Breakfast, the most important meal of the day? - Thoughts on this?

Thanks for posting.

I'm not sure about this post. It has been scientifically proven that the body enters a catabolic state during the night. Most people go around 10 hours without eating anything (9pm until 7am).

The deal is that without food your body begins dipping into your fat stores. This is good if you are trying to lose weight, but what if you are an athlete trying to grow and adapt to the stress you are putting your body through? You want to be in this state for as short a time as possible.

I.e. Break Fast

Therefore, if you are an athlete or bodybuilder - breakfast is most certainly the most important meal of the day (in addition to your post workout meal/supplement).

Good article here that will explain a few things. It is a bodybuilding exercise, but my opinion is that the majority of what the author is saying applies to athletes. That said, I won't be setting my alarm to wake myself up at 1am and 4am to eat I'll just have a decent breakfast!

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online...rformance_science/stop_the_catabolic_insanity

 

People make such a big deal out of nutrient distribution. Breakfast, in the typical sense of waking up and eating something as opposed to just referring to your first meal of the day isn't necessary.

Nutrient timing does matter, but very little beyond finding a method that 'works for you' in the sense that it maximises gym performance.

 

Wow, this pretty much goes against pretty much all conventional knowledge.
It seems like pretty sound reasoning, but then again - could be totally off.
I guess that's why diet/nutrition is so hotly debated on forums. Even the best most accepted advice is all theoretical. People might have a good idea of what happens in your digestive systems - but no one knows exactly when and how fast things happen. Plus it varies from person to person. So there's never black and white, it's always grey.
I'm not so ready to accept this logic.
All I know is, i'm hungry in the morning, and I eat whenever I'm hungry.

 

I recently read and heard in victor conte interview that growth hormone releases like 70 percent of your daily output in a single burst while you are ina stage 4 deep sleep.
So your statement is wrong i suppose.
This kinda goes against everything i have been thought.So im not so sure about this.:roll:

 

It comes down to what works for you.

I have friends that don't have breakfast in the morning, guess what, they survive the day. Some are big, some are small, some are stronger than me some weaker but they all survive. It comes down to what you want to do. Personally I always have breakfast as I feel like **** and have no energy if I don't, obviously some of my friends feel differently.

There are people that may need to work out what works best for them, bodybuilders, top class athletes, models that need to maintain low body fat etc but for the average guy (that includes most boxers on this forum) there's no big issue as to food timings.

 

I agree with what you are saying, although it is believed by many that they MUST follow a certain meal structure to 'stroke the metabolic fire' or to do whatever to hormones, which is just a bunch of crap. Intermittent fasting data is currently limitted, but we have seen that it doesn't make a difference as far as LBM preservation goes.

I'm in the same boat with breakfast, I need my bagals and peanut butter or I get pissed off :yep

 

If you skip breakfast won't your first meal that follows be breakfast :think

If you want to lose weight make sure you take in less calories than you need, let your body handle the insulin. Unless you're a bodybuilder then by all means follow whatever incomplete science you can get your hands on. If you have stuff to do in the morning that requires energy, eat. Unless you're a diabetic (or eating the kind of food that may make you one) I would not worry about insulin spikes. One way to limit the effect is by not eating giant meals, there can't possibly be a large spike if you eat throughout the day.

 

Pretty much like a Car. Check the Oil and Water, and make sure you top the Fuel up, before the journey. .

 

Yeah but if they eat they'll have one of those dreaded insulin spikes and their cortisol will be out of control :roll:

I agree with you btw scrap. The body needs energy, release of cortisol makes you feel hungry and somehow it would be wise to ignore that because of an insulin spike. Cortisol is released to break down protein, this could be muscle tissue but why on earth would the body instantly chew up much needed muscle. This is needed for an energy boost since you just woke up and need a kick start. It gives you a sensation of hunger to make this very clear to you. If you eat there will be insulin, to signal that there is energy on its way and the body can stop chewing up fats (but also protein, the reason cortisol was released). And this is somehow bad, because... well... insulin is bad mkay.

 

:yep

I have to read this every day. OH NOES, TEH INSULIN SPIKE, GOODBYE SWEET GAINZ.

 

Hot topic at the minute. The science is leaning towards the benefits of training fasted - at least for some of your sessions anyway.

The stuff about eating whenever you're hungry and 'stoking the metabolic fire' (whatever that means) is seductive. But the evidence at the minute seems to be that training whilst fasted promotes certain beneficial adaptations, most notably in the concentration of glycogen stored in the muscles.

The headline theory is that training when not completely nourished is an additional stress that has to be adapted to, essentially analagous to training with a reduced oxygen supply when altitude training.

There's also a cultural issue - breakfast (at least in the way we know it) is a relatively recent invention.

 

i dont know for you, but here in croatia breakfast was always in the game. how could anyone make it through day on the field without proper breakfast ? (bread, cheese, sausages, eggs, milk, coffe or tea..)

 

Interesting, hows the 25 hour Body clock cope with that . Altitude always had a Big Breakfast, snacking on the move always Hydrating, over 24,000 ft, **** they were Hard times .

 

Cheese, sausage, eggs, milk. Protein and fat. A far cry from the sugary 'fortified' shite that passes for most people's breakfasts these days.

That was in fact one of the criticisms of one of the studies, the non-fasted group had cereal for breakfast. There was no comparison with a group who had a protein rich start to the day.