Why Skipping Breakfast Might Be The Secret To Weight Loss
You’ve probably heard that you should sear meat in a hot pan to seal in the juices. This is supposed to stop the meat from drying out.
In fact, searing the meat doesn’t lock in the juices. That sizzling sound you hear when the meat touches a hot pan is moisture coming out of the meat. There is no way to lock the juices in. If there was, you could cook a steak to well done, and it wouldn’t be dry. Even boiling meat for too long makes it dry and tough.
The real reason for searing meat is to get it brown and impart flavour. That browning you get is the caramelisation of the sugars in the meat
Searing meat, to lock in the juices is one of many beliefs about cooking which are wrong.
Similarly, there are many beliefs about nutrition which are incorrect. Have you ever heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Apparently, breakfast fires up your metabolism, otherwise, your body goes into starvation mode and you end up putting on weight.
Well, this is wrong too. In fact, skipping breakfast could actually help you lose weight. Let’s look at how.
Fasting isn’t new
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors went through periods of fasting when food was scarce. People have been fasting for religious reasons for thousands of years. Us humans are well adapted to go without food for extended periods of time. In recent times, fasting has grown in popularity as a way to lose weight.
Fasting isn’t a diet. It’s a way of eating. You don’t change what you eat, but you do amend when you eat. You have periods of fasting and times when you eat.
There are many methods of Intermittent fasting that you can use, but the Leangains method popularised by Martin Berkham is probably the most well-known. Berkham suggests you fast for 16 hours every day and eat within an 8-hour window.
Not eating for 16 whole hours?!
I know what you’re thinking. You get hungry every 3 hours, how are you going to manage without food for 16 hours?
Fasting for 16 hours seems impossible at first, how can you not eat for two-thirds of the day? Until you realise you fast for 10–11 hours every night as it is. You may have your last meal at 8 pm, then not eat again until 7 am the next morning. All you’re doing is extended the not eating period for a few more hours.
The word breakfast means to break your (overnight) fast. In the western world, we tend to break our fasts first thing in the morning. But what if we waited a few hours before breaking the fast?
Ever woken up late and not had time for breakfast?
You rush to work, go straight into a meeting, then to your desk to answer emails. The next thing you know, it’s 12 pm and it’s the first time you’ve thought about food all morning. That’s intermittent fasting. Guess what. Your metabolism didn’t need firing up, it kept ticking along nicely, doing its thing — keeping you alive.
If you missed it, most of the time you were fasting, you didn’t even realise because you were sleeping. All you did was have your first meal of the day a little later than you normally would.
So, how does missing breakfast help me to lose weight?
To lose fat you have to be in a calorie deficit. That means you have to take in fewer calories than you need. This forces your body to use fat as fuel. By missing one meal every day, you’re consuming fewer calories in that day and throughout the week.
Let’s say your weight is fairly stable on 2000 calories and a normal day of eating looks like this:
Breakfast: 400 calories
Lunch: 600 calories
Snack: 300 calories
Dinner: 700 calories
Total Calories: 2000
If you skip breakfast, your calories might look a little like this:
Breakfast: 0 calories
Lunch: 600 calories
Snack: 300 calories
Dinner: 700 calories
Total Calories: 1600
By skipping breakfast, you’re eating 400 fewer calories every day.
Intermittent Fasting isn’t a magic pill
Fasting, like every other diet on the planet, only works if you are in a calorie deficit. If you’re fasting but still consuming more calories than you need in the day, you will not lose weight.
For example:
Breakfast: 0 calories
Lunch: 1000 calories
Snack: 300 calories
Dinner: 1000 calories
Total Calories: 2300
In the above example, you’re eating 2300 calories. That’s 300 calories more than you need to maintain your weight. You will inevitably put on some weight over time.
If it’s just a calorie deficit, why can’t I stick to my normal diet?
You can. Skipping breakfast isn’t going to mean you magically drop weight. But it can make the dieting process easier. By skipping breakfast you’re able to save some calories for later on and have a bigger lunch and dinner or incorporate an afternoon snack if you’re feeling hungry.
I like feeling full after meals, so missing breakfast means my lunch, dinner and snack are bigger, leaving me comfortably full after meals. It just makes dieting easier and takes my mind off feeling hungry all the time. But I make sure I’m still in a calorie deficit.
What if you don’t fast at the weekend?
Weekdays are easy, you get up, have a coffee, go to work and you’re busy until lunchtime, it’s easy to forget about food and hunger.
But on weekdays, you want to have breakfast with the wife. You’re lounging around waiting for the football to start, your thoughts turn to food. But you’re supposed to be fasting. So, what do you do?
The answer is, it depends. If you want to carry on fasting, have a coffee or some water and keep busy. But if you want breakfast or brunch, go for it. As long as you’re not in a calorie surplus over the weekend it doesn’t matter.
There are no hard and fast rules with fasting. It’s just a way to make your deficit easier. If you did decide to have breakfast, you may need to have a smaller lunch/dinner or remove your snack:
Breakfast: 400 calories
Lunch: 500 calories
Snack: 300 calories
Dinner: 600 calories
Total Calories: 1800
You’re still in a deficit. You still lose weight.
Just as in cooking, there are many myths where diet and exercise are concerned. Putting on weight if you miss breakfast is one of them. The truth is, skipping breakfast can make being in a calorie deficit easier. A calorie deficit is what is going to help you lose weight, fasting can help you achieve that, but it’s not a magic pill.
In the next article, we’ll look at how to setup Intermittent Fasting to work for you.
