Who Skips Breakfast?

[gfweb]

I've never bought that "most important meal of the day" stuff. It comes from the same people who constructed that silly (and incorrect) food pyramid. The studies that support it are pretty shoddy if the ones I've seen are typical.

I hate breakfast unless I've been up for an hour or so.

[Mjx]

. . . .

But isn't it unfortunate that many don't get it? The simple equation is calories in < calories out = weight loss. How many billions have been made in an attempt to convince us otherwise?

Of course, there are proper ways to do it, and any program should include at least moderate exercise...

I guess you can't build a profitable industry on common sense, and people seem to adore gimmicks: I know several who, every morning, weigh their diet bread and put a 'diet spread' or two on it, accompany it with egg replacements and bacon-identical (apart from composition and flavour) strips, put imitation cream and artificial sweetener in their coffee, and finish it off with 'lite', 'fruity' (not fruit; 'fruit flavoured') yoghourt. To me, that makes way less sense from every standpoint than grabbing an espresso and half a dozen almonds, but they seem to enjoy their ritual mortification of the tastebuds.

[NiceSpoon]

I don't usually eat breakfast in the morning unless it's my day off.

When I'm working I'll just have a coffee or a redbull and hold out until family meal.

[Katie Meadow]

I do need to eat something in the morning, but it is typically a small thing, a neutral carb, such as half a bagel or, most likely, a piece of buttered toast with a minimal amount of marmalade. Protein such as meat or eggs doesn't appeal, nor does a heavy dose of acid, like orange juice or grapefruit. And I don't much care for sweet pastry or coffee cake, either. I like steel cut oats maybe once or twice a week, and every so often I get a hankering for popovers, but that's about as much cooking as I can tolerate in the a.m. I'm not wild about pancakes, but I eat them if someone else is willing to stand over a hot stove flipping and fussing. No one in my house is.

Truthfully, the only reason I eat apple pie for breakfast on the day after Thanksgiving is because I'm afraid if I don't there won't be any left by lunchtime. Pathetic.

[ChrisTaylor]

As I kid I used to eat massive amounts of stuff in the morning. Hit my mid to late teens or so and then I just ... couldn't. For about the first hour or so, anything I ate I'd want to, er, recycle. Feel the same way now, generally. I don't want to eat for a hour or so (meaning I don't get to eat before leaving the house). Have to work on that as I know it's bad.

[emilyr]

I was reading this articlethis week, and it really made sense to me. I'm naturally not a "breakfast before leaving work" kind of person (I'm generally just not hungry then), but when I was on various diets or eating plans (ESPECIALLY Weight Watchers) the importance of eating breakfast was pounded into my head. I always tried to make sure, when on those plans, to eat something for breakfast (usually leftovers). But I was still hungry enough to be distracted at 10:30 or 11, so I ate a snack. Then lunch at noon or 1 and dinner as usual. If I ignore the advice to eat breakfast before I leave, I generally have a small snack around 9:30 or 10 (3-4 hours after I wake) and then the rest of my day is as normal. I think (though without any real proof) that I was eating more when I was "making time" for a full breakfast. I don't feel any hungrier now. My general schedule is to make a packet of oatmeal when I'm making my morning tea at work. Our coffee maker has a boiling water spigot on it; both are too hot to consume right away, so they sit on my desk for 30-45 minutes. Usually right around the time I'm hungry enough to notice, they're ready. Or I'll eat a yogurt and a piece of fruit at 10.

Kids are kind of a different story. I know there are all kinds of studies that show that kids do better at school when they're not hungry, and I think that's completely true. I have NEVER been a breakfast kind of person and used to fight quite loudly with my mom and dad about eating a whole bowl of cereal. By the time I hit 4th grade, they just let me do whatever I wanted. My elementary school had a REALLY early lunch (grades 1-4 started lining up at 10:45 and grades 5-8 at 11:20), so I was always more ready to be truly hungry at lunch than be forced a full breakfast, not eat a whole lunch, and be really hungry before the end of the day (when I'd run straight to the c-store and buy cupcakes or beg my grandmama for an after school cookie). Most of the time I'd eat half a peanut butter sandwich or some toast. My brother, on the other hand, needed to have at the least some cereal and some protein (peanut butter, egg, cheese) or he wouldn't be able to keep his mind on his work until lunch. It's really all about knowing what your kid needs.

[Kouign Aman]

Mostly-carb breakfasts knock me out about an hour later. High protein breakfasts do good work til dinner.

Dont want food til at least an hour after achieving consciousness. That means I usually break the fast at work.

Food intake does increase one's metabolism over fasting levels; I think coffee, milk and sugar do a nice job of pretending to be food for that purpose.

[alex james]

I love breakfast.

My problem is the calories consumed as has been mentioned above.

I now feed my cravings at weekends only. Weekday intake is a traditional English breakfast ie a mug of tea, a read of the paper and a smoke. Not to be confused with a full English breakfast which is of course bacon, eggs etc.

The peculiar thing about it is that I seem to have trained my metabolism into being aware of what day of the week it is. I rarely wake up hungry on weekdays; I quite often wake up hungry at weekends.