Breakfast skipping is associated with higher body weights in the population. The explanation is similar to that of lower meal frequencies and higher body weights. Breakfast skippers have dysregulated eating habits and show a higher disregard for health. People who skip breakfast are also more likely to be dieting, thus by default they are also likely to be heavier than non-dieters. Keep in mind that most people who resort to breakfast skipping are not the type that sit around and read about nutrition. They are like most people dieting in a haphazard manner. The type to go on a 800 calorie-crash diet and then rebound, gaining all the weight (and then some) back.
Sometimes, an argument is made for eating breakfast as we are more insulin sensitive in the morning. This is true; you are always more insulin sensitive after an overnight fast. Or rather, you are always the most insulin sensitive during the first meal of the day. Insulin sensitivity is increased after glycogen depletion. If you haven't eaten in 8-10 hours, liver glycogen is modestly depleted. This is what increases insulin sensitivity - not some magical time period during the morning hours. Same thing with weight training. Insulin sensitivity is increased as long as muscle glycogen stores aren't full. It doesn't disappear if you omit carbs after your workout.
First of all, we have the large scale epidemiological studies showing an association with breakfast skipping and higher body weights in the population. One researcher from that study, commenting on the association with breakfast skipping or food choices for breakfast, said:
"These groups appear to represent people 'on the run,' eating only candy or soda, or grabbing a glass of milk or a piece of cheese. Their higher BMI would appear to
support the notion that 'dysregulated' eating patterns are associated with obesity, instead of or in addition to total energy intake per se."
Kellogg's and clueless RDs love to cite them over and over again, so people are lead to believe that breakfast has unique metabolic and health-related benefits. In reality, these studies just show breakfast eaters maintain better dietary habits overall.
Other studies frequently cited claiming that breakfast is beneficial for insulin sensitivity are all marred with methodological flaws and largely uncontrolled in design.
In one widely cited study, subjects were entrusted to eat most meals in free-living conditions. The breakfast skipping group ate more and gained weight, which affected health parameters negatively.
From the abstract: "Reported energy intake was significantly lower in the EB period (P=0.001), and resting energy expenditure did not differ significantly between the 2 periods." EB = eating breakfast. In essence, people who ate breakfast could control their energy intake better for the rest of the day. They didn't gain any weight but the breakfast skipping group did. Fat gain always affects insulin sensitivity and other health parameters negatively. Thus what people took this to mean is that breakfast is healthy and improves insulin sensitivity. Which isn't at all what the study showed.
now, like I have mentioned, I know very little about eater proper and dieting, but everything I have ever heard, read, or been told, has pointed to the fact that my skipping breakfast is bad, and that it certainly isn't stopping me from getting fatter. The explanation I am used to, and I don't really care if you gurus make fun of me for it as like I said, I am admittedly an amateur at this, is that your body is a well tuned machine created to serve specific functions that when carried out properly and treated with respect, help to ensure you the best possibility of an enjoyable life. To dumb it down, we'll say, like a car, and your metabolism is like the cylinders in an engine, the place where the chemical process that turns gas into energy occurs, in our bodies, the chemical reactions that turn food into energy. The way it has been explained to me is that your metabolism has limits, just like a car engine, that it can run only so fast, and alternatively, only so slow, too fast and something breaks, too slow and something shuts down.
Now, as it has been explained to me, and again I am just regurgitation what an abundance of people who seem to care about my weight problems are telling me, breakfast is like warming your engine up before simply throwing the car in drive and hitting the gas. You ad fuel and get your body metabolizing it so that the motor is running, and by the time you throw in more fuel, it is ready for it. To my understanding, the reason for eating small meals spread throughout the day, is to keep that engine running, to constantly be metabolizing food at a natural rate or at a safe rate, not redlining it and not idling too slow. From what I have been told, this helps to keep your internal engine healthy, but keeping it operating within safe zones, and teaching it that it belongs in that zone, thus having your body continue to work around the clock without ever working to hard, but at the same time without ever shutting down. To my knowledge this is part of where breakfast comes into play, getting some more fuel in there before the engine decides to shut down to conserve what little is left.
From what I have "heard" what i do is the exact opposite, I starve my engine by going long periods of time without food, so it sits there shut off. Then I eat a somewhat healthy meal, but a portion large enough for a small family. The engine wakes up and immediately goes into passing gear, consuming what it can fast, then as fuel begins to dwindle, it says "whoa, better shut down before we run out" and waits for me to eat again.
now, you can say that's pretty silly if you want, or you can tell me why this is right or wrong, but what i do know from my experience, is that my 5'6" wife who weighs exactly 50% of what i do, consumes at least 25% more calories than I do, and gets at least 25% less physical activity than I do. We get up at the same time, we go to sleep at the same time, we eat the same meals as each other, the only difference is, she eats less at mealtime, and snacks at least twice in between each meal, she brings like 3 granola bars to bed with her and I swear she wakes up int he middle of the night to eat them. (she's also not into learning about this stuff, but she gets hungry real fast, all the time, she always hungry an hour after eating, but never eats to much at once, it seems like her engine is always running).
how about you count your calories, fiber, protein, fats, carbs, so you know what your consuming
fitday.com isn't bad, you'll need to create custom foods for stuff not already in their database
if you want to lose weight, consume 10 to 12x your weight in calories, eat good carbs, VEGGIES, and if you crave it, sweet potato or rice, (pasta no)
enjoy fish, chicken, turkey, lean meat, bison, if you can find grass-fed beef get it, fats can be Macadamia nuts, walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts.
try to eat that 6 days a week and on 7th eat what you crave
2360 total callories
94 grams of fat
76 grams of protein
314 grams of carbs
75 grams of the carbs came from a fruit smoothie at McD's (my daughters birthday, so we went to playland for the evening)
100 more came from a bagel in the morning and a sub for lunch
90 more from french fries and a quarter pounder.
so, looks like I was in your range for callories, but doesn't look like I know how to limit carbs
I'll try to use this for a while, see if it can teach me anything
I joined fitday but I cook everything myself so it looks like I'm in for some research to discover the nutritional information in each ingredient of a full dish. I'll need to weigh out each ingredient in grams for accuracy and write it down, then input each to the site.. then combine all those individual numbers as a custom food.
Yeah I'll try to input the main foods I seem to make all the time and go from there. I can not see myself weighing or measuring the exact amounts of each item more than once so I'm glad it saves it and provides a way to customize a food.
My advice is to stay active doing something you enjoy.
For me lifting weights was always a chore so I took up playing squash. Fun way to stay fit!
Keep it up, as long as your having fun it comes easy.
I'll stick to my one arm curls in the Pub.....