Sorry, There's Nothing Magical About Breakfast (nytimes.com) 300
Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Plenty of people certainly believe that, but according to a new report, that notion is based on "misinterpreted research and biased studies." The New York Times has run a piece authored by Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, who looked into numerous studies -- and found flaws in them -- to conclude that breakfast isn't as important after all. (Could be paywalled; alternate source) He writes: The [reports] improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others' results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others' results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad. Carroll also points out a conflict in many of such studies: most of them have been funded by the food industry. He concludes: The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you're hungry, eat it. But don't feel bad if you'd rather skip it, and don't listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.
Proof of opposing hypothesis? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if the debunkers have provided evidence that supports their position that breakfast is unimportant and can be skipped? Just because the "proof" for a hypothesis is debunked, does not automatically mean the opposite of the hypothesis is true.
Re:Proof of opposing hypothesis? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have never been a breakfast guy. I am just not hungry in the morning unless (somewhat ironically) I eat a lot just before bed.
As a matter of fact, if I do eat breakfast, I find it much harder to wait until lunch because I get very hungry around mid-morning.
Other that what I stated above, I have never experienced any difference between eating breakfast and skipping it. I perform the same either way.
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Someone who just got finished ripping researchers a new one for improperly using causal language probably should avoid absolute statements. I couldn't actually find the source paper, but it certainly doesn't sound like it was a quantitative meta-analysis. "The evidence is a bit of a mess" is a statement that could be defended with this kind of study, but that's not the same as saying that breakfast isn't important.
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There are two sides to every debate and no progress will be made until both sides are able to converse intelligently on the topic without marginalizing the source material or each other.
In the meantime there *are* people profiting from this mess and all debate like the above does is to generate page/ad views. Nobody in the media wants the rage to end because when it does so does the ad-impressions.
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What about the people currently making billions out of denying climate change? Big oil has a huge stake in convincing people that saving energy is irresponsible.
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, you spend pretty much 5 hours (2.5 hours each way) a day just traveling back and forth to work?!?!?
Nope. I get up at 4:30AM, I'm at the bus stop at 5:45AM, I'm at the cafeteria at 6:45AM, and I'm at my desk at 7:00AM. Going home can take 60 to 90 minutes to get home, depending on traffic conditions. I'm usually home by 5PM at the latest.
That's a LOT of life you're giving up there man.
I'm paying an extra $70 per month for the express bus to have someone else drive me through hell and back on the freeways. Meanwhile, I'm reading The Wall Street Journal in the morning and an ebook in the afternoon.
To get up that early...what time do you crash at? 8pm?
I usually fall asleep between 8:30PM and 10:30PM to get eight to six hours of sleep.
Re: In other news... (Score:2, Offtopic)
"You didn't really answer his point as you dont say what you do between 4:30 and 5:45."
Yo momma!
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At what age does the amount of time on the toilet end up being longer than the time in the shower? Younger minds are curious to know....
When you're on a low carb diet, you're going to shit mountains one day and piss oceans the next day. This is one part of my day where I dont' want to hurry.
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What started out as a curious interest at the end of my work day has turned into quite the disturbing thread...
Oh well at least I ticked off the shit I didn't need to know list this week.
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TMI
"Younger minds are curious to know..." - Anonymous Coward
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Not much of an "express" bus is it if it takes than long to go 25 miles. I make that 10 mph average.
The express bus takes an hour each way. If I took the local buses, it would take two hours each way.
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Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine
I do that to my balls before I go to bed. :P
Breakfast has no mystical powers. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes it does. It led Kellogg and General Mills to a bottomless pot of gold.
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Nothing says "Good Morning!" quite like crunchy marshmallows.
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I am not sure where the magical powers of breakfast came from.
The most mythical thing about it is the fact that you hadn't had anything to eat usually in over 8 hours. So breakfast begins your normal eating schedule again.
Either it being 5am or 1pm. I expect there is more problems for people who sometimes skip breakfast and sometimes do not. It isn't breakfast but trying to keep your body on a schedule.
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That's how I see it. When I get up in the morning, I'm either hungry, or feel mildly sick to my stomach. Either way, I feel better after cramming food into me, and I think that's because it's the longest stretch without food.
