57 replies to this topic

[weinoo]

In discussions with a colleague, I was shocked...SHOCKED...to learn that neither he nor his wife eats breakfast before leaving the house in the morning.

Now I know there are certain clichés that are just not worth repeating; but frankly, I feel that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I basically always have breakfast, and always make breakfast for my wife, when we're in the same city. And I'm not talking about coffee = breakfast. I make oatmeal or some other hot cereal, cut up fruit, scramble eggs, whole wheat toast, whatever...it's breakfast. And for me, it's necessary, otherwise I start to feel like crap within an hour or two.

So, seriously, do you skip breakfast? Why?

[HungryC]

Sometimes I eat it, sometimes I don't. On weekdays, it is not more than cafe au lait and fruit, or toast (w/nut butter or ricotta), or a Kashi TLC bar, or a carton of Fage 0% yogurt w/fruit or honey. Some days, it's just a (homemade) latte. BUT I have a "second breakfast" type snack around 10:30. I'm not so hungry first thing in the AM...on slower weekend mornings, I eat a bit more, but also generally have a later lunch.

[therippa]

The closest thing I've had to a regular breakfast in the last 10 years was the 4 months of smoothie making I did after getting my Vita-Mix. While I enjoyed having a smoothie every morning, I fell out of habit just by forgetting to assemble the ingredients the night before into the carafe and sticking it in the fridge (or in the case of the weekends, to drunk to remember or do so )

I don't have time to put together anything in the morning. With major city traffic, I have to be out the door at 7:20am if I want my 5 mile trip to take less than 30 minutes. That gives me just enough time to wake up at 7:00, take a quick shower, and run out the door. Waking up before 7am doesn't jive with being a late-twenties bachelor.

If after I get to work and settle in I'm still really hungry, I'll go grab a bagel or something.

(edit: typo)

Edited by therippa, 16 September 2010 - 03:00 PM.

[Pierogi]

I've never been a breakfast eater, even when I was a kid in school. Usually only a piece of toast or cold cereal then, because my mother made me, and then through college and work, usually only coffee.

Food just doesn't appeal to me straight out of bed, and as an adult, dealing with LA traffic, the thought of getting up an hour earlier to deal with breakfast and the clean-up there of was even MORE not appealing. My one clean freak trait is hating having dirty dishes in the sink, so clean-up would be mandatory.

The last few years I was working, I did get in the habit of making some kind of bakery item (scones, muffins, coffee cake) on Sundays and having that before I left the house, but I did that only because I take a bunch of medication first thing in the a.m., and it was chewing up my stomach if I didn't eat something with them.

Now....breakfast foods for dinner, or for a "brunch" type affair, around 10 a.m., that's a different story. But first thing in the morning, usually I'll pass.

[MattyC]

Well, for starters i'm not awake in time for 'breakfast'. I work dinner shift, which means I get home between 11:30 and sometime after midnight. I need to shower and eat dinner, so i'm usually up pretty late, so chances of me waking up unless I have to are slim. when I do wake up, it's pretty much toss on clothes + grab knives = time to head to work.

I actually don't know a whole lot of people that actually have time to make a real, full fledged breakfast. Nobody I know actually eats it other than a coffee or a red bull. I still function fairly well.

[therippa]

I watch Dexter's breakfast routine with some envy, I wish I had that much time in the morning, especially after hiding the bodies.

[Beebs]

Weekdays, that extra 30 minutes of sleep is precious. And my stomach rebels at eating breakfast first thing getting up. But I keep a selection of breakfasty things at work - toast in the freezer, instant oatmeal packets, butter - so if I need to, I can eat at my desk. Besides, breakfast at home is on my time, but eating at work is on work time!

[weinoo]

Now I'm even more shocked at these responses. From people knowledgeable about food and how it affects our well-being.

Would you ever not feed your kid before said kid was heading off to school?

[MattyC]

Now I'm even more shocked at these responses. From people knowledgeable about food and how it affects our well-being.

