To ask if you eat breakfast?

[stressedespresso]

Ever since I was a child I have never been one to eat breakfast. Food so early in the morning just does not appeal whatsoever and if I do try to force it in makes me feel physically sick. I don’t typically get hungry until around 11am - at which point I’ll have a small snack (eg: cereal bar, fruit, croissant etc) to tide me over until lunch.

Today a close friend (known to have disordered, heavily restricted eating) accused me of having an ED because of the lack of breakfast. Personally, I can’t see any issue here. I’m a healthy weight and this is simply the pattern in which I have always preferred to eat. Any calories that I’ve missed from not eating early in the morning are certainly made up for later in the day with lunch/dinner

Is she just being unreasonable? Is it really that odd to skip it?

No, I’m never hungry on a morning, so it’s just a waste of calories.

I am breastfeeding and do eat breakfast. I am often hungry. When I am not breastfeeding, I am rarely hungry and never first thing. I don't like to eat until 11/11.30 usually and then don't eat until dinner. So I have effectively added an extra meal and despite nourishing another body, my weight is slowly creeping up. It is so annoying, as I see it, but I am also so hungry. Cannot wait to be over this breastfeeding stage and try and reestablish normal patterns.

Not usually on ocasion around 9;30 but usually prefer lunch

No. I used to - I used to wake up starving. But I am now on medication that works best first thing on an empty stomach, and find I just don't want anything until 11 or 12. It hasn't affected my energy levels.

I’m wfh 1/2 the working week and feel more inclined towards breakfast on those days. DH makes coffee and sometimes toast. I can’t always face the toast, esp if he has overdone the butter. I don’t like cereal. On wfh days I have porridge and fruit or yogurt and fruit as I’m starting working. Boiled egg on Sunday is my most breakfasty breakfast. DH cooks this

Since recent retirement I have a lovely big bowl of porridge made with water and topped with fresh fruit and yogurt. Delicious and it lasts me for several hours. I usually have this around 10.00, then a tiny lunch of maybe diet soup and evening meal around 6.00 pm. I have a long swim after the porridge. I cannot swim very far without something in my tummy.

I eat breakfast every day, however I didn't when I was a teen. These days I am usually hungry when I get up and I love my breakfast - I would rather go without lunch.

You can eat or not eat, neither is wrong.

That's interesting because there's been quite a few threads in the past, asking slim people what/how they eat etc.

And so many say they only eat when they're hungry, which involved a lot of people saying they didn't eat breakfast.

I don't consider not eating breakfast as 'skipping a meal'.

If it's not a meal I want to eat in the first place, then I haven't skipped it.

That's my breakfast of choice also!

I am unable to function if I don't eat breakfast. After about an hour vital signs shut down.

Never. Some people call it intermittent fasting, I call it "not having breakfast". I am never hungry until about noon, so eat then. It has helped me deal with menopausal weight gain, it's a total myth that everyone needs three meals a day.

Imo breakfast is a waste of time and calories as no decent food is served at that hour.

Only exception would be full english but I cannot imaine making and eating that at 7am lol

No, nor do any of our family. I gave the kids breakfast when they were little but they never really wanted it. Now they’re young adults they never eat breakfast.

Hardly ever eat breakfast. I’d rather have the extra 10 minutes in bed.

I do eat dinner late though (9pm is pretty common)

I'm the same as you and I'm simply not hungry in the morning. I feel quite nauseous sometimes at the thought/idea of eating when I wake up. For the last fews years, I've broken my fast somewhere between 12-1pm. For the last year this has been with a homemade fruit smoothie, low fat yoghurt and a handful of low calorie popcorn. I've never felt better! Dinner is about 6pm because I'm quite hungry by then. On the few occasions I do have breakfast, which is never earlier than mid morning, I'm then consistently hungrier throughout the day

Everybody eats breakfast. It's just a matter of what time you have that breakfast. For example I tend to have mine around noon.

Used to always wake up hungry but now I don't any more

Generally eat breakfast on my first break at work so maybe 3hrs after waking
On a weekend I tend to skip it

Nope, not since I was about 14.

Normal weight (although a stone heavier now at 45 than when I was 14!), no issues with diet etc.

I eat well throughout the day, but I'm really just not in the mood to eat until about lunchtime on a day to day basis.

The exception is on holiday, and even then I'll kind of graze for an hour so while reading a newspaper, more because I can than because I need to.

I only eat in the morning if hungry. Usually don’t eat until about 2pm . Sometimes when I let the dog out at 6am I have a banana.Agree with people who say that the earlier they eat the more cravings they have.

If I'm up early (when I have a proper appetite) no I can't eat in the morning since primary school. I'm now 39. However if I wake naturally at 9am etc I'll have breakfast as I'm hungry then.

YANBU - everyone is different, you have not got an eating disorder. Family of 6 here, and I am the ONLY one that eats breakfast, and voraciously. I know it is not mumsnetty but a right load of rubbish sometimes too, none of your carefully prepared granola with fruit on top, although I do find if I eat eggs, porridge, bananas it keeps me full for longer. I will eat almost anything though, and often have a hearty lunch too. However, I do not eat most evenings (or eat lightly) so I am having the same day as most people but shifted. If I don't eat in the morning I feel sick from hunger and cannot concentrate. My family are all late eaters, nothing or little for breakfast, small "normal" lunch, big dinner, then snacks.

It sounds like you do just have a small breakfast at 11am though? It's possible that your friend has been told by a therapist that she has to have breakfast and wishes that she didn't have to. Maybe just explain that you do have one, just a bit later in the morning.

I don't eat until I'm properly hungry which is normally mid-late morning.

My mother complains that she gets dizzy and faint if she doesn't eat the minute she wakes up, but she lives almost exclusively on processed, carby, sugary foods so I expect she's on a blood sugar roller-coaster 24/7.

I eat mostly whole foods and when I'm hungry, my stomach grumbles and that's it, I can still function normally, physically and mentally! Our bodies are meant to be able to draw energy from their own glycogen and fat stores, we don't need to keep topping up every few hours (if otherwise healthy).

It sounds like you do eat breakfast, just a bit later in the day.

I eat soon after getting up for the day. I do a run or workout in the morning most days and wouldn't be able to do it without eating.

I usually have porridge, nuts and fruit. I eat lunch, dinner and a snack too.

Here probably isn't the best place to ask, there's a lot of people with disordered eating and food issues on mumsnet. They're either surviving on 800 calories a day or in a competition as to who can eat the most junk food.

I don't bother with it. People have different patterns in terms of when they're hungry, routine etc. As long as you're not waking hungry every morning and ignoring it it's fine. Pretty sure the concept of mandatory breakfast was invented by cereal companies and isn't actually a rule of the universe.