I knew it! (Score:2, Funny)
Big Breakfast has been trying to get people to eat a big breakfast for years!
Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been working out on an empty stomach in the mornings for years, only to be criticized by armchair specialists about how bad or impossible this is... There's plenty of reserve energy floating around the human body and there's nothing miraculous about physical activity on an empty stomach.
You think our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked refrigerator every morning?
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Of course not! Don't be an idiot, refrigerators are a relatively new invention.
Our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked wooden box every morning.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've experimented with intermittent fasting. One of the benefits (besides weight loss) is that you feel sharper, more perceptive when you're a bit hungry. It's mind-altering, like taking a nootropic drug that actually works. Once you've tried it it makes extreme calorie restriction seem a bit more attractive.
The medical advice we've had I think overstates the evidence by equating any hunger with starvation, which are two different things. Starvation is your body cannibalizing itself to avoid death. Intermittent hunger is a normal and benign state; it's nature's signal to get off your ass and find something to eat.
The problem, as I like to say, is that evolution has gifted each one of us with an awesome mammoth killing machine, which we use sitting at a desk all day a few steps away from a refrigerator stockpiled with calorie-dense foods. And since we're not accustomed to normal hunger, we jump up and shove our face full of thousands of calories (surprisingly easy to do) because we think we're starving. So the grain of truth in the "never go hungry" philosophy is that if you aren't prepared for an occasional hunger pang, if you aren't going to be able to behave reasonably in the presence of unnatural quantities of unnatural foods, then you'd better avoid ever feeling hungry.
Hunger is stress -- like exercise. When you first start a strength training regime, you probably can't imagine you're doing this to your body. But you adapt, and you can take levels of stress that would have been impossible to tolerate at the beginning like they're nothing.
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For me, after a year of trying this, I find that it is good for weight loss, but it makes me pretty damn stupid by early afternoon. Then again, I can't abuse caffeine or other stimulants (my brain chemistry is a bit strange) so YMMV
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Well of course your mileage may vary. I track everything, and I find that I only get sluggish on a fast day if my calorie intake leading up to it is low.
But that's one of the benefits of tracking everything. You soon see patterns and can figure out works for you.
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I had to quit breakfast in my late 20's to keep my food intake down to sustainable levels for my new metabolism. As I got older, one of the other meals has started to go too. If I just eat an Apple for lunch I really don't miss anything else. If I end up eating a full lunch, dinner is really unnecessary. If I tried the 3 meal thing, I'd either be one of those guys ordering bunless burgers with no fries and a water all the time, or I'd weigh over 300 pounds within a year or two.
If you like your 3, and don't
Re: Finally! (Score:2)
It's something I've been trying too. Cardio while fasting works OK for me, but strength training fasted is too much of a sacrifice. I like training and don't want to ruin it.
What are human energy reserves called? (Score:2)
What are human energy reserves called?
Seems like exercising without food intake would prompt the body to "fork over" them reserves.
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What? I drink my breakfast smoothie right after my routine...
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aerobic exercise on an empty stomach for ~30 minutes has far better results. it starts burning calories from your stored fat instead of the calories in food in your stomach(because it doesn't exist).
While that's true, it's important to realize that your body is an adaptive system with complex behavior. So yes, your body burned fat (and probably some protein if you go for a long time) during fasting exercise because it has no choice, but remember your body also burns more calories after exercise in order to repair damage and to restock glycogen -- which is why high intensity interval training is more effective at fat burning than steady cardio, even though you burn fewer calories during exercise.
So the
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As somebody who runs 10 km 4 times a week, I'm gonna call BS on that one. You'll be fighting to work out 30 minutes, let alone get to "burning fat". If you get into it, working out isn't about burning calories, it's about building muscle and upping metabolism.
In high school on the football team if we didn't have weight lifting as a class you had to come in before school and work out. I did it fine without breakfast. Same with college: our football team would have 5 am morning workouts during the spring for a few weeks: all cardio and circuit type workouts, a good hour long not including stretching, no lifting. Again, did it perfectly fine without breakfast. In fact, it was advisable not to eat breakfast beforehand, but they did have trashcans strategically p
Skip it (Score:4)
I personally never eat breakfast -- during the work week.