Would you ever not feed your kid before said kid was heading off to school?

I'm actually a little shocked that you are shocked. I mean, the time I wake up is usually one of the more hectic times of my day, and the sad truth is that it's that way for a lot of adults, especially those who work in the food industry, and that little extra sleep is usually far more needed than taking time to make breakfast. To me, working a 15 hour day, getting home in time enough to get 6 hours of sleep, only to get up and do it all again, is about utilizing my time for sleep. Granted, not all of my days are like that, but those that I don't have to get up right away, that extra sleep is far more needed as well.

To me, the whole kid issue is completely different. Kids don't have the pressing issues adult life drags you down with, and have the time to wake up, get things together, eat breakfast, etc. And of course, most parents always try and make sure they can do for their kids they can't do for themselves. Kind of a different story. So would I make sure my kids had breakfast before school? Of course.

Also, I do have to admit, personally I care even less for breakfast just do the fact I usually feel great and do well without it, so why bother. Yes, I know it's technically important, but my math teachers in highschool years ago also said I would need all of those equations in everday life. I work on my feet all day long in a kitchen, and I always feel cheerful my health is always good. So for me, it works.

[Dianabanana]

Breakfast has always been my favorite meal. The best part of my day is climbing into bed at night, closing my eyes, and thinking about all the nice things I'll have for breakfast. Four years ago I started having to take a medication every morning that requires me to wait an HOUR before eating. Every day! And I'll have to take it for the rest of my life. It's just awful, I tell you.

[Fat Guy]

I love, love, love breakfast. I wish I could wake up every morning to a groaning board of eggs, bacon, sausage, buttered toast, fruit, cheeses, fresh-squeezed juice and more. But there would be issues with that: For one thing, I'd have to go right back to sleep. For another thing, if I managed to stay awake, I wouldn't be able to do much without serious heartburn and other gastrointestinal repercussions. And for still another thing, I'd weigh an extra 100 pounds. So most days I make a smoothie, but if I'm tight on time I skip it.

[munchymom]

Now I'm even more shocked at these responses. From people knowledgeable about food and how it affects our well-being.

Would you ever not feed your kid before said kid was heading off to school?

Yup. I can't face food first thing in the morning, and neither can he. I've never been one to insist that he eat when he's not hungry, and he gets a well-balanced diet over the course of the rest of the day. He gets snack at 9:00 and lunch at 11:00, so I'm not going to shove food down his throat at 7:00.

As for me, I can't eat until I've been awake at least 2 hours, so my first food of the day is usually mid-morning, and it's almost never "breakfast food", more likely leftovers from last night's dinner or a turkey sandwich. I love breakfast food out at a restaurant on a weekend late morning, though.

[BeeZee]

I'm same as Munchymom...my stomach takes 2 hours to "wake up" and I can't get anything except black coffee and maybe a 1/2 of a banana down in the morning. Since I drive around quite a bit for work (sales) I keep a protein bar in my pocketbook so if I'm hungry in the car around 10am I eat. I just don't wake up hungry and as a kid wasn't really into breakfast either. Maybe it has to do with blood sugar levels and how variable they are for an individual.

[KD1191]

Much to the consternation of my wife, I don't "get" American breakfast...eggs, bacon, toast...they are all fine, but I certainly don't crave them when I wake up. Usually I crave chorizo or birria or something else Mexican...sometimes phở, which I'll admit is strange for a boy born on the Canadian border. That said, breakfast is a cup of coffee most days. If I'm starving, I'll grab a banana or a granola bar to eat in the car on the way to work. On the weekends I'll occasionally do something more exciting, but generally if I enjoy dinner to the fullest the prospects for breakfast the next day will be grim.

Edited by KD1191, 16 September 2010 - 06:33 PM.

