Over all I just function (thinking, feeling, energy, motivation) better with a couple of egg sandwiches for breakfast.
It seems like I am always behind the curve on eating though, and have gone months without ever feeling actually full.
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you can make quite convincing arguments in either direction. On one hand you can talk about the benefits of fasting and calorie restriction from skipping breakfast, of which there are several, and on the other hand you can talk of the benefits on your neurotransmitters and the lowering of cortisol from eating breakfast, again, of which there are many.
Personally, I think it’s as simple as: if you’re hungry then eat. I don’t feel hungry first thing in the morning, so I wait a few hours before eating. If I woke up ravenous as some people do, I would eat.
No need to try and analyse these things, in my opinion. If your body tells you it wants food then feed it. If it’s not telling you it wants food then there’s no need to stuff some eggs or whatever in it.
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I generally just eat when I’m hungry, although I used to work for a shower door company (HEAVY lifting) and now work for a plant nursery (pretty taxing after 8 hours) so I’m generally exerting a lot of energy throughout the day. I’ve never been one for breakfast though. My body does a good job of letting me know when I need to eat.
Essentially: get up at 6, get munchies for mixed nuts around 9, then basically gorge myself around noon (my appetite is insatiable at lunch), snack after my workout, usually a turkey kielbasa, and then eat a heavy dinner around 7 or 8.
Im by no means “lean”, 6’3 @ 220 lbs. But I keep muscle packed on, and I never feel drained of energy.
Tldr; I personally don’t believe in breakfast. It makes me miserable to eat when I wake up.
Im a member of the IF crew.
I usually have a eating window of 8-9 hours. I eat “low-ish carb, high-ish fat”.
I like it as it makes food prep are little more simple and helps me keep things on track easier when I need to. I also prefer having 3-4 larger meals, compared to eating 5-6 smaller meals. And hopefully it keep me alive for longer, as some studies have suggested.
If I wake up hungry I eat. If I train in the morning as I occasionally do, I eat. On the weekends Im a little more illiberal with my diet and window.
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Having been into IF for years, I have never been one for breakfast. However, I am a believer in cycling diets and, generally, trying different approaches. So I am on protein/fat breakfasts currently. I have not noticed any significant change other than having little appetite for the 4 to 6 hours afterwards. What I would say is that I think I fall into the ‘chronically elevated cortisol’ camp and that type of fasting diet is potentially working against me. That, in my view, is the main drawback of IF. Higher cortisol can assist with body composition for a time then becomes counter productive. I am also mindful of the advice of late great Vince Gironda, who talked about a steak and eggs breakfast keeping blood levels constant for 6 hours. This seems to be true for me, and with the additional benefit of having extra quality protein and fats in my daily macros.
Hormones are also an area where you can make an argument either way. Eating suppresses cortisol but it also suppresses HGH. Fasting has been measured to jack growth hormone up as much as like 2000%. Which probably goes a long way to minimizing many of the draw backs to fasting. For example HGH is protein sparing, so people worried about burning through protein and losing muscle probably shouldn’t.
I’ve also always found the keeping blood glucose stable thing a little weird. I don’t guess I’ve really ever read anything about it, but unless you already have issues, fasting seems like it would be the most stable blood sugar you could have.
I’d also note that there are many different types of intermittent fasting many of which you can eat some or even a lot of breakfast on.
Good points made. Although I often think some writers overplay the role growth hormone in this context. Injecting it every other day is going to make a huge impact on your physique over time but the results from fasting is surely minimal in comparison?
Regarding blood glucose, Gironda meant they were elevated (as even protein causes an insulin response) but nonetheless stable for a long period.
On your last point, I think some folks abuse the notion of IF. Fasting is fasting. For example, ingesting 300 kcals worth of butter with coffee for breakfast is in no way IF.
Right, and I don’t know that the HGH increase seen in fasting is anything like supra-physiological injections. But it is significant and it should do some good things, protein sparing among them.