I'll eat a minimal lunch (always left overs = free mortgage payment per year :). Oh, wait, I don't have a mortgage anymore because I did that...
On the rare weekend days that I do eat breakfast I'll skip lunch altogether. I'm not hungry.
Dinner, for me, IS the most important meal -- and in many cases the ONLY meal I'll eat for the day.
No, I don't snack either. The funny thing is per US BMI fatso rules I am considered over-weight too boot. Of course they have always said that about me since grade school. I've always ignored it all. Even my doctor looked me up and down and said, "No -- you're just fine. Keep doing what you're doing."
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I'll eat a minimal lunch (always left overs = free mortgage payment per year :).
So YOU'RE the one who's been stealing my lunches all this time!
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Dinner, for me, IS the most important meal -- and in many cases the ONLY meal I'll eat for the day.
No, I don't snack either. The funny thing is per US BMI fatso rules I am considered over-weight too boot.
Instead of spreading your food out, you're eating it in a lump and then lying down on it. Sounds like the kind of behavior that would normally cause problems.
No food magic at all (Score:5, Informative)
Any magic things you hear about food are usually false:
- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).
- High fructose corn syrup isn't significantly different than regular sugar.
- Aspertame has no significant health effects.
- Fat isn't bad for you.
- You don't have old undigested meat in your gut.
- You don't need 8 glasses of water per day.
- [Food item XYZ] isn't "brain food"
- Caffeine doesn't cause heart problems
- You don't need X servings of Y food per day
- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food
- Eggs don't give you a heart attack
- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.
- Chemicals are not bad for you.
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- You don't need 8 glasses of water per day.
I always understood the logic to this to be that basically the water keeps your stomach full so you don't feel as hungry. Plus the net benefit of drinking/processing it since it has no calories.
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I always understood the logic to this to be that basically the water keeps your stomach full so you don't feel as hungry. Plus the net benefit of drinking/processing it since it has no calories.
It's just the artificial quantity that's usually the objection. Eight glasses? Where did they come up with that? My stomach may just be smaller than yours, so it's easier to achieve the same effects you describe. It is generally accepted that water aids your body in the elimination of waste in various ways, so drinking it is good for you. But there's no set amount ... generally speaking, if you feel thirsty you are dehydrated, so you need to catch up on your water intake (and improve your habits). Otherwise
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Hey, you're trying to inject common sense into this discussion. Cut that out! Don't you know that doctors are "right" by definition?
Re:No food magic at all (Score:5, Insightful)
(I am not a doctor or nutritionist, but I read what I can and watch the whole spectrum of Netflix documentaries, from the obvious to the eccentric.)
That's not a bad list, but...
- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).
Sodium levels in the body can be fairly independent of ingested sodium. Some people can retain high sodium (and have high BP) even if their salt intake is very minimal. A prescription can bring that sodium down to safe values. But yes, for a lot of people, sodium intakes seems to be of only minimal consequence.
- High fructose corn syrup isn't significantly different than regular sugar.
I thought there was that issue where HFCS doesn't trigger the fullness response in the same way as plain sugar, provoking people to consume more. Has that been debunked now? But nutritionally, I generally treat all the "added sugars" as the same. Try eliminating all added sugar for a year and then eat an apple. They taste awesome.
- Aspertame has no significant health effects.
I don't eat anything that tastes awful, so I haven't even looked into it. And also, I don't trust anything "unnatural" (using my definition).
- Fat isn't bad for you.
In reasonable amounts. Also, I'm still buying into the whole olive oil versus crap oil thing.
- Caffeine doesn't cause heart problems
For some people, it can cause heart palpitations. That seems like a problem to me.
- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food
If "regular food" is what most people eat, then I think there is a big difference. But if you mean brown eggs versus white eggs, than probably not. The brown shells are better, though, because they're a little easier to spot in the frying pan.
- Eggs don't give you a heart attack
The only thing that I got from that big China study was that eggs looked pretty good and
that eating only 1-10 servings of vegetables PER YEAR (in two provinces) was really bad. Those same two provinces were also the only places where anyone drank a considerable amount of milk and that was used for some very sketchy claims against dairy.
