The metabolic rut

cajunflash

I’ve read and heard that if you eat the same things all the time that your body “gets used to it” and it causes a decrease in metabolism. First, is this true or based in truth? If so, how long does it take? For example, I have been making steel cut oatmeal in the crock pot for a couple weeks for breakfasts. I have a serving and a boiled egg. It’s very filling and keeps me satiated much longer than other breakfast meals without overkill in the calorie/fat department. Do I need to change up the meal? I’ve made different types of the oatmeal. Apple cinnamon. Banana. Pumpkin pie. Is that enough of a change up. Sorry if this seems like a newbie question!

PAV8888

As you're thinking about it, no.

As a concept of changing your energy output to digest the food, there might be a small decrease in the calories spent to digest a food over time if you eat it very frequently.

As a concept of the food starting to feel less filling... sure. There are many foods I find very filling and after eating them for a long time I find them less filling. Then I eat other stuff and when I go back to them I find them filling again.

Since most of us eat a variety of foods... it is a non issue.

Most people think of decreased metabolism as an issue having to do with caloric deficits and not as something related to types of food.

Most people would be more worried about achieving adequate nutrition if they are not enjoying a variety of foods. In that respect a wide variety of foods to eat is good.

Two or three times a week is something you frequently enjoy. Eating only this for a month at a time for all your meals would be a worrisome mono-diet.

cajunflash

I do eat a variety of foods throughout the day. I’ve just really been enjoying the oatmeal at breakfast at the moment. And by changing up what is in it, it also helps with variety. I only eat the same type for maybe 5 days and then it’s time to make a new batch. Thank you for a response. I know there is a lot of false information out there. 😊

PAV8888

Just to be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with oatmeal and an egg for breakfast and, anecdotally, breakfast seems to be a meal that a lot of people keep relatively the same with no detriment to their health.

If you're trying to lose weight, you might be able to increase satiation for few extra calories by increasing protein content, so, for example, you could add egg white or greek yogurt to the mix (perhaps adjusting something else)

But this is only if your combo is not satiating for YOU.

Personally I did not find oatmeal extremely satiating for the calories when I first started out as morbidly obese, though I have subsequently found non flavoured oatmeal (and whole wheat cream of wheat, and "it takes too long to cook" red river hot cereal) to all be relatively satiating.

I've had them plain, with yogurt, with eggs/egg white mixed in (savoury), with fruit and every which way!

Have fun!

NorthCascades

How would getting used to food turn your metabolism down?

I wasn't able to tolerate hot and spicy Indian food but I got used to it and love it now. The calories to maintain my weight haven't changed based on logging and the scale.

Lillymoo01

What I eat for breakfast and lunch doesn't change much at all and has been this way for a number of years. I haven't found it to impede on my weight loss or my maintenance.

AnnPT77

Eat the same meal once, and poof, your body's over it. Metabolic shutdown!

Heh. No.

Other than boredom, there's no "getting used to", AFAIK. What matters for nutrition is the whole picture, not a particular food(s). Very consistent ways are probably not the best, but because switching things up gives us a different profile of micronutrients (not just vitamins and minerals, but probiotics and the prebiotics that our microbiome likes to snack on to manufacture beneficial chemicals for us, varied antioxidants and other beneficial phytochemicals, and more). That's without even getting into the delights of the palate from variety.

We are really, really lucky, with our modern global food systems: We can get a diverse array of foods to choose from, from all over the world. Earlier generations had narrower options. (I remember my dad, b. 1917, in a mostly subsistence-farming family, talking about taking a lunch to school that was just beans, day after day at times, because that's what they still had enough of toward the end of Winter; he still lived to 87, clear-headed and healthy almost all that way. A major childhood treat was an orange in his Christmas stocking once a Winter, exotic and unusual. I can run down to the grocery store and get a dozen anytime. So lucky!).

Optimum health comes through excellent nutrition. Excellent nutrition is a little more likely via variety (that's assuming the major macronutrient foundation and obvious micros are explicitly accounted for).

Personally, I've moslty been varying the same breakfast/lunch stuff, while logging, for nearly 5 years now, only minor or occasional variation. Calorie requirements are completely unsupressed by that repetition, as far as the data can identify.

hipari

Yeah, no. I'm 28 and I've had six different everyday breakfast iterations in the part of my life that I can remember. 3 of these, totaling 13 years, were essentially the same with just different kind of bread. Holidays, vacations and time spent away from home are different of course.

From toddler to maybe 12, my mom made me a plate of oatmeal every morning. When I was old enough to get them myself, I also had a glass of orange juice and a banana. Mom occasionally switched it up by putting a spoonful of jam on the oatmeal or something like that.

When I was maybe 12, I told mom to stop making the oatmeal as I wanted to switch to toast. So, from 12 to 19 it was a glass of orange juice, a banana and two pieces of toast with butter and cheese.

At 19 I moved out, and in my own home I switched to toasted rye bread instead of wheat bread and I ditched the banana. So, toasted rye bread with butter and cheese, and a glass of orange juice.

When I was about 22 I was diagnosed with IBS, so I had to give up rye bread. I switched to oat bread that doesn't irritate my digestion, otherwise my breakfast stayed the same.

When I was maybe 25, I took an online diet coaching course, and the takeaway from that was to include more protein at breakfast. I switched the oat toast to a protein pudding, and then my breakfast was orange juice and a high protein chocolate pudding for a few years. At that time I also designed a go-to afternoon snack with berries and protein, relevant next.

Last week, at 28 years old, I started experimenting by switching my afternoon snack of berries, banana and quark (high-protein low-fat dairy product that's popular in Finland where I live) to breakfast. So, orange juice and a berry-banana-quark bowl. So far so good, and my experiment is giving me good results in terms of increased satiety reducing mindless mid-morning snacking.

yirara

If your metabolism would be slowing down then you'd not digest your food, and lose weight. Please read up on a simple explanation of what metabolism really means (this might be a start: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism). Metabolsim doesn't break down. Unless someone is dead.