feel a bit bloated, and then shortly after, actually hungry where I wouldn't have been otherwise. Left to my own devices I do not eat in the morning, I just drink perhaps a coffee, but mostly water and green tea. I'll start getting hungry a few hours after waking up, which is ideal because that is right around lunch time. Then I'll eat after work, or after my thrice-weekly lifting session, with perhaps a small snack later on. Usually something like cheese, cucumber and chutney on wholegrain crackers. My stomach just does not seem 'awake' in the mornings and never has done. When I did eat in the morning it always felt like a bit of a chore. I'm read somewhere once that hunter-gatherer humans never really ate in the morning either, and our bodies go through some process/reaction after waking from sleep that gives us a burst of energy, enough to go out and forage or hunt, and that eating first thing in the morning is a recent thing in our evolution. Makes perfect sense to me given my own personal experience.
zyxley 11y ago
Same here. I do regularly eat breakfast... but only because my preferred tea is strong enough that drinking it on an empty stomach is a very bad idea.
lyqwyd 11y ago
I have the same tendency, when I eat breakfast I get ravenously hungry within an hour unless it's a massive breakfast. Even with a large breakfast, I'll be just as hungry by lunchtime as I would be without the breakfast, sometimes even more.
jeffwass 11y ago
How did you find your sleep patterns on days you missed breakfast? And what about your general stress levels? I heard a sleep doctor give a lecture awhile ago who repeated the advice of eating a hearty breakfast, primarily as a way to encourage good sleep. She said that our bodies interpret food within 30 mins of waking up as a signal that food is abundant, which lowers our general stress levels and makes it easier to sleep. Skipping breakfast, on the other hand, signals food scarcity or higher predator threat, increases stress hormones, and encourages lighter sleep so you can be woken more easily. No idea how true it actually is, but it seems to make sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
- duaneb 11y ago
  Couldn't you make the same argument about a hearty meal within distance of sleeping? I typically eat at the end of my day and ALWAYS conk out 2-3 hours after my last meal.
  - zeckalpha 11y ago
    Yes, of course. Have a hearty breakfast and a hearty dinner. Light lunch.
- FooDeFaFa 11y ago
  The late Seth Roberts reported that skipping breakfast helped him not wake up too _early_ . http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xc2h866/ http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xc2h866/
- thesz 11y ago
  Eat carbs before sleep, they block orexin receptors and make you sleepy. The "stress hormones" at the beginning of the day are beneficiary - they make you more attentive, easier to focus and, last but not least, make caffeine (and other stimulants) more stronger (you need less caffeine for same effect). So, enjoy fasted wakefullness at the beginning of the day, and gluttony sleepness at the end of it.

shostack 11y ago

It's weird how that works. Like you I never feel the urge to have breakfast. Like, never. Sometimes I'll eat it if its available because I'm a lean guy and it has always been hard for me to put on and retain mass. However more often than not I don't have breakfast on the weekends. And if I'm really engrossed in something, there have definitely been times when I skip lunch too. I haven't really experimented or tested the impact of this yet, but I wonder how it ties in alertness/energy levels. I'm normally a zombie in the morning and don't get productive till the afternoon and evening.

pc2g4d 11y ago

I basically never eat breakfast and see no negative effect, but when I tell people this they immediately get concerned about my wellbeing. The "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" idea is deeply ingrained in our culture.