Doctors tell me that ingested cholesterol only accounts for like 5% of your blood levels, so if you're doing a Cool Hand Luke on a regular basis, your probably pushing your luck.
- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.
If "organic" means no-pesticides, then I'm all for it, where I can afford it. "Natural" on the package doesn't mean anything useful and it probably will always be a junk marketing term. I use "natural" to mean anything that you could find while wandering around on the planet. Of course, then, arsenic is natural, so that isn't a good enough criteria by itself.
I try to stick to buying food with one ingredient. It's not a perfect rule (I like vinegar in my pickles), but I think the intent is solid and it is a good mantra in the grocery store.
- Chemicals are not bad for you.
See arsenic.
Re: No food magic at all (Score:2)
While you are rightish in generalization many of those statements have specific exceptions. A good example is essential fatty acids. A key requirement for brain cells. They are also "essential" because we have to eat them - our bodies cannot make them from food that does not already contain them. The richest source of essential fatty acids is seafood and everything else has thousands of times less. So seafood really is brainfood - especially in childhood.
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Specific substances are bad in specific doses -- and sometimes for people with specific conditions.
But this is just a fatuous way to weasel out of the overly broad statement you made earlier, that chemicals are not bad for you. The prospect of drinking a bottle of ammonia aside (as that would be silly), mercury and lead can both enter your body via a "normal" diet through various means, and neither is ever good for you, in any quantity.
Sorry, there's nothing magical about clickbait (Score:5, Informative)
If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better eat breakfast. If you are going to sit on ass all day, you can probably skip it, unless you're hungry. You can now skip this article, and every other article like it. Tada!
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If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better eat breakfast. If you are going to sit on ass all day, you can probably skip it, unless you're hungry. You can now skip this article, and every other article like it. Tada!
If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better have a lot of Vitamin D too...
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If you are going to work your balls off, you might want to also consider other lines of work.
I really want to agree (Score:2)
...but my personal experience speaks elsewise.
If I sleep in I feel fine. If I force myself to get up early for work (which I do most days) then I feel groggy and not-hungry for 2-3 hours, if I force myself to eat something shortly after waking (usually a banana or prawn sandwich) I feel better for those 2-3 hours and gain an appetite for a full meal quicker.
Irony (Score:3)
I find it ironic that in an article about how imprecise and loose language led to the notion that breakfast is somehow special compared to other meals, the summary uses the term magical and the article uses the term mystical.
Bulletproof Coffee (Score:2)
I agree; if you aren't hungry, don't eat (breakfast or any other meal). On the other hand I love something in the morning and my preference is Bulletproof Coffee. It is nice because it only contains fat and therefore doesn't get your insulin going right when you wake up.
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On the other hand I love something in the morning and my preference is Bulletproof Coffee. It is nice because it only contains fat and therefore doesn't get your insulin going right when you wake up.
There's also stevia, or erythritol. I like to use them together, you can buy products which do that for you but I just put them both in things. I actually prefer my coffee with just cream, which has very little sugar anyway, but if I make cocoa then I use the other stuff.
Is there anything magical about sleep? (Score:3)
Yes, I ask the question about sleep mainly because I know of exactly zero humans who have ever managed to achieve that whole 8-hours-of-sleep shit on any regular basis, and yet we seem to survive and thrive.
I think the whole point of driving the importance of breakfast has less to do with forcing people to eat at a certain hour, and has more to do with the fact that your body hasn't consumed any fuel at that point in roughly 10 - 12 hours, and things start to go downhill for most humans with regards to energy levels and overall alertness after a certain point of no food or drink. This tolerance to avoiding varies from individual to individual, thus no "studies" are necessary, only personal experience.
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Yes, I ask the question about sleep mainly because I know of exactly zero humans who have ever managed to achieve that whole 8-hours-of-sleep shit on any regular basis, and yet we seem to survive and thrive.
I have aimed for, and usually achieved, an average of eight hours of sleep every night for the past 20-25 years. (Before that I was a salaried employee and had to commute, which does make it almost impossible to get enough sleep).
