Dr Michael Klaper says it’s perfectly fine:
\- ”*My* ***“Health Supporting Eating Plan”*** *addresses the question, “What should I make for lunch or dinner?” (Breakfast is optional, if you’re not hungry.*)”
\-**•** ***BREAKFAST:*** *Only eat in the morning \*IF\* you are hungry. Most people are not, and that’s okay.*
\[…\]
*”Otherwise, and especially if you are trying to lose weight, it is perfectly okay to drink pure water until noon, or at least, until you get truly hungry. This will extend your night-time fat-burning throughout your morning hours – a type of “intermittent fasting.” If weight loss is a goal and you are hungry, a non-sugary breakfast, such as steamed vegetables or broth-based vegetable soup, is recommended.*”
[https://www.doctorklaper.com/hsep](https://www.doctorklaper.com/hsep)
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\[VIDEO\] **Meal Prep For Breakfast – You Might Be Hungry Or Want To Continue Fasting From Your Nighttime Sleep.**
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eb-FeQhuCA&t=232s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eb-FeQhuCA&t=232s)
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Any thoughts?
by Night_Sky02
26 Comments
I’ve never eaten breakfast really. “North American” breakfast is gross (my opinion obviously).
If anything, I would have soup for breakfast.
I never seen anyone in this sub say you need to eat breakfast?
I think one of the things most widely accepted even in different “echo chambers” of diet/nutrition is to limit your eating window. So skipping breakfast or night time meals is probably a pretty good idea and I frankly dont see too many people against it?
I don’t get it either. It makes no sense to me to eat when you’re not hungry. Your body will tell you when you need to eat or drink. I very rarely feel hungry in the morning, and I find I have way more energy through the morning if I have an empty stomach. Digestion takes a lot of energy.
Just because someone chooses not to eat breakfast doesn’t mean they’re “against it,” I think it’s just personal preference.
I do eat breakfast every day *now,* but I didn’t for roughly 30 years. I wasn’t in a bad way then, nor am I now. I simply don’t think it matters. I personally prefer eat earlier than later because eating late messes with my sleep. But on many days, I work out early morning before breakfast (fasted).
IMO, it’s more important what you’re your eating in a day, than it is exactly *when* you eat. Just do whatever works for you.
I used to worry about breakfast. Grew up being told that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, etc. But when I first get up in the morning, I’m just not hungry. The thought of forcing myself to eat something actually makes me nauseated.
Then it dawned on me. All those farmers that ate huge, hearty breakfasts? Those families got up at like 4:30 or 5:00 a.m., got dressed, and started working. Some went to the barn to take care of animals, some started cooking, and it was a couple of hours or so before they ate. So what’s the difference it I get up at 8 a.m. and work until around 11 before I’m hungry enough to eat?
Breakfast means to break a fast – you haven’t eaten for 12 or so hours overnight. Whenever you break your fast, the first time you eat in the day, that’s your breakfast whether you have it at 5, 7, 9 or noon.
It’s personal preference. I eat “breakfast” if I’ll be training that morning. Can’t go for a 15 mile run or 50 mile bike ride without eating. Other days, I skip coz I perform better in a faster state.
You posted about skipping breakfast before and most people agreed with you. Someone said something about skipping dinner instead. If you search “skip breakfast” on this sub, there’s not much content. Not sure what you’re talking about.
TIL some people don’t get hungry in the morning. If I don’t eat breakfast I’m grumpy by 10am lol. But I also don’t drink coffee so I would only drink water as a replacement.
It doesn’t have to be big, but even a bit of fruit and maybe some toast is really helpful. But I also grew up eating breakfast every day.
“If you take people and give them the exact same meal in the morning, afternoon, and night, their body uses up about 25 percent more calories to process it in the afternoon than night, and about 50 percent more calories to digest it in the morning. That leaves fewer net calories in the morning to be stored as fat.”
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/eat-more-calories-in-the-morning-than-the-evening/
Where have you seen people on this subreddit who are against skipping breakfast?
That sounds sensible, that’s what I’ve always done.