Not to get too heavily into semantics, but it depends on what definition of fast you are using. Fasting traditionally is really and truly just giving up some kind(s) of food(s). Lent for example is a fast, where you only give up one food type. Water fasting is really just 1 type of fasting. In terms of dieting for training people, I generally consider drastic under eating as a fast (which is what I do). It stimulates and triggers the same systems. It’s why reduced calorie diets, even without a reduced feeding window and IF are probably very similar in terms of life span increase.
But even then, you can do some types of intermittent water fasting with regular morning eating. For example people will do 1 or 2 24 hour fasts a week, where 5 or 6 days a week you can still eat big breakfasts. You could also do any of the daily feeding window styles with the feeding window in the morning where not only do you get to, but you’d be supposed to eat a large breakfast every day.
it’s pretty interesting the hormonal back and forth you can do when you think about fasting.
Increased cortisol = bad
Increased growth hormone = good
Decreased IGF-1 = bad for muscle building but good for everything else
Increased insulin sensitivity = good
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If It Fits Your Macros
This literally mirrors almost exactly what i do, except i probably do slightly lower cals and carbs, but i am never really “starving”, i feel great, increased focus, and am close to the being down 40lbs.
OP - you should look up some more info on IF and since you already basically do it, see if its something that would fit your goals!
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Thank you, I’ve never really looked into it so I definitely will. There’s been some very interesting discussion in this thread.
Sometimes, I wake up late in the morning and I just have a Brunch (breakfast and lunch) as one. I usually eat 10 AM in the morning when I wake up late but I see to it that I eat a balanced diet wherein I always have one kind of fruit in my meal. They say breakfast is very important to start up our day since it gives us enough energy. It always boils down to one thing, prepare a healthy breakfast, maybe increase your calorie intake in the morning to sustain your energy for the rest of the day.
Another IF guy here - I would just add that certain people don’t train well fasted. Some do, some don’t, so your training (and life) schedule will affect this.
What up @caesium32. If my memory serves correct were both college students correct? So I’m going to just spew a bunch of info vomit from what I’ve noticed.
I’m not really going to pull up and statistics or numbers, but I am going to go by what natural Biofeedback tells me. Which I think is extremely important. I’m not talking about the type that uses machines, or computers, just listening to your body and observing things.
For us college students it’s a good idea to just get up, make something protein and fat dense and just eat it. I wouldn’t say to always fast food, the unprocessed the better. And depending on how long you’re in class throughout the day depends on how frequently you ought to eat. For me, if I’m getting scatterbrained by the afternoon, I’m going to have to keep eating throughout the day. You’re using a crap ton of mental energy in college and it will start to rob you of good gym gains just because you’re feeling so worn out. Not to mention if you have a heavy lift day coupled with a day where you’re studying very hard and long for an upcoming test, I’d honestly say eat big in the morning as early as you can, eat semi big for lunch, and then keep fueling yourself with some complex carbs and veggies and maybe one or two protein shakes spread out. Then once you hit the gym you’ll be well powered up. Afterwards if you’re like me, and stay up well passed midnight the safest thing you can do is down another protein shake, espeacially if you’ve pulled an all nighter. I’ve noticed muscle cramps, fatigue, dull reaction times to things, and feeling heavy all happen because I either didn’t sleep, or didn’t eat a bit more because I didn’t sleep.
So I’d say breakfast is a good thing to eat, mainly for being well fueled in class, and to still be able to balance lifting.
Thank you, I’ve started having 4-6 eggs scrambled for breakfast recently just because it makes it easier to eat enough in the day. I try and eat three decent meals a day and it seems to be working pretty well energy wise. If I feel tired some days, especially workout ones, I’ll have a coffee.
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this is why I eat breakfast; if you need to eat a shitload of calories to grow, by skipping breakfast you’re missing a golden opportunity to get some calories in ya which you’ll have to make up for later in the day.
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