Human beings are phenomenally adaptable, and can put up with amazing deprivations while continuing to function (more or less). But lack of sleep can be more of a mental handicap than mild drunkenness, and there is a lot of evidence that it's bad for your health. Unfortunately moder
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She's been doing the talk show circuit promoting the book and I thought you might find it interesting.
Breakfast IS magical (Score:4, Insightful)
Bacon is served at breakfast more so than other meals. Magic.
That's What They Say Today (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife, who had a long career in medicine, often says about changing ideas on what's good and bad for you, "That's what they say today."
Good to hear (Score:2)
Thank god, I'm usually still asleep during breakfast time, so I'll move to lunch instead.
I don't need a study (Score:2)
to know if I don't eat something in the morning, I will be very distracted until later for lunch time.
One thing to note is ***never*** eat melons along with other foods. If you do eat melons, have them alone then wait for at least 30 minutes before something else. A chart showing food combinations pointed this out, before I saw that my stomach never felt that great after eating melons along with other stuff especially at hotel breakfast buffets.
I disagree (Score:2)
Empirical studies have shown conclusively that Lucky Charms are magically delicious.
I miss the Food Pyramid (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone else here old enough to remember the Four basic food groups [wikipedia.org], one of which was entirely taken up by Dairy, which a lot of humans flat out can't digest properly at all? After a while (and a lot of embarrassing gastrointestinal distress), they decided that was BS and created the Food Pyramid [wikipedia.org]. The basic idea of that one was that you should be eating a metric shitload of breads. Today we call those "carbs", and these same types of people will tell you to avoid them like the plague.
Point being that nutrition "experts" have a long proud history of being completely full of shit. They'll even admit it. But that was before. They're right this time.
Breakfast thing being case in point. Young people should probably be fed if they are hungry, but if they aren't its usually downright stupid to force food on them. For older people this goes triple. I found with advancing age that my metabolism has slowed down to the point where if I try to force even 2 meals a day on myself, I gain weight. That's bad. Much, much worse than just eating only the 1 or 2 times a day I'm actually hungry.
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There are no set number of meals that are correct. We're hunter-gatherers. We eat when we're hungry, that's it. Everything about "three square meals" is bollocks that originated in Victorian times (along with "no elbows on the tables" - also bollocks, and not 'rude', even the Queen does it).
Same for any categorisation of foods into groups of any numbers. Nutrition experts are paid to tell you about nutrition. Unless you die from malnutrition or throw up everywhere, it's hard to prove them wrong.
But the
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Point being that nutrition "experts" have a long proud history of being completely full of shit. They'll even admit it. But that was before. They're right this time.
Actually, nutritional advice began very slowly and badly in the 18th century (and earlier), reached a pretty high level or accuracy in the first half of the 20th century, and then went all to hell in the 1960s and 1970s. Probably because of the influence of money and power.
The first scientific research on nutrition was funded by industrialists who basically wanted to know what to feed their workers to get the maximum work for the minimum cost, without the workers dying too young or being unable to breed and
Yet another myth (Score:3)
Well I haven't eaten what is normally known as "breakfast" for about 7 years. (Of course, as it is technically defined as when you "break your fast", your first meal of the day is breakfast even if eaten at 10 pm). For what it's worth, I have noticed absolutely no ill effects of any kind.
Instead, following the recommendation of a growing number of nutritionists and doctors, I eat two meals a day at approximately noon and 6 pm. That's ample for someone of my age (late 60s) and conveniently allows for an 18-hour semi-fast between dinner and the following day's lunch. (I don't count coffee with lashings of double cream, although strictly it has quite a few calories).
The idea that you have to eat every few hours or you run out of blood sugar and faint has certainly been debunked. And anyway, it makes no sense. After a decent meal, it takes the food over an hour even to be liquidized in your stomach - before it can move on to digestion proper - and then your guts take 12-24 hours to extract most of the nutrients. So it's fairly obvious that you are getting nutrients drip-fed into your blood all that time. And indeed, it's very easy and painless to fast for 24-72 hours, because by the time the food in your intestines has been thoroughly absorbed, your body has automatically and transparently shifted to burning body fat. When I fast, I sometimes feel mild hunger pangs a couple of times the first day, but from the second morning a different (and very enjoyable) state sets in: no hunger, no indigestion, no feeling of fulness at all. It's almost as if you were without a digestive system for the time being, which gives it and you a rest. Incidentally, this is an ideal state to be in if you want to get a lot of work done without interruptions. If you can get into flow, you can work steadily for hour after hour without getting any hassle from your body.
