to think the mantra "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is just bollocks?

[Mintyy]

I am nbu, am I?

I get up at 7am most days (8 or 8.30 at the weekends) and never feel a pang of hunger before 10.30/11.

If I were to eat breakfast I would be forcing myself to eat when I'm not hungry.

Since I am quite overweight that would seem to me to be a very unwise thing to do.

So the overwhelming view is that there is no overwhelming view.
FWIW I'm in the OP's camp. Breakfast just wakes my appetite up, I'm never hungry in the morning so why would I shove unwanted food into myself? You wouldn't do it at any other time of day.
I've been doing 5:2 and lost a stone in 2 months and even on non-fast days I try to keep to 16:8 (i.e. no food before 1.30pm) because eating within an 8-hr window shortens my opportunity to consume calories.
I also prefer exercising in fasted state, I find I can work much harder and more effectively. But I don't run marathons; I can see how that would be different.

I know someone who lost two stone by not eating until 11.30am each day.

I have always eaten breakfast
I wake up hungry!
If I had to skip a meal then I would prefer to go without lunch

My DH & DC also eat breakfast every day

DH and I are both slim and have probably weighed the same within about a half stone for the past 18 years (except while pregnant obviously!)

I'm sure eating breakfast is only one element of why we stay the same weight but in my experience the majority of people I know who skip breakfast are either overweight or yo-yo types

Those who say you don't have breakfast, you do. Technically, the first meal you have of the day is breakfast, it doesn't matter what time it is, It "breaks" your "fast"...so breakfast!

Not really. Meals are named depending on their time. Technically you are breaking fast. However the social norm is to call it lunch.

Besides which we are talking about the mantra. Which tells people should each first thing

Sometimes I wake up really hungry almost to the point of being sick, so obviously I eat breakfast then. But I have noticed that if I don't eat breakfast, I'm not hungry till around 12/1 ish but if I do eat breakfast I'm often hungry again by 10am.

I think lots of weight related problems could be avoided if people simply ate when they were hungry.

I agree with this. Isn't the problem that many people don't know when they they are hungry? Greed is mistaken for hunger and people eat because they want to eat, which is different from the body telling them they need fuel.

It starts early. How often do you see kids in supermarkets eating as they walk round? Most houses I'm in the kids have free access to the biscuit tin. Few people wait for anything these days - eat it now, and have a full meal an hour later.

I think one of the reasons the 5:2 diet works is it trains people to listen to their body - reminds them what hunger feels like.

I never used to eat breakfast, and my weight crept up to 12 stone 8 on my 5 foot 6 frame (not just due to not eating breakfast). Not good.

I now eat a small protein rich breakfast whilst I'm dieting and am down to just over 10 stone. My body seems to have got used to having breakfast now as if I font have it quickly enough I start to feel ill.

My weight loss is because of calorie control though, not eating breakfast. I just find I'm less hungry and less likely to overeat if I have a good serving of protein in the morning, e.g. two boiled eggs and some ham. It's working for me anyway.

I don't think it is necessary to eat straight after waking up but most people would probably function better if they have food within a couple of hours. I couldn't do my job if I didn't eat something at some point in the morning. Lunch is too late.
I think not having breakfast is something you get used to but it doesn't make you any slimmer.

Surely it depends on the individual, though? My dad is really skinny and eats a massive breakfast everyday as soon as he wakes up. I'm slim too but I don't eat until mid-morning. I know people who don't eat until dinner and are overweight, and people who eat three meals a day plus snacks and are underweight or slim.

Also, exercise, sleep habits, stress and general health all contribute towards your weight. So it's not just a breakfast thing, it depends on loads of other thing as well.

I also think whatever is your first meal of the day is your breakfast, and still the most important. Eat something decent for your first meal, whatever time, seems to be the message.

This should hopefully keep you going a good while.

And avoid ending the day with loads of food (or booze!).

I agree with OP, I'm tired of hearing this. I've never felt hungry in the morning and haven't eaten breakfast since I left home at 18 and could give it up, with relief - my mother had definitely swallowed (ha!) the 'BITMIMOTD' mantra.

