Stop eating breakfast. Here's why.

Eat CLEAN foods when you are hungry. Eat less calories than you burn. It doesn't matter what time you eat. You can lose weight eating breakfast or you can lose weight eating all of your calories in one sitting once per day. Any website or program that says one way or the other is better is just BS.

I agree with the principle of your post, but how is attempting to scientifically study which method of eating might be preferable BS?

This article is research based, and the conclusion which the author reached was that eating breakfast might actually hinder fat loss. Beyond that, his point was that what we've been told for a long, long time might not be entirely true. That's all.

I found the article interesting and I like that it's backed with actual cited studies. What I don't like is the vague usage of the term 'breakfast'. Is it assuming that you're consuming food the second you get up? The closest I found was "maybe we should hold breakfast off for a bit when we get up, at least until cortisol levels return to normal and growth hormone levels fall naturally, which takes a few hours"

A few hours? Couldn't we get something a bit more solid than that for an article with so much research? I get up at 4.30, do my workout, then have food at around 8 or so, depending. That's three and a half hours in. If you're getting up at 8, then eating lunch around noon would be four hours.

So... what's the breakdown? Calling things 'breakfast' and 'lunch' is fine, but for people aren't operating on your schedule, well, it can get confusing. If it were 'don't eat until you're x hours into your day' then maybe the fallout would be less.

I totally understand what you're saying, but I think the point is not to tell us exactly how to eat, but rather to suggest ways we can change our eating plan to take advntage of how our bodies work. Responsability of implementation lies with the user of the information.

Actually, after reading your response and thinking, "crap, he doesn't get what I'm saying." I re-read the article and found what I was looking for.

"Growth hormone levels peak roughly two hours after waking without breakfast"

So, based off what's being stated in the article, one should delay eating at least two hours after getting up to maximize fat burning.

That sounds a lot less controversial than "don't eat breakfast", no?

Well, truth be told, I figured getting as many people as possible to open the thread and read the article would be worth tossing a little controversy out there. I figured people would get it when I started my post by asking if I got their attention. I was obviously wrong. *shrugs*

By the way, thanks you SO MUCH for JUST taking this as information. That's all I ever wanted people to take from it. I just want everyone to know as much as possible so they can use it to maximize their potential. I used to just want to lose fat and look better, but now I've done that and I want to go to the next level and have things like abs. To get there I've tried to learn as much as possible. It's cliche', I know, but information is power.

I had NO IDEA that this thread would get so crazy. I'm sorry to everyone who got slammed by someone else who somehow felt so threatened that they had to make things personal.

Now that things have slowed down, I thought I'd tell everyone what I'm doing to cut fat. I figured a couple people might be curious about what I'm doing after all this hubub.

I'm uisng a version of a couple different diets. You can look up "the anabolic diet", "the metabolic diet", or "carb nite" to see the science behind what I'm doing, as well as more sensible versions of the more extreme diet I'm using at the moment. I'm also using intermittent fasting, but ONLY as a way of controlling my intake. I think meal timing isn't that important, and skipping Breakfast and lunch is a great way of making it easier to eat less. (By the way, it is easy. After a couple days of IF'ing, I hardly ever get hungry during the day, and it's never more than I get during a normal calorie restricted diet anyways.)

Here's what I'm doing;

On an average day I eat no more than 30 net grams of carbs a day. By "net" carbs I mean I subtract the fiber I get from my carb intake. If I eat 50g of carbs and 21g of fiber, then I've met my goal of staying under 30g carbs per day. On these days I get 60% of my calories from fat. This means I'm using fat for energy instead of carbs, keeping my insulin and glycogen levels extremely low. This high fat, low insulin state also supports muscle building hormones such as testosterone and HGH. I've had multiple symptoms of higher testosterone levels since I started this diet.

Once a week I'll "carb up". How much I consume during my carb ups depends on my goals. To really cut fat, right now my carb up is only one meal. My last carb up involved annihilation of a Cici's pizza buffet. It was epic. I consumed over 2500 calories and 350g of carbs in one sitting. This carb up does a couple things. It helps to keep my metabolism from slowing as much as it would if I were to simply lower my intake all the time. This allows me to REALLY push my intake down on my normal days if I feel like it. I've been able to lose upwards of 1lb a day, although some of that weight was water and muscle glycogen left over from the last carb up. It also restores my muscle glycogen levels, helping me work hard in the gym to maintain my muscle and strength levels.

It's also awesome to let go and just enjoy eating for at least one meal. If one were to not get so crazy, one could eat multiple carb-heavy meals throughout an entire carb up day. This is great for social occasions. If you plan ahead for parties, instead of passing on the cake, you can be asking them to pass a second piece.

This diet is EXTREME, and NOT RECOMENDED by me for the average person. Normally these diets are not combined like this, but the downsides are purely psychological. On my low carb days sometimes I feel like complete crap. Some days I eat less than 1600 calories, while other days I eat over 2k in one meal. The fact that my metabolism stays up also means that I'm hungrier than Hell on my low intake days.

This diet works extremely well for fast fat loss with good muscle retention, but it's not a realistic way of eating long term, and if you think that I'm saying that this is a good diet for everyone, then you didn't pay attention to the last paragraph. No, I'm not selling anything to you and no, I'm not suggesting that you should eat like me. Get informed and figure it out for yourself!

I can totally respect your opinion, and definitely that it works for you :-) I LOVE breakfast, and I actually look forward to my oats with blueberries in the morning. Especially since breakfast is my postworkout meal, and I completely believe that it helps rev up your metabolism. I also have eggs/egg white with breakfast and I've noticed that I feel more satiated throughout the day from my breakfast.

Contrary to eating a bigger meal later in the day, I believe since majority of people tend to slow their bodies down towards the end of the day---the same should be happening with how we eat. Enjoy a big breakfast and taper off the meals the rest of the day. :-)

For someone who trains in the Morning, I think we can all agree that a good, balanced post training meal is EXTREMELY important. I train in the afternoons. If that weren't the case then my plan would be completely different, because I can't be hungry in the evenings. I just can't get to sleep hungry.