Those days I pack an extra sammich in my lunch and make sure to drink my protein shake
You ever go for a long drive with less than a quarter tank of fuel ?
I’ve noticed that my overweight friends usually skip breakfast. The other’s do not.
Personally it makes me a lot hungrier later in the day and I’m not able to do my job that well in the first few morning hours otherwise.
On the contrary, it’s almost a given that every time nutrition is brought up on Reddit, multiple people will bust out with “have you tried fasting/IF?!” It’s very on trend. But weirdly, it’s always in the context of skipping breakfast, never an evening meal.
If it works for people, great. Personally, I get reflux if I have large meals, or eat too close to bedtime, so I very untrendily eat 3 meals, and sometimes an afternoon snack. Maybe you see IF less in this sub, because it’s harder to cram all your calories into 1-2 plant-based meals?
I’m leaning more and more towards the idea of body wisdom. We have a lot of information & opinions available now on health & nutrition than ever before. As good as science and medicine are doing, a lot of the food research has been at the behest of food manufacturers (processed, ultra-processed foods), since they have the money and self-interest of doing so.
A couple of books (The Dorito Effect & Ultra-Processed People) both mention a study by pediatrician Clara M. Davis back in the 1920s. The point I try to keep in mind, is that young children who don’t even have language have an inner instinct/knowledge about food. Where we as adults have grown up with a variety of foods, processed foods, ultra-processed foods, etc. exposure to our parent’s preferences, cultural preferences (what, when and how we eat), our own preferences & habits (family, cultures, etc), so it may be more difficult to switch over and trust a different mode of eating & nutrition based on instinct – i.e. breakfast is always morning, lunch is noon, family schedules, family preferences, cultural preferences, etc.
I’m not a morning breakfast eater – I’ll have a healthy breakfast, usually oatmeal & fruit when I get hungry. But it’s easier for me, I’m single & retired. I was 40 lbs overweight at the start of 2019 but managed to whittle that down to where I’m almost near my normal body weight of 20 years ago. I do need more exercise to help balance it out. We are living in far more stressful times than ever – a lot of the good weather days of summer were impossible to enjoy due to all the smoke from fires in Canada. We still have Covid, etc. But it is tricky trying to figure out what my body wants & needs based on instinct. Taking time to eat and taste seem to be a big factor for me.
*”Accordingly, Davis devised the experiment to let children do for themselves because she suspected that children’s bodies instinctively “knew best” what the individual child should eat. Her intellectual model, a view that would later be called “the wisdom of the body,” likened a child’s instinctive appetite to the way various autonomic body systems effortlessly adjust themselves to compensate for external challenges — think of sweating on a hot day, and breathing faster when you start to run.”*
[Canadian Medical Association Journal](https://www.cmaj.ca/content/175/10/1199)
Why do you care if people eat breakfast or not? This sub is about plant based eating.
In the fitness community it’s the first opportunity to build muscle, if you’re not into building muscle I guess it doesn’t matter much when you eat!
Skip breakfast if you want
No one cares
This is one of those arguments that is pointless to get into. People who don’t eat breakfast believe it’s best even though they are also the ones who typically consume more calories by the end of the day, often because they are eating/snacking late into the evening.
Because no one should be subjected to me if I haven’t had food within 3 hours of waking.
I think recent studies show that eating breakfast is better then skipping it. Eat bigger meal for breakfast, smaller meal for lunch and skip dinner.
I just like breakfast. I work out early in the morning and am hungry after!
Put me down as a hard “YES” in the fasting camp. I never eat more than half the day and only 6 days a week since 2018. It’s an absolute game-changer in terms of my health, strength, and thinking ability.
I will tell you the real issue here:
People wake up before their digestive systems are prepared for food
Why?
Stress epidemic.
Want proof?
Get out of bed only when you feel uncomfortable lying down
Effect:
“I crave XYZ”
I was a member of a Natural Health Society and quit because got annoyed of being told to eat small portion meals, fasting etc, happy to live on a plant based diet but need reasonable portions regularly