mutagen 11y ago
I typically do better having breakfast, a hearty breakfast allows me to have a light lunch without heavy cravings. I've tried skipping breakfast with mixed results. I've also tried moving my eating period to breakfast & lunch with skipping dinner with some positive results, although it can be tough when I'm with others eating or drinking after work. I do agree though, that the concept of breakfast being important is bunk. Everyone is different and as these IF studies show, no one meal is all that important.
hackaflocka 11y ago
A conspiracy theory states that breakfast is the most blah blah was invented by the agri-lobby to up the sales of cereal etc.
- carlesfe 11y ago
  It's not so conspiranoic; the agri-lobby managed to get cereals and grains (+pasta) in the base of the food pyramid, where it should be at the top, since they're essentialy refined carbs. Granted, in the 50s we didn't have the same scientific knowledge as we do today, but the food pyramid was "invented" by them for their own benefit, make no mistake. Remember when butter was good for you because it lubricated your arteries?[1] Or when doctors were associated with smoking?[2] This sort of propaganda easily permeates into popular culture and can cause a lot of harm. Refined carbs are 90% guilty of the worldwide obesity pandemic. [1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/d4/5b/78d45b7a6ad02cdb81b811225aa73a46.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/d4/5b/78d45b7a6... [2] http://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-smoke1804/3.jpg http://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-smoke1804/3.jpg
- tdkl 11y ago
  ""[I]n many ways, the breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it is the meal that gets the day started," Lenna F. Cooper, B.S., writes in a 1917 issue of Good Health, the self-proclaimed "oldest health magazine in the world" edited by none other than Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the co-inventor of flaked cereal. "It should not be eaten hurriedly, and all the family, so far as possible, should partake of it together. And above all, it should be made up of easily digested foods, and balanced in such a way that the various food elements are present in the right proportions. It should not be a heavy meal, consisting of over five to seven hundred calories," Cooper's article continues. Granted, Kellogg did hold an M.D. degree, but there's no denying he had a product to sell." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-important-history_n_5910054.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-impo...
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    "It should not be a heavy meal, consisting of over five to seven hundred calories" is still good advice. That's about how big my breakfast is. Yes, I weigh it and count the calories.
miseg 11y ago
I agree. But it makes me think too, other cultures have a strong emphasis on breakfast, and that doesn't necessarily include cereals (but it would include bread). Like France, Germany, and Finland. I'm in Ireland, where people are definitely under the Kellogg's influence.
dubyah 11y ago
That was the topic of last week's Healthcare Triage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw
_khau 11y ago
Agreed. I listened to the advice of family and friends for the early part of my life and ate breakfast as others do, but it always made me feel a bit bloated, and then shortly after, actually hungry where I wouldn't have been otherwise. Left to my own devices I do not eat in the morning, I just drink perhaps a coffee, but mostly water and green tea. I'll start getting hungry a few hours after waking up, which is ideal because that is right around lunch time. Then I'll eat after work, or after my thrice-weekly lifting session, with perhaps a small snack later on. Usually something like cheese, cucumber and chutney on wholegrain crackers. My stomach just does not seem 'awake' in the mornings and never has done. When I did eat in the morning it always felt like a bit of a chore. I'm read somewhere once that hunter-gatherer humans never really ate in the morning either, and our bodies go through some process/reaction after waking from sleep that gives us a burst of energy, enough to go out and forage or hunt, and that eating first thing in the morning is a recent thing in our evolution. Makes perfect sense to me given my own personal experience.

zyxley 11y ago

Same here. I do regularly eat breakfast... but only because my preferred tea is strong enough that drinking it on an empty stomach is a very bad idea.

lyqwyd 11y ago

I have the same tendency, when I eat breakfast I get ravenously hungry within an hour unless it's a massive breakfast. Even with a large breakfast, I'll be just as hungry by lunchtime as I would be without the breakfast, sometimes even more.

jeffwass 11y ago

How did you find your sleep patterns on days you missed breakfast? And what about your general stress levels? I heard a sleep doctor give a lecture awhile ago who repeated the advice of eating a hearty breakfast, primarily as a way to encourage good sleep. She said that our bodies interpret food within 30 mins of waking up as a signal that food is abundant, which lowers our general stress levels and makes it easier to sleep. Skipping breakfast, on the other hand, signals food scarcity or higher predator threat, increases stress hormones, and encourages lighter sleep so you can be woken more easily. No idea how true it actually is, but it seems to make sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

duaneb 11y ago
Couldn't you make the same argument about a hearty meal within distance of sleeping? I typically eat at the end of my day and ALWAYS conk out 2-3 hours after my last meal.
- zeckalpha 11y ago
  Yes, of course. Have a hearty breakfast and a hearty dinner. Light lunch.
FooDeFaFa 11y ago
The late Seth Roberts reported that skipping breakfast helped him not wake up too _early_ . http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xc2h866/ http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xc2h866/
thesz 11y ago
Eat carbs before sleep, they block orexin receptors and make you sleepy. The "stress hormones" at the beginning of the day are beneficiary - they make you more attentive, easier to focus and, last but not least, make caffeine (and other stimulants) more stronger (you need less caffeine for same effect). So, enjoy fasted wakefullness at the beginning of the day, and gluttony sleepness at the end of it.