[maggiethecat]

Until I was forty, I could jump out of bed, grab a cookie and a coffee and live my life. Whether it was incipient menopause or my body telling me "Girl, get real!" I began to feel dizzy, stupid and sick if I didn't have serious protein with a side of carbs for breakfast.When I had a job the solution was simple: when I packed my lunch I made a sandwich and a half -- tuna salad, egg salad, meatloaf, Italian beef -- whatever was on offer. I'd snarf that half breakfast sandwich in the car, with coffee, on the way to work and my whole day was improved.

When I wasn't organized I bought a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from the drive through at the handy McDonalds. Eat hearty in the am, and you won't be hitting the snack machine at work before ten.

[KarenDW]

Most days, I'm not interested in anything other than coffee for a couple of hours. Plus, wheat-y and dairy-ish things might upset my GI tract at any given time. So, no, I don't eat when I get up. So, if I need to be out of the house within 2 hours of when I get up, I don't eat until... it's convenient.

[Jenni]

I love breakfast, because I love eating (and cooking). And I'm always ready for it, because I get up at 5am to do yoga, study and make my lunch for the day. I make a proper hot breakfast (idli-sambar, upma, pongal, chapatti-veg, etc.) and a cup of tea, which I eat around 7am, and then I'm ready to leave the house around 7.30am to cycle to work. I think I would collapse through weakness if I didn't eat breakfast!

I guess if you wake up, shower and then drive to work, you probably are not that hungry for breakfast. But trust me, if you get up early and do loads of stuff, and then you know you're about to cycle, you WILL feel like eating something!

[percival]

Now that I'm home raising the kidlet, breakfast is an always, though it may be closer to lunch than traditional breakfast times. Lunch is the lightest meal of the day, and a good dinner for him to sleep through the night. And yeah, "American Breakfast" is way too heavy to start off the morning. Nothing ruins your day like a cup of grease churning in your belly all day.

[Snadra]

... Nothing ruins your day like a cup of grease churning in your belly all day.

That's how I feel about cold cereal and milk. I feel better hungry than I do with cold cereal in my belly!

I have a long commute, so generally eat breakfast at my desk on workdays - coffee and toast (preferably with avocado) - but that doesn't happen until 9, and if I've got something on I'll go without.

On weekends we usually just have brunch.

[Fat Guy]

I think the elephant in the room here is the issue of bodily functions. No meal is more tied to "regularity" than breakfast. Many if not most people time their morning routines around elimination, and breakfast can have a significant effect on things. I think the body-function issue is a big part of the reason why people the world over are the least adventurous when it comes to breakfast foods: they demand the familiar.

[nakji]

I'm in a classroom from 7:30 in the morning, teaching until we break for lunch at 11:30 - if I don't eat something, whether I'm hungry or not, I can't make it through the morning. We don't get a break mid-morning, either. Some days, I don't even have time for a lunch that's more than a baozi and a Coke (like today.) If I didn't eat something in the morning, I'd probably be out of a job. More than any other eating time of the day for me, for breakfast, food is merely fuel. I get up at six and eat toast or a bowl of muesli and yogurt along with a cup of coffee. Since I usually don't eat after dinner at six (classes in the evening, although then, I'm the student), by the time 6 am rolls around I'm looking for something to eat. If I had the ability to snack later in the morning, perhaps I would, though. I just don't have the opportunity.

[suzilightning]

it's 730 am and i've been up for half an hour and still no desire for food to put in my stomach. i will probably have a coffee or hot cocoa in the next half hour then some fruit and cottage cheese.

even as a kid when my grandfather made breakfast for us i was NOT a food eater until around 10 am or so.

i still remember having "breakfast" when visiting my mom at around 1030 or 11 am. we would be up and have coffee and a piece of pie around 630, do some chores then cook up some flounder, potatoes and lima beans.

[Carlovski]

I can't remember the last time I had breakfast.
The really bad/strange thing is that I normally skip lunch in the week too.

People do ask me why somebody as interested in food as I am never actually appears to eat....

[angevin]

I'm with MunchyMom. The secret to maintaining a healthy weight is to listen to your appetite, eat only when hungry and stop when full. People are brainwashed into thinking they HAVE to eat breakfast.

