Should breakfast be the largest meal of the day?

crisanderson27

This is wrong. Never Ever Skip Breakfast. After fasting all night your metabolism slow down. Feeding it breakfast gets it moving again. Think of it as a fire that's been sitting all night. It was blazing when you went to be and it's almost out in the morning. Fresh wood on it gets it burning hot again. Eat a good breakfast.
I've heard it like this.

Eat
Breakfast like a King
Lunch like a Queen
and Dinner Like a Pauper
This has helped me to lose a bunch of weight.

Eat. Breakfast until you feel like you've started your day. Lunch as snacks all day long. Supper to fill any gaps in macros. This has helped ME lose a bunch of weight.

Eat. Breakfast not at all. Lunch all your calories. Supper not at all. This has helped a friend of mine lose a bunch of weight.

Eat. Big breakfast, no lunch, huge supper at 10PM. This has helped my uncle lose a bunch of weight.

Common denominator: we all ate at a net caloric deficit.

That's what counts. If you're eating your macros in balance, your body has sufficient fuel to run for 24 hours even if you only eat one meal. Timing is largely irrelevant. Timing is far more important to control hunger, and everyone reacts differently to that.

Thanks for covering that for me. I would also like to add however that hunger is mostly a trained response. If you have 400cal at 8am, do you (meaning anyone) truly believe your digestive system has made use of that and your body truly requires another 400cal in 2-4hrs? True hunger is often misunderstood, and the feeling you get as your body prepares for its next regular infusion of food (growling stomach, irritability, etc), is not actually 'hunger'. I eat 1-2x a day...between 2500-3000cal usually (3x a week it's 1000cal). I'm never really hungry before 1pm, and if I ignore that for five minutes, I don't feel hungry again till after 3pm.

Wow, this was pretty refreshing. I've heard plenty of people who are in the health profession tell me otherwise but the majority seems to say that breakfast/metabolism is wholly a myth. Good to know. Someone who understands these types of old wive's tales should make a post with common health myths. Seriously.

If that thread were made, with all of the things 'debunking' myths as the point...it would be a mess. Most people on the forums believe in those myths like they were written by a messiah of weight loss...and they defend them with militant religious fervor.

pkfrankel

I think it is the most important meal of the day. Here's why. Likely the last meal you ate before breakfast was last night's dinner. Maybe that was 7:00 pm. Maybe you ate a snack at 9:00 and went to bed at 11:00. If you sleep eight hours, get up and go to work until 12:00 before eating, that's 15 hours between meals (17 if you didn't have a snack). For me that's a really long time.

I posted this response on 6/8. I believe this to still be true; at least for me. Today is a rest day from exercise so I decided to have a light breakfast of cheerios with milk (294 cal). Within an hour I was hungry and before I knew it consumed 478 calories from healthy snacks and ate an 871 calorie lunch.

Now I am at my calorie limit for the day without eating dinner. Thankfully, tomorrow is a long endurance day and I will likely burn 1800 - 2000 calories cycling and running.

In the end, I love MFP because I am continuously learning about my eating and exercise habits; which is why I joined in the first place.

trybefan

If you want it be, sure. Doesnt matter how much you consume at any setting, meet your macros and you will be fine.

bigdal77

i only have a banana and i'm doing alright

Johnprice21

My daughter just started P90X and she said that breakfast should be your smallest and dinner your largest??? Anyone else ever heard that all new to me, I hate eating breakfast makes me feel sick just thinking about it, but I have started Master Your Metabolism diet and she says the other way around?? I'm on this diet to get healthy don't care if I lose weight, but would be nice, just want to feel better. So if anyone knows what health experts say let me know.

SideSteel

My daughter just started P90X and she said that breakfast should be your smallest and dinner your largest??? Anyone else ever heard that all new to me, I hate eating breakfast makes me feel sick just thinking about it, but I have started Master Your Metabolism diet and she says the other way around?? I'm on this diet to get healthy don't care if I lose weight, but would be nice, just want to feel better. So if anyone knows what health experts say let me know.

You should base this entirely on personal preference. Total intake for the day will dictate changes in weight/body composition.

dandaninc

Bacon. Lots and lots of bacon.

uclown2002

A very interesting read!

In facts lots of good stuff on the parent site.

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

Lift_hard_eat_big

Is it still considered breakfast if you eat steak and potatoes at 5am?

CyberEd312

This is personal preference and nothing more.... I am a type 2 diabetic so fasting over night is about all the further I can make it (I eat in bed at 10 each night to get me to morning) so I eat within 20 minutes of getting up...That being said I each 3400 calories a day so breakfast is always around 1000 calories.. I work out in the A.M. and prefer to eat breakfast and head to the gym... You need to find what works best for you... Best of Luck

tigersword

My daughter just started P90X and she said that breakfast should be your smallest and dinner your largest??? Anyone else ever heard that all new to me, I hate eating breakfast makes me feel sick just thinking about it, but I have started Master Your Metabolism diet and she says the other way around?? I'm on this diet to get healthy don't care if I lose weight, but would be nice, just want to feel better. So if anyone knows what health experts say let me know.

Just to let you know, if a diet has a Specific Name, it's a junk diet. Eat when it works for your schedule, get the appropriate amount of nutrients, and don't worry about anything else.