My surgery discharge directions read "Eat 3 meals daily, eat slowly and chew food well; avoid skipping meals." The first meal of the day is Breakfast and generally it is the meal that many individuals skip.

A research study in Spain examined the possible link between breakfast consumption and obesity — especially abdominal obesity, which is the type most closely associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes and other metabolic problems.

This epidemiological study included 1655 adults, about half each of men and women. About 53 percent were between 18 and 49 years of age, and the rest were between 41 and 64 years old. Two-thirds reported that they were habitually inactive ('active' meant that they performed at least 30 minutes per day of physical activity as part of their daily life, or at least 2 hours per week of structured physical exercise), and about one-third overall said they were current smokers. Participants' height, weight, and circumferences were measured during personal interviews, and food consumption was assessed by 3-day dietary records.

Only a small percentage of participants reported never eating breakfast — 3.6 percent overall, while 82 percent said they always ate breakfast and about 14 percent said they sometimes ate that meal. Dairy foods with cereals were the most frequently reported items consumed for breakfast. Men with Wt: Ht ratios > 0.05 (i.e., abdominal obesity) were more likely to be breakfast skippers than their slimmer counterparts, and there was an inverse significant statistical association between always eating breakfast and the odds of abdominal obesity.

Participants who ate breakfast 'sometimes' and 'always' were less likely to report that they smoked (43 and 33 percent respectively) compared to those who never ate breakfast (51 percent): this difference was statistically significant. Furthermore, those who skipped breakfast were also more likely to have other unhealthy characteristics such as physical inactivity.

Thus, the authors concluded:

[T]here appears to be a greater likelihood of health-compromising behaviours in people who miss breakfast, including increased prevalence of smoking, poorer food choices and greater energy intake from snacks.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/12/02/breakfast-might-be-marker-healthy-lifestyle-could-it-prevent-obesity-12226

So generally it seems research points to the importance of breakfast (primarily because it kick-starts your day, and minimizes the temptation to snack).

Yay for an interesting and lively discussion/debate, y'all!

I'm inclined to agree with @loey13 based on my reading and countless exhortations to eat breakfast from dietitians and my therapist (an eating disorder specialist).

I think that it's possible we could all agree on the following statement: If you skip breakfast, you may develop more hunger, leading you to eat more throughout the day, which could lead to weight gain.

Thoughts? There are obviously exceptions to every rule so hopefully that is a reading of the study's conclusion that could apply to most people generally.

9 hours ago, Little Green said:

Yay for an interesting and lively discussion/debate, y'all!

I'm inclined to agree with @loey13 based on my reading and countless exhortations to eat breakfast from dietitians and my therapist (an eating disorder specialist).

I think that it's possible we could all agree on the following statement: If you skip breakfast, you may develop more hunger, leading you to eat more throughout the day, which could lead to weight gain.

Thoughts? There are obviously exceptions to every rule so hopefully that is a reading of the study's conclusion that could apply to most people generally.

You know, what's very interesting...when I used to do alternate day fasting with calorie reduction, my experience was that it got easier the longer you did ADF. Also, for me, it was easier to go all day in a fast from the previous night's dinner, until the current day's dinner, then have a lovely 400-500 calorie dinner and to know the fast was completed. It's was a super easy lifestyle to maintain. Very, very little hunger. But when I got off of it for one of my reconstruction surgeries/recoveries, I just found that I couldn't make myself go back to eating that way. Not because it was hard. It was more that my "give a fuc*k" about losing weight broke for some reason...

5 hours ago, FluffyChix said:

You know, what's very interesting...when I used to do alternate day fasting with calorie reduction, my experience was that it got easier the longer you did ADF. Also, for me, it was easier to go all day in a fast from the previous night's dinner, until the current day's dinner, then have a lovely 400-500 calorie dinner and to know the fast was completed. It's was a super easy lifestyle to maintain. Very, very little hunger. But when I got off of it for one of my reconstruction surgeries/recoveries, I just found that I couldn't make myself go back to eating that way. Not because it was hard. It was more that my "give a fuc*k" about losing weight broke for some reason...

Yikes!!! That is like week 2 bariatric surgery level calories lol. It may be difficult to tell if that is from the fasting or from weird hormonal things happening because of extreme restriction. I wonder what it would feel like to do the all day fast and then have an 1800 calorie (healthy obvs) dinner.

I've often wondered what influence, if any, the 'when' of skipping breakfast has. What I mean is, most girls I knew started skipping breakfast sometime around junior high/middle school. What is going on developmentally, in habit formation and in physical development at that time that could be noteworthy? If I'm honest, when I look back at my relationship with food, that is about the same time in my life when things started to go haywire. Just a bit of a tangent to this conversation...

I always eat my breakfast. Sometimes I break my fast by 8am others by 12 noon. It’s still breakfast either way. Have y’all thought of that??? ?

i don’t eat for the sake of it being “time for breakfast”...that’s overeating in my opinion.