Breakfast vs No Breakfast

[didireallysaythat]

So some eating styles (not sure I like the word diet) insist that successful weight loss requires a breakfast. And yet to put on weight you are, yes you guessed, encouraged to have breakfast.

I know there actually is some research on this - can someone point me in the right direction so I can make my own decision please ?

Thanks!

I came to 5:2 by reading scientific papers on how to age healthily. Some of the world experts in the diseases of aging had theorised why IF could help; they then performed studies to investigate their hypothesis and found evidence that IF works: Science in action.

I wanted to stay healthy in old age, so I followed the advice of world leading neurologists like Mattson and started IF. I wanted to lose weight, but that was only a secondary objective.
I then found 5:2 reduced my waist and reversed weight gain, whereas post-meno nothing else had worked - low carb failed, daily calorie control failed. My body didn't react to those old methods like it used to do.

IF also stopped the colds and ulcerated throats that had plagued me for years. I feel fitter than for a long time and my exercise performance is better than ever.
Others on these threads have reported reduction in symptoms of asthma or IBS.

As a scientist, I followed the advice of experts, found it worked for me and continued. So, I followed scientific principles.

Study the peer-reviewed science articles - anyone who isn't qualified to do that, should maybe listen to those of us who are and who have analysed them.
You need to assess the worth of a source, before quoting it - dodgy supplement manufacturers or rent-a-mouth old magazine hacks have zero scientific value.

If you want to find proper science, try using Google Scholar. Unfortunately in most cases only the abstract is available free, but those generally give the gist including the conclusions (and the full text can be pretty incomprehensible to the layperson anyway).

Thank you all for your comments. I have to admit that I posted my question on 5:2 thread because I felt if anyone knew if a breakfast does or does not help it would be you as there's research on 5:2 and if you follow a eating style for the science you'd probably know the science of breakfast. AFAIK weight watchers, slimming world, my fitness pal etc would all encourage breakfast. And I was brought up to believe it was necessary. But I'm open to the idea that it isn't.

I'm not ready to do 5:2 to the absolute letter yet, but I'm making some steps towards it. I think I'll try skipping breakfast for a week and see if I over compensate at lunch time.

Again, thank you all for taking the time to respond. One day I may be back as part of the 5:2 gang.

didireallysaythat, I began 5:2ing 6 months before the Horizon programme and decided to start with simply dividing each meal in two on two days a week - so roughly 1200 cals. Even on that regime I lost weight.

So, baby steps, absolutely. It has to feel right for you.

Look forward to welcoming you into the 5:2 fold!

Just based on logic and behaviour rather than biology...

If you are a breakfast person, then having no breakfast might result in you making bad choices mid-morning or at lunchtime.

So it's better to make a "good choice" breakfast, and factor that in with the rest of your day's eating.

This is especially true if you have the kind of job where you would be unable to access a good choice of snack if you found yourself ravenous at 11am.

Personally I don't FEEL like breakfast, so I don't have it. I don't want to eat within the first few hours of getting up. Eating when I don't feel like it is a waste.

Thing is, you don't have to 'do it to the letter' - 5:2 is one approach to 'intermittent fasting' but it's not that prescriptive. 'skipping breakfast' may pretty much equate to the '16:8' - which is eating during an 8 hour window (pretty easy if you do lunch and dinner and no late snacking), thus giving a 16 hour fast. The approach which has probably been most rigorously researched is 'ADF' - alternate day fasting - but that's a lot harder to stick to for most people which is why 5:2 (and variants) have become popular in practice.

Errol that's a good point. If I find I don't need breakfast then I might start. I guess then though I'd have to think about what my calorie intake (I've forgotten the proper name for this - the sort of idling calorie intake you need just to stay still erigyt wise) should be for the lunch and dinner ?

TDEE - there's a calculator here. Generally best to calculate it for 'sedentary' rather than overestimating activity in the first instance.

Errol if there's a comatose option that's me. I was so much more active before I went back to work. Now I'm embarrassed by my lack of activity....

Amigababy, hunter gatherers possibly ate ten meals a day! They ate food as they came across it, such as nuts and berries where available, so no set mealtimes. Of course there would of been those who only ate once a day if they were lucky, maybe after a hunt, where food was scarce.

RE the metro, I didn't realise the association with a supplement manufacturer. Well aware that they bend the science to suit the products they try to push. I need to find a better alternative viewpoint. Just concerned that people talk about fasting at work because some one at the pub told them it was good, so they jump straight in without doing any research into the pros and cons.

Just concerned that people talk about fasting at work because some one at the pub told them it was good, so they jump straight in without doing any research into the pros and cons.

