The Breakfast Myth

One of my main concerns and a focus in this health/fitness/wellness/aging stuff is how to get back to the body shape of youth when we are no longer youthful. I start with the assumption it's possible. I've done it before. I want to do it again.

If you've been following what I've researched and written about you know that I've been poking holes in the conventional wisdom--those lies we've been told by the mins-informed, the un-informed and the monied interests who want our cash not our health.

For the last many months I've been trying many weight loss strategies, testing the theories. In my ebook (“Minding the Middle Aged Middle: Losing weight - fact and fantasy of the middle aged middle") I concluded that both the carbohydrate/insulin theory and the semi-starvation theory have merit. Either can be ignored only at the peril of out waist measurment.

BUT! Neither is particularly easy. While over a period of months, I managed to apply a low glycemic index/load to my carbohydrate intake, I, and my friends and clients were finding the semi-starvation thing hideously unappealing and notoriously unworkable. Evenings were fraught with cravings for all the wrong stuff. A whole day of low calorie, low glycemic load smart food intake can be undone in the last hour or so before sleep when we want a pound of almonds or chocolate or something not only not healthy, but also wrecking havock with insulin and calories.

Examining assumptions is what I do well so I'm examining assumptions again. One of the biggest--that I had NOT examined before--is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Who said so and where's the evidence. Also, it's in keeping with my firm belief that we ought to look to prehistory to see what we're suited for in diet and exercise to re-examine breakfast. Besides, I've known since I was a teenager, at least, that I don't particularly like breakfast first thing in the morning.

Also, new information has come my way that intermittant fasting is good for us (another post for details). So I'll just try this thing by fasting through breakfast and eat two good meals starting after noon when I'm good and hungry. That gets me the benefits of lower calories (cutting by at least 1/3) and the benefits of the intermittant fasting, too.

Our hunter/gatherer ancestors didn't wake up to cornflakes or eggs and bacon. They woke up and had to get going to find food. Hmmm. Maybe breakfast isn't the most important meal of the day like we were told.

Turns out the breakfast myth began about the time of the rise of Kellogg's cereals. A double whammy. Eating when maybe we should be moving around instead, and all those cereal grains (high glycemic load which triggers insulin--the hormone of hunger). If I eat breakfast, I am hungrier all day. Good reason for that is the insulin released by eating breakfast.
I knew that in high school. Why did I ignore my own body's wisdom for 50 years?

But the most important thing for anyone (like me) who wants to do calorie restriction, might be the fact that I can stand being hungry in the early part of the day, but not at night. Yes, I get pretty hungry waiting till noon or 1 PM or later. But it's manageable. And then I eat all I want for two meals of protein, vegetables and a little fruit. All those cravings I was experiencing--gone!

Voilla! I am hereby reporting that trying this for something over a week now I am down 8 pounds. WHAT?? After months and months of being stuck, in one week with this strategy I am having success--and huge success! I am blown away!!!

I will report again. I won't even suggest you try it, but I can tell you I'm sticking to it! Maybe the breakfast myth is just another in the long line of flat out crap we've been told and sold!