My DDs are grown-up now, one is a breakfast eater, the other is like me and not ready to eat in the morning. I used (alarmed by my mother's almost hysterical angst about this non-breakfast-eating GD) to try hard to get her to eat before she left in the morning for school, but faced with a firmly zipped lip and determined refusals no matter what was offered, it wasn't successful.

In our family the breakfast eaters are thinner than the refusers but I don't think it proves that Breakfast Makes You Thin - just different metabolisms/systems perhaps? None of us is overweight and I completely agree with 'eat only when you're hungry, stop when you're full.'

DH - breakfaster, naturally thin
Me - no breakfast, normal weight
DD1 - breakfaster, extremely slim
DD2 - no breakfast, slim/normal

I think slim people being hungry on waking and wanting breakfast could be something to do with them having a more efficient metabolism, rather than the other way round.

I have a theory about this!

I am a night owl. My first food tends to be at about 10.30 or 11am, but my last food will be pretty late. We'll have family dinner around 6pm, but then I'll have some crackers or some cereal around 11pm. So overall I'm taking in the same as if I'd had breakfast earlier.

Maybe the meals of the night owl are just shifted later to fit in with how their bodies feel. If we didn't have to get up for work and school etc maybe night owls would sleep later in the day and then feel like breakfast when they woke.

When I do eat b'fast I do notice that it does keep me going for a good while.

I am very slim and have never had any weight concerns.

From childhood I would prefer to miss breakfast and eat 10.30 at earliest. Prefer to wake and potter then eat. But if you do want to eat earlier not eating late the night before does help on my experience from being on diets and having nothing after tea. In hospital recently last food was at 6pm so I found I could stomach breakfast at 7.30am (not had rice crispies for years!).

I'm a night owl too. Working a 2-10 shift when I was a student was perfect for me.

We eat dinner at 5.30pm and I very rarely snack after that - maybe an apple while I'm watching Eastenders but even that's rare if I've had a good dinner.

I still don't get hungry for breakfast before about 11.30am.

Probably because my evenings tend to be quite sedentary.

It probably helped that hospital rations were small. They served main meal at lunchtime then baked potato or sandwich tea.

OllyBJolly- and people eating then they're actually just thirsty.

minty I think it's because they are less likely to have overeaten the day before. Since being on the diet, I wake up most days hungry for breakfast, however, if I have a cheat meal the night before I am usually not hungry in the morning. I was never hungry in the morning when I ate way too much in general. I think it very much depends on what you ate the day before.

Metabolism doesn't 'switch off' so eating in the morning doesn't 'kick start' it. It's odd that people still chant that.

I don't eat breakfast of my own volition, only socially if I'm away overnight with other breakfast eaters. I don't get hungry until later in the day, 5-7pm is usual for me to eat then.

I always need to eat within 90 mins (maximum) of getting up or my stomach feels like it's turning inside out. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day and I always have something substantial in the morning and at lunch but I'm far more likely to not want dinner. Some nights I'm really hungry, others I can go without or just have a slice of toast with peanut butter. 10am - 3pm are my hungriest times.

wasnt this "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" message started by Mr Kellog?

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-important-history_n_5910054.html

"[I]n many ways, the breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it is the meal that gets the day started," Lenna F. Cooper, B.S., writes in a 1917 issue of Good Health, the self-proclaimed "oldest health magazine in the world" edited by none other than Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the co-inventor of flaked cereal......"

"Granted, Kellogg did hold an M.D. degree, but there's no denying he had a product to sell."

"A morning meal has of course been eaten for ages, but it was once associated with gluttony, says Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland, Oregon-based plant ecologist and food writer and the author of Breakfast: A History. "It was actually socially and morally frowned upon to eat breakfast until about the 17th century, with the reformation of the church," she tells The Huffington Post. Queen Elizabeth was also a breakfast eater, which helped the morning meal become gradually more acceptable throughout Europe, where chocolate, coffee and tea were simultaneously growing in popularity, she says."

I agree with you Mintyy. On the rare occasions I eat breakfast I stuff my face all day.

I've just started Weight Watchers, never used to eat breakfast but now I do and I've lost 11 lbs in 3 weeks.

I did Weight Watchers years ago, never ate breakfast and lost 5 stone overall.

People are different, there's no right and wrong, eat whenever you are hungry and don't if you're not.