I tend to eat two meals a day (after coffee in the morning) - one around 11:00am and the other around 7:30pm. This works for me.

FatGuy - as for the issue of regularity, coffee does it for me. All's I have to do is smell it.

[Tim Dolan]

I'm on the other side of the fence on this one. Breakfast is clearly the LEAST important meal of the day. That's not to say that I don't like it. A nice, relaxing breakfast on the weekends is great when you can take your time and enjoy it. During the week, no thanks, although I do occasionally grab a breakfast sandwich from somewhere if I really need it. My main point is, however, that out of the 3 meals, I imagine most people skip breakfast with the most regularity, therefore making it the least important meal of the day.

[cdh]

I'm with suzilightning... I need to be up and about for 3 or 4 hours before food appeals. An espresso at 8, another at 9, then a bowl of cereal around 11 in the morning is what works for me... I love omelets and breakfast sausages and scrapple and pork roll and bacon and bagels and lox and &c... just not much before noon.

[LizD518]

I used to get up late when I worked mostly evening shifts, so breakfast was really lunch foods, then go into work at three-ish and get out around 11pm - midnight, stay up for about an hour and go to bed. I usually ate dinner at work so I didn't have to eat when I got home.

But about 6-7 years ago I switched to more traditional 9-5 schedules and I have to have something in the morning. It is usually pretty light - some yogurt with maybe some granola or fruit, or a bowl of cereal. Occasionally on my days off I will make eggs of some sort or go out for a bagel, but I still try and keep it light. I do love a good breakfast sandwich though - especially if I've been drinking the night before, or after a long run, when I typically don't eat beforehand. And coffee is more a mid-morning thing. I only typically have one cup a day and it isn't to wake me up, so I wait until...right about now. Gotta go!

[Toliver]

I can't remember the last time I had breakfast.
The really bad/strange thing is that I normally skip lunch in the week too.

People do ask me why somebody as interested in food as I am never actually appears to eat....

It's an odd thing but if I don't have breakfast, I can go without eating lunch, too. But if I eat breakfast, I tend to want to eat lunch, too, as if eating breakfast has primed the pump, so to speak.
Growing up, we always had breakfast. Not eating it was never an option. But as an adult, I can take it or leave it. Lately, I've been making just a breakfast smoothie and taking that to work. I'm not a fan of fruit (thanks to my mom foisting gobs of fruit on us as kids) so the smoothie is my way of getting fruits into my diet.

[ScottyBoy]

Every morning, 2 scrambled eggs, bowl of flax cereal, coffee and water.

[Marlene]

I can't remember the last time I had breakfast.
The really bad/strange thing is that I normally skip lunch in the week too.

People do ask me why somebody as interested in food as I am never actually appears to eat....

It's an odd thing but if I don't have breakfast, I can go without eating lunch, too. But if I eat breakfast, I tend to want to eat lunch, too, as if eating breakfast has primed the pump, so to speak.
Growing up, we always had breakfast. Not eating it was never an option. But as an adult, I can take it or leave it. Lately, I've been making just a breakfast smoothie and taking that to work. I'm not a fan of fruit (thanks to my mom foisting gobs of fruit on us as kids) so the smoothie is my way of getting fruits into my diet.

That's because you haven't :"woken" up your metabolizm with food yet. Something I learned in weight watchers. I was considered an "undereater" rather than an "over eater" which is just as bad for weight gain as your body never knows when you're going to feed it, so it stores fat just in case. I often do this as well. If I eat breakfast, I will be hungry for lunch. If I don't, I won't be. I generally eat something very light like a yogurt before working out. By then, it's 10 or so, and I'm ready for something like a bagel, english muffin or bowl of fruit. When I don't eat lunch, which is often, I'll have an early dinner. Lunch tends to mean I eat much later at night, which isn't good for the system either.

I will eat brunch on the weekends, mostly because my husband makes it. Since we don't eat till 11 or so usually because everyone sleeps in, we go with two meals on the weekends.