What most of us mistake for hunger is a conditioned reflex, which we have set up to hit us at "mealtimes". Real hunger manifests as tiredness, and may be hard to recognize at first if you are not used to it.
the obvious (Score:2)
Depending on your metabolism, bla bla bla...
The essence is: If you have a normal life cycle, breakfast means you haven't eaten anything for the past 10 hours, and probably it's not a bad idea to give your body some energy.
Of course, if you're eating for three already, like most overweight people, you can just as well skip three days to burn some fat.
Lunch, the Least Important Meal; except when first (Score:2)
I very rarely eat breakfast. In fact, I rarely have an appetite until I've been up for at least an hour or two.
When people say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I generally reply that Lunch is the least important meal of the day - except when it's first. And for me, Lunch is almost always first ;-)
Errrrrr, What? (Score:2)
"...to conclude that breakfast isn't as important after all."
Breakfast isn't as important as what? Lunch? Dinner? Oxygen? Jack Daniels?
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Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to lose weight?
Find out your BSR (what you need just to survive)
Count calories.
Try to eat well (within the range of calories)
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Find out your BSR (what you need just to survive) .
My BMR score is 2,476 calories per day.
Count calories.
My diet is 1,500 calories/150 grams of carbs per day.
Try to eat well (within the range of calories)
I have my last meal before 6PM and get eight hours of sleep.
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At 5'10" and 200 pounds your BSR is in the 1900 calorie / day range. (Look it up).
Figure out how much you exercise (walk, stairs, gym, bike, etc..) and work with that.
Keep you calories under that amount and you will lose weight. Above you gain.
Eating one meal or 10; after 8PM or not; it's the calories that count.
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At 5'10" and 200 pounds your BSR is in the 1900 calorie / day range. (Look it up).
I'm 5'10" and 350 pounds. You figure it out. I don't know what BSR means and Google isn't being too helpful.
Figure out how much you exercise (walk, stairs, gym, bike, etc..) and work with that.
I walk 20 minutes per day during the week and work out at the gym on the weekend.
Keep you calories under that amount and you will lose weight. Above you gain.
My daily diet is 1,500 calories / 150 grams of carbs per day, less than what I need.
Eating one meal or 10; after 8PM or not; it's the calories that count.
Breakfast is "breaking fast." Between my last meal of the day and the first meal of the day should be at least a 12-hour fast.
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After a lot of effort I found that my BMR was within 10% of these basic calculators.
see: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/to... [myfitnesspal.com]
see: http://www.calculator.net/bmr-... [calculator.net]
Pick a weight you want to be at (say 225). Find the BMR for that weight and that's what you
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Ignore everything but calorie in and calorie out.
At 5'10" and 200 pounds your BSR is in the 1900 calorie / day range. (Look it up).
Figure out how much you exercise (walk, stairs, gym, bike, etc..) and work with that.
But none of that works. Calorie out is a guess that's immeasurable. Calories in is also not measurable (unless you make 10 of every meal, and measure the calories in 9, eat 1, and measure the calories in your poop). So the theory is correct, but the measures are useless.
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It's works. Is calorie counting exact? No. Not at all.
I happen to think that calorie out is fairly straight forward and is probably the easier of the two. My BMR is 1800 calories. Walk briskly for 20 minutes and I use up 140 calories. The calorie in
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It's been working for me for years.
Thus, it's 100% perfect.
My BMR is 1800 calories.
So you spend a week living in a controlled environment where it was measured?
No, you are making up numbers that fit your personal experience, and asserting they apply to everyone, when they apply to nobody, including you. Your delusion doesn't become reality, even if you really really believe it.
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It's calories in versus calories out.
It's not quite as simple as that - not all calories are the same.
That said, number of calories is a pretty big part of it.
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But if you eat under your required daily maintenance level you will lose weight. Even if your diet is twinkies and rum.
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There's nothing magical. It's not when you eat. It's calories in versus calories out.
I understand the point you're making. Calories in vs. calories out is certainly right. But "calories out" is affected by a lot of things, including when you eat.
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I'm in good shape because I count calories. (And go to they gym.)
Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Insightful)
My own observation is that obese people tend to skip or have a very light breakfast. They then make up for it by having a big lunch, dinner and then snacks right up until bedtime. I've always felt that you should be a little hungry when you go to bed, then have a good size breakfast in the morning. Improves sleep, and sets you up for the day, with only a light lunch and dinner required. I also find that it prevents you from feeling tired in the afternoon.
My observation is that obese people eat snacks. Blaming it on breakfast or no breakfast is a diversion.
Re:Don't agree (Score:4, Informative)
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I am obese by all measurements. I weigh about 250lbs but I am not super fat. I do not eat breakfast, I don't snack while I am at work and I eat 2 very sensible meals a day. There are people I know that are much skinnier than I am, that eat 2-3x as much as I do. I also exercise a fair amount by necessity since I don't own a car and use my bicycle for everything. I can sprint for a few city blocks without too much trouble and I am never winded after climbing stairs 6 flights of stairs (which I do several time
Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Informative)
Some do, others eat healthy foods, but their bodies have betrayed them.
The New York Times had an article on a scientific study of the 2009 Biggest Loser contestants who regain their weight because their metabolism slowed down while dieting (expected) but their metabolism never recovered (unexpected). If they ate the normal calories for their height and weight, they would be eating an extra 400 to 800 calories that their body wants to regain the lost weight.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html [nytimes.com]
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My own observation is that obese people tend to skip or have a very light breakfast. They then make up for it by having a big lunch, dinner and then snacks right up until bedtime.
My observation too. I have always been slim and fit, and I eat little and often :- Breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon tea, evening dinner, and supper.
OTOH my brother-in-law only eats once a day (around 6pm) and has a massive blow-out at that time. He is shaped like a barrel I believe because that huge meal over the years has stretched his stomach muscles and gut to collapse point. He makes his kids eat like that too - the poor sods are in tears with hunger by mid-afternoon.
Anyway, if I di
Re:Don't agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Many of the above postings are indirectly saying that metabolism is individual, and while some "collective" rules may make sense (get some exercise, don't overeat), not everything generalizes. I suspect breakfast is one of those non-generalizable things.
We all have to find out what works best for us. I find that a small breakfast prevents me from being overly hungry at lunch and then eating more than I should. A large breakfast might have me skipping lunch and being overly hungry at dinner. I'm in the multiple small meals category, but I don't pretend this applies to everyone.
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My reasonable dinner may be unreasonable, of course, but at the end of the day, it's less calories than eating three meals a day like a chump.
It depends on the sum of the calories of the three meals, doesn't it?
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But there is! Feed a lot of it to your grandpa who has arteriosclerosis and an unexpected windfall will be coming your way!
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Feed a lot of it to your grandpa who has arteriosclerosis and an unexpected windfall will be coming your way!
That's also been debunked. Meat and fat don't cause problems; a high carb diet is far worse. So to carry out your plan, feed him pancakes with plenty of syrup.
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Re:Oh, sure (Score:4, Insightful)
The only solution is to say "sod it" and eat a bit of everything. Or say "sod it completely" and eat a lot of everything.
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As usual, Monty Python has the answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I only eat discarded tennis shoes. High fiber and good for the environment. Plus it is the most naturally probiotic thing you can eat.
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"I only eat discarded tennis shoes. High fiber and good for the environment."
And because they taste better than kale.
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The low fat part being debunked is also BS, or at least highly misinterpreted data. People read what they want to read from scientific studies.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health... [bbc.com]
Free Cholesterol Test (Score:5, Interesting)
My grandfather told me to watch out for those so called, "free cholesterol test". He said, "That test cost me my bacon!"
Side note, he lived to be 91 years old. ~ 30 years after the test.
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No one ever stops eating bacon. People are merely told to stop eating bacon.
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I has been from the word go. None of Gore's nonsense stood up to congressional scrutiny.
Re:One Guy (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, congress, the wise men and women of the scientific world.
Re:I have better things to do in the morning (Score:5, Funny)
4chan containment failure detected.