Every now a then you will find that opinions can often be to be divided in a binary fashion when discussing controversial issues. Let's take a look at the issue of intermittent fasting (IF) in relation to your diet. For simplicity sakes, we will refer to IF as the skip breakfast diet.
As you know, there are mixed opinions to whether skipping breakfast as a dietary measure is a good idea, or not at all. Let's look at how each opinion differs from the other. The purpose of this article is not to convince you that one method is better than the other; it is to present the opinions as they stand. The rest is left for you to decide. Will you choose to skip breakfast? start your day with a full stomach? or try something completely different like the baby food diet?
What is the skip breakfast diet?
Although misleading as it sounds, under the skip breakfast diet you still are allowed to take in liquids in the morning, but abstain from eating solid foods. What this means is that you have to depend on fruits or fruit juice to get your fill in the morning.
Under this dietary practice, your calorie intake is less than that of the converse, eating breakfast normally. As long as you don't eat too much during lunch and supper, it's easy to get the feeling that it is a low calorie diet.
So, why is it that there is strong support against it while others feel otherwise? Let's look at what both sides have to say.
Opinion against the skip breakfast diet
Let's look at the benefits of eating breakfast while taking diet out of the picture.
When you eat breakfast this is what actually happens to your body!
You may have heard it. Breakfast is essential in starting your day off right.
Related to eating breakfast, one of the main nutrients fueling your brain is glucose. When the amount of glucose being sent to your brain is insufficient, it is said to be harder to concentrate. While sleeping, your body's glucose supply is greatly dissipated by the brain through increased activity. Yes, your brain works hardest while you are sleeping.
For this reason, after waking up there isn't much glucose left to be sent to the brain. If I was your brain, I would be in panic. In order to prevent this from happening its dire that you eat breakfast.
In addition to helping your brain function properly, eating a healthy breakfast plays an important role in helping you increase you body temperature and stimulates bowel movement activity.
Skipping breakfast can cause you to gain weight!