I don't think any of us would disagree with that! This thread was started precisely because the OP wanted pointing to some proper research on breakfasts or not, hopefully we've managed to provide some sources.

housepicture
hunter gatherers possibly ate ten meals a day! They ate food as they came across it, such as nuts and berries where available, so no set mealtimes.
That is utter, utter rubbish.

Hunter gatherer societies are still extant in Asia, Africa, the Arctic and South America.
They do not eat all they.
They gather and collect and hunt and harvest all day to hopefully get enough food to share among the whole group and then eat it communally at the end of the day.
The hunters may be away for days to come back with a big protein hit for the whole group.
Those who cannot hunt or forage - the old and the young - are still fed even though they have not participated.

Any member of the group who ate all they found during the day without sharing would be drummed out of the group PDQ.

Hunter gatherer societies are lucky if they eat well once a week.
Settled agriculture allowed people to eat each day.
The industrial revolution allowed food to be stored so people could eat more than once a day.
Industrial processing since WW2 has allowed food to become cheap.

Human digestion has not evolved much since before food became readily available.
Hence the obesity epidemic.

AFAIK the only animals which eat very frequently are those that have to because they are herbivores with low-nutrient, high volume foodstuffs such as grass or leaves. Carnivorous and omivorous animals seem to be able to self-limit, even where there's abundant food supply.

Carnivorous and omivorous animals seem to be able to self-limit, even where there's abundant food supply.
No, they don't.
Humans and their pets are the only animals that have unlimited supply.

Look at our obese pets for proof that other animals cannot self limit either (dogs, cats, horses, goldfish, rats etc etc)

Not sure I agree. There are healthy wild animals in places where there's more food than they need. My dog self-limits - I leave his bowl of kibble down, he has a good feed once a day. Of course if he had access to unlimited dog treats or leftovers, that'd be a different story. Pets get fat if we overfeed them on the wrong stuff. Pet cats spend energy hunting and then don't eat their kill.

And the wrong stuff is what we humans have in oversupply.
You could stuff your face day in day out on veg and unprocessed meat and not get very fat.
Its the calorific tricks of the food industry that nadger us.

Since doing 5:2 I tend to have breakfast 2-3 times a week. On those days I don't need much (or any )lunch. Depends what you call breakfast though I will always have black coffee and a piece of fruit first thing.

Still that's a good point. Breakfast is often a large spoon of 0% yoghurt and a spoon of apple puree. MFP reckons about 100 calories for what it's worth. Oh plus orange juice to wash down the iron tablet. Earlier this week that was enough but today my stomach was rumbling by 13:30....

TiP - yes, that's sort of what I was musing about. It's probably fine for people who like to 'graze' if they're eating foods something akin to what grazing animals eat, but mostly that won't be the case.

TalkinPeace

That is utter, utter rubbish.

Hunter gatherer societies are still extant in Asia, Africa, the Arctic and South America.
They do not eat all they.
They gather and collect and hunt and harvest all day to hopefully get enough food to share among the whole group and then eat it communally at the end of the day.
The hunters may be away for days to come back with a big protein hit for the whole group.
Those who cannot hunt or forage - the old and the young - are still fed even though they have not participated.

Any member of the group who ate all they found during the day without sharing would be drummed out of the group PDQ.

Hunter gatherer societies are lucky if they eat well once a week.
Settled agriculture allowed people to eat each day.
The industrial revolution allowed food to be stored so people could eat more than once a day.
Industrial processing since WW2 has allowed food to become cheap.

Human digestion has not evolved much since before food became readily available.
Hence the obesity epidemic.

I'm afraid you are talking rubbish if you think they never ate 'on the go' !
should I really have pointed out every other possible connotation of their eating habits?

Of course they would of collected foods and took it back to the tribe at times, it would of depended on what their role/status was, what they were doing and how much food was available. If they were on a hunt, or travelling a long distance, studies tell us that they would foraged food such as fruit/veg/roots/nuts along the way and ate (some or all of it) throughout the day(if available), to provide energy for themselves for the walk/chase, hunt and kill. They did not always collect it all up and carry it, going hungry without energy for the chase/kill, in the name of taking it back at the end of the day. If they had, they wouldn't of been very successful as hunters!

I agree that eating a major food find such as a kill, without sharing it with the group, would of resulted in being drummed out, or much much worse.

Cultivation of grains that we eat now is a relatively modern concept, be it hundreds or a few thousand years, it's a bit optimistic to think that evolution has had enough time to deal with it

Cultivation of grains that we eat now is a relatively modern concept, be it hundreds or a few thousand years
Do look it up dear.
Rather longer than that.

Wheat 9,000 years ago.
Common in Europe 4,500 years.

Grains only part of diet for majority of American groups in last 100-300 years.