Is breakfast still the most important meal of the day? [Link]?

I hope not. I usually call the liquor I drank the night before my breakfast.

I don’t think so. I seem to remember studies kind of disproving that. I think there are several schools of thought on the matter. When I’m thin I wake up hungry. Now, that I’m 20 pounds overweight, I can get by with no breakfast fine.

My theory has always been it isn’t skipping breakfast that makes people fat, it’s fat people don’t wake up feeling hungry for breakfast. I think possibly the researchers looked at it the wrong way.

I’m with @JLeslie. The link between breakfast and weight is complex. If you skip breakfast then eat masses of junk later because you are hungry then we can see that your calorie intake may well be too high. But doing this means that you are someone who overeats. Having breakfast won’t change your propensity to overeat so it’s not a cure for obesity.

Basically it’s complicated. My advice is start eating once you are sure you are hungry (wait about an hour) and eat anything but in moderation.

I think it’s important but I don’t think that what many think of as breakfast is healthy. Eggs, potatoes, toast, bacon, sausage, french toast, pancakes, all bad. I used to work with an overweight guy who would eat egg, cheese and bacon on a roll every day at work, and then he’d eat lunch. If I ate that, I would not be hungry for the rest of the day.

Breakfast could be yogurt with fruit or something else that’s not too heavy and greasy.

Plus, I’m of the school of thought that calories should be counted on a 24 hour basis. I do think it’s easier to control hunger if you eat more often and smaller meals, but if you eat unrelated to hunger, which many adult Americans do, then that’s out the window anyway.

I don’t buy into the whole bit about you burn more calories during the day, so calories eaten during the day will burn off faster. The main problem with overweight night eaters is they are eating extra calories. I’m not a big night eater, but I’m still over the weight I’d like to be, but it’s from eating extra calories at most meals, and too much fatty foods (more calories).

I do think being hungry makes you less able to function well. More irritable, distracted, weaker, so for that reason breakfast can be helpful, but I think lunch is even more important for that.

There is a lot of evidence that “intermittent” fasting is actually much better for one’s overall health than the small meal grazing over the course of the day. Not eating for 15 to 16 hours every day, and maintaining one’s healthy calorie consumption during the other 8 hours facilitates heart health and insulin sensitivity.

So skip breakfast, don’t eat until 10 a.m., and get all your eating for the day done by 6 p.m.

I think that’s something that would work well for me, @zenvelo, dietary wise, if not always schedule wise.

Yes breakfast is the most important meal of the day and one should not skip it. Breakfast provides you the most needed energy and nutrients to start your day.

Care to source that, @ArranAlston?

If you have a link, directions for posting it are directly below this box – put “quotation marks around a word or phrase”: add a colon, and past your link.
quotation marks around a word or phrase