Eating Breakfast
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I like that. IF is totally incompatible with my lifestyle, but it works for you and it is therefore totally great!I have been following a 16:8 intermittent fasting schedule for three years. Like others said, CICO is the most important thing. I lost 100bs in two years and have been maintaining for over a year. Tracking calories and exercising are key, but IF is a great tool for me personally. I find it easier to manage hunger and track calories. That said, I love Sunday breakfast so I don't follow IF on Sundays.
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The only way in which timing of when you eat may affect your weight loss is how the timing of when you eat keeps you full/affects you overeating.
Example: there is nothing inherent about eating breakfast that will help you lose weight. However; it can be correlated with eating less during the rest of the day. So, for example, it just so happens to be a common pattern that a person may skip breakfast and by later afternoon be ravenous and overeat.
Intermittent fasting is the same - it's not magic that makes you lose weight. It's just that people find a good groove where they eat their needed calories during a certain time and are not hungry the rest of the time.
You can eat 5 small meals a day, 3 meals a day, or one meal a day as long as you are getting the appropriate amount of calories and nutrition. Doesn't matter.
I personally don't eat breakfast on work days. I like to sleep as late as possible lol. I usually might have some sort of snack that I keep in my office (snack bars, protein bar, or I keep dried meat like sausages or jerkey, or nuts or something)....Or I might grab a couple hard boiled eggs or something.
I will then usually eat lunch and dinner....both larger caloric meals.
On weekends I also tend to only eat 2 meals --- a late breakfast (large caloric meal) and a later lunch (maybe ~2-3pm).....then maybe a snack after that --- all depending on my activity planned for the day.1 -
I'm curious - I've heard that you should eat breakfast in order to lose weight and I've also heard about intermittent fasting. I personally do not like to eat breakfast. Does anyone have an opinion or personal experience on whether eating breakfast is a good idea for weight loss? TIA
Whatever floats your boat. Losing weight is all about consuming fewer calories than your body expends. How you get there is up to you and what works best for you. For many, IF is a great tool to help control calories...I personally have had very mixed results.
Also, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" comes from a marketing add campaign by Kellogg's in the 19th century to get people to eat their newly invented breakfast cereal. Personally, I love breakfast, especially weekend breakfast...but there's not really any right or wrong here.2 -
I think in terms of overall weight loss, if you’re in a calorie deficit you're going to make progress with weight loss. What matters is if your eating schedule is going to be sustainable long term and leave you feeling good.
For a really long time I almost never ate anything substantial for breakfast, because I never feel that hungry in the morning either. I'd just have coffee. And then every night I'd be absolutely ravenous after dinner, and overeat off plan. I could never figure out what was going on
I've been doing much better overall when I eat some breakfast with an emphasis on protein and a little fat. Mostly eggs and cottage cheese.0 -
As you can see from all the responses ... it kind of comes down to personal preferences/habits. ...3
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Eating breakfast was a disaster for me, weigh wise. Morning is the only time I’m not hungry. If I eat in the morning I’m starving all dang day. I eat about 1/4 of my calories at lunch time. And 3/4 at night. For me this is the only thing that works. Down 75 pounds since 2018 and have kept it off with only slight (5-6 pound) fluctuations.6
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I used to be like that too. Now, I usually eat something when I get up, but I have not been able to comfortably do that for most of my life.Annie42019 wrote: »Eating breakfast was a disaster for me, weigh wise. Morning is the only time I’m not hungry. If I eat in the morning I’m starving all dang day. I eat about 1/4 of my calories at lunch time. And 3/4 at night. For me this is the only thing that works. Down 75 pounds since 2018 and have kept it off with only slight (5-6 pound) fluctuations.0 -
So the best diet (intermittent fasting, keto, CICO, IIFYM etc) is statically.....Drum roll.....the one that you like the best. This has been proven in science journals time and time again. It is as simple as it if don't find it too hideous then you are more likely to stick to it and a diet stuck to is going to provide better results than one, that may be better on paper but you have given up after a week because it sucks!!
SOOO whether you eat breakfast or not is really down to whether you like eating breakfast and whether you feel better with it or not. If you are on MFP you are probably counting calories...so experiment. Keep in your kcal deficit and for one week have breakfast and see how you feel. One week don't and see how you feel. Then just do what makes you feel better.4 -
I like to eat breakfast. I usually have eggs or a protein shake. I eat around 7 a.m and have a mid morning snack at work and lunch isn't till 1. I can't skip it, I'd feel so hungry! If I eat a higher calorie breakfast, I feel like I have all day to burn those calories off.0
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Prior to weight loss journey I often skipped breakfast and only had coffee. I had energy so I didn’t think anything of it. But now that I switched to a rather regimented plan (Atkins 20) I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner and two planned snacks. I don’t think evening or morning calories are magical but I do notice that this approach requires me to plan ahead and overall be more mindful about what, where, when, and even how I eat. Now a morning breakfast that’s a bit more than grab and go feels like a nice way to start my day—a little pampering if you will.
Try it and see if it makes a difference for you. The longer I’m on this journey the more I realize that everyone’s path is different. It’s about figuring out what works for you.1 -
@BartBVanBockstaele
Congrats on your weight loss! Very inspiring. I'm curious because I eat the same way - just protein and vegetables. What are your portions and calories?
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Thank you. What I do, is very simple: every meal consists of 250 g vegetables and a can of sardines (1st meal) or 50 g boiled soybeans (3rd and 5th meal) or 33 g of lupini flakes (2nd, 4th and 6th meal). The vegetables are onions, green beans, broccoli, green/red peppers, mushrooms (not officially a vegetable), spinach, Brussels sprouts, kale, okra, tomatoes and garlic with spices. I occasionally deviate from that, but this is close to 100% of what I eat.@BartBVanBockstaele
Congrats on your weight loss! Very inspiring. I'm curious because I eat the same way - just protein and vegetables. What are your portions and calories?
Since my local Bulk Barn stopped selling lupini flakes, I am ready to replace them with a mixture of lentils, oats and flaxseed and I already use that mixture for additional meals in case I have long working days or allnighters, such as last weekend and for the next few days. That pushes me over my calorie plan, but since it is (fortunately) only a few times a week, all it does is slow me down and it makes my plan doable by avoiding intolerable hunger.
What are you doing?
I should perhaps add that I am just about in maintenance mode by now. I expect that my final weight will be just below 60 kg, perhaps 57 kg, but time will tell. I do not know what my "ideal weight is", I will see it when I am there.0 -
I forgot to add my calories as per your question: it is an average of a little under 1050 kcal.0
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Ha, this one popped up because it was revived by the question to Bart! But I will chime into the general consensus with a small twist!
Breakfast is one of the majoring in the minors things. There exist studies that show slightly better results by having breakfast. I personally suspect some increased avoidance of AT by continuously kicking in some fuel. There exist studies, of course, that are point to IF as being a thing for reasons. Reasons that don't necessarily have to do with weight loss. Do we see where this is going? Sure. There may be differences and the differences will loom larger based on inclination.
I've lost, gained and maintained weight while NOT eating breakfast. I've also lost, gained, and maintained weight WHILE eating nice jam and croissant packed breakfasts, and I've also lost gained and maintained weight while eating bacon and egg brunches followed by no lunch.
It also depends on activity. Yes some people do exercise fasted. But I suspect that most people who enjoy1 -
In short, it is just a subjective thing. We can add exercise to that. Some people become ravenously hungry with exercise, prompting them to overeat, some people feel their hunger goes away on exercise, prompting to them to undereat. In the end, being overweight/obese is a risk factor. Some people seem to do fine despite being fat. Most people don't do fine being fat, and even those that do, usually only do so for a limited time, and then health deteriorates. It is quite comparable to the infrastructure in the US. The US has saved numberless billions (trillions?) by reducing maintenance on road systems, water pipes and the like. And we are now seeing what that means: everything is crumbling down. Fat weight is no exception to that.Ha, this one popped up because it was revived by the question to Bart! But I will chime into the general consensus with a small twist!
Breakfast is one of the majoring in the minors things. There exist studies that show slightly better results by having breakfast. I personally suspect some increased avoidance of AT by continuously kicking in some fuel. There exist studies, of course, that are point to IF as being a thing for reasons. Reasons that don't necessarily have to do with weight loss. Do we see where this is going? Sure. There may be differences and the differences will loom larger based on inclination.
I've lost, gained and maintained weight while NOT eating breakfast. I've also lost, gained, and maintained weight WHILE eating nice jam and croissant packed breakfasts, and I've also lost gained and maintained weight while eating bacon and egg brunches followed by no lunch.
It also depends on activity. Yes some people do exercise fasted. But I suspect that most people who enjoy0 -
Calories per week>everything elseRetroguy2000 wrote: »It doesn't matter when you eat. What matters is total calories week to week. You'll lose the same amount of weight however you choose to manage the total calories, whether via IF, TRE, or whatever.
This is simply not true. Yes, total calories is important, but the chemical processes happening in your body matter too. WHAT you eat and WHEN you eat it can significantly impact your body's insulin response, which has a great deal to do with losing weight, or not losing.
Your body needs a constant source of energy in the blood stream. It prefers to get that from food you have just eaten. But if there isn't any, your body will begin to produce glucose, first from stored glycogen in your liver, and then from stored triglycerides in your fat cells.
Our bodies are complicated systems. Taking reductionist positions like "all that matters is X" is both scientifically incorrect, and unhelpful.
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Retroguy2000 wrote: »It doesn't matter when you eat. What matters is total calories week to week. You'll lose the same amount of weight however you choose to manage the total calories, whether via IF, TRE, or whatever.
This is simply not true. Yes, total calories is important, but the chemical processes happening in your body matter too. WHAT you eat and WHEN you eat it can significantly impact your body's insulin response, which has a great deal to do with losing weight, or not losing.
Your body needs a constant source of energy in the blood stream. It prefers to get that from food you have just eaten. But if there isn't any, your body will begin to produce glucose, first from stored glycogen in your liver, and then from stored triglycerides in your fat cells.
Our bodies are complicated systems. Taking reductionist positions like "all that matters is X" is both scientifically incorrect, and unhelpful.
I think there's an open question, though, whether or not these effects are so significant that they're going to matter to the average person trying to lose weight. They might be observable under lab conditions, but what method yields the most "bang for your buck"? What can a person actually stick with long term?
While it's not necessarily stated, I think a lot of people end up dieting thinking that they have to follow a very precise formula (usually sold to them by some huckster who somehow keeps them coming back for more) because it's the "only" way it works. These intricate workings of our body are fascinating, but there's an element of losing the forest for the trees, too.3 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »You'll lose the same amount of weight however you choose to manage the total calories, whether via IF, TRE, or whatever.
This is simply not true. Yes, total calories is important, but the chemical processes happening in your body matter too. WHAT you eat and WHEN you eat it can significantly impact your body's insulin response, which has a great deal to do with losing weight, or not losing.
Successfully implementing a caloric reduction regiment, successfully adhering to it, successfully not rebounding at the end are all extremely complicated processes that have to do with both biology and psychology.
And if the answer were simple and universal there would be no scope for debate because the golden LONG TERMS SUCCESSFUL answers would have emerged a long time ago. And they would apply to more than the 20% or so of the people who attempt and (substantially) succeed in substantial weight loss. In fact, the fact that I can't easily find a precise number for successful diets or an agreement as to what is defined as successful weight loss is an argument about the lack of a universal solution.
HOWEVER, there are a bunch of results and studies that pretty much come up with the gobsmackingly gobsmacking conclusion that in the LONG term (not in 24h or 48h or 72h or even just a week or even a month), but in the long term, your whole weight trajectory will map to your effective caloric balance.
This is a pretty powerful and important message for all the people who have tried and failed doing keto, or south beach, or ornish, or weight watchers, or fake pregnancy hormone, or boost 14 times a day and nothing else, or cabbage soup everyday, or eggs only, or juice, or .....
It truly does NOT matter what you eat... IF... IF... IF... you can achieve a caloric deficit AND nourish yourself in a way that allows you to not keel over or otherwise get sick.
These are BIG iffs. And optimizing beyond just not getting sick would be high on MY list.
And, surprisingly, the above results TEND NOT to happen on the eat like crap only desserts or only fast food diets.
But getting results also does NOT mean that you cannot eat chocolate or at McDonald's once in a while. Or having a nutritious breakfast. Or NOT having any. If you're allergic to chocolate though... then it might be a bad idea to have some.4 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »It doesn't matter when you eat. What matters is total calories week to week. You'll lose the same amount of weight however you choose to manage the total calories, whether via IF, TRE, or whatever.
This is simply not true. Yes, total calories is important, but the chemical processes happening in your body matter too. WHAT you eat and WHEN you eat it can significantly impact your body's insulin response, which has a great deal to do with losing weight, or not losing.
Your body needs a constant source of energy in the blood stream. It prefers to get that from food you have just eaten. But if there isn't any, your body will begin to produce glucose, first from stored glycogen in your liver, and then from stored triglycerides in your fat cells.
Our bodies are complicated systems. Taking reductionist positions like "all that matters is X" is both scientifically incorrect, and unhelpful.
In real terms for weight loss all that matters is your calorie amount.
Unhelpful to claim other factors like meal timing are anything other than very minute and meaningless in real terms
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