Not having breakfast

ErnieM88

Due to my slightly strange schedule some days and the fact that I don't have seminars or lectured til the early afternoon other days, I rarely get up before 11am, on the days I am up and about at say 9ish I do have breakfast but that's very rare! So I was wondering if it's bad at all that if I generally wake up about 11 and don't normally eat lunchy/breakfast til 1 and then have dinner at 7 if it was a bad thing because I was techncally skipping breakfast or if breakfast is just considered as the meal you have after you wake up?

Kymmu

Break the fast- breakfast is the first meal of your day. Even if you are on nightshift!

mickipedia

Breakfast is "breaking" an overnight "fast" so technically it's the first meal of the day, but ideally you should still eat something within an hour of waking up, even if its a piece of toast or breakfast biscuits (both are good if you're on the go)

Eating something early helps get your metabolism going and I find gives you a better appetite when it comes to lunch.

Why don't you try getting up everyday at 9 and having breakfast? It sets you in a good routine and might help your weightloss

Best of luck! :flowerforyou:

ericgAU

I would say that if your normal wake up time is 11 then the first meal you have after this time would be your breakfast. I guess because of your `slightly strange schedule' your eating schedule would also need to adjust. Just dont skip meals whatever you do. Perfect recipe for accumulating fat. Seems bizzare but you need to eat. Make that habit.

mowu

Meal timing is primarily a matter of personal preference - metabolically you don't NEED to eat right after you wake up (or fast for X hours before going to sleep) as long as you are meeting your caloric macro/micro nutrient goals you will be fine (barring medical issues which I assume you don't have).

My personal preference is to eat a light meal about 2 hours after I wake up (and having 3-6 meals over the course of the day) - others have success eating right after they wake up and having many small meals and still others do fine eating nothing at all for breakfast and having all their calories within 4 hours of going to sleep.

If it works for you probably don't need to change anything - if you are not satisfied, you should probably change something and meal timing could be something you could tweak to ensure that you feel comfortable with working out or having better control over your over-all daily intake (feeling sated longer)

Toddrific

I'd say breakfast is the meal you have when you wake up.
Meal timing isn't important, total caloric intake is.

The reason they say breakfast is important is that people that tend to skip meals like breakfast
also tend to make unhealthy choices during the day in place of it.

raiderrodney

As long as you stay under your daily calorie goal I wouldn't worry about it. I lived by the trying to eat 4-5 meals a day mantra for many years and it just makes it harder to stay under you calorie goals if anything

ErnieM88

fab, thanks for this guys

Graciecny

I almost never have breakfast, and there are nights where my "dinner" takes place at 10:30 or 11:00pm. I haven't found that this, in any way, affects my weight loss. As long as I keep within my calories limit, I lose. And I FEEL BETTER eating when I'm hungry (or have time) rather than trying to conform to someone elses idea of when I should eat.

And sometimes it is nice to have those additional calories later in the day when I'm up and around and hungry for something substantial. I don't save them for that, typically (although I did one day last week because I knew we were going out for dinner at a restaurant and my calories for that meal were going to be high), but the way my workday goes, I just do what feels right for me.

ETA: Oh, and FWIW, my workday eating schedule goes something like this:
"Lunch" at about 11am
Snack around 3pm
"Dinner" around 5pm
Another "dinner" meal around 10 or 11pm

So really, I'm eating three meals a day (two of them being smaller, one larger) but they don't conform to what most people think of as normal meal times. Eh, works for me! Although my logging on MFP looks weird because I list no breakfast but two meals under dinner. LOL! I really need to customize my diary some day.

UponThisRock

In MFP land, force feeding yourself when you're not hungry is the best way to lost weight, if it's done in the morning. <---Some ironclad logic there

Di3012

Due to my slightly strange schedule some days and the fact that I don't have seminars or lectured til the early afternoon other days, I rarely get up before 11am, on the days I am up and about at say 9ish I do have breakfast but that's very rare! So I was wondering if it's bad at all that if I generally wake up about 11 and don't normally eat lunchy/breakfast til 1 and then have dinner at 7 if it was a bad thing because I was techncally skipping breakfast or if breakfast is just considered as the meal you have after you wake up?

I have done that before, not much choice if I finished work at 2am that morning

If I get up at say, 11am, I will hold on until lunch, and no, I have never gone into any "starvation mode" doing this lol.

bcattoes

Unless it makes you overeat later in the day, skipping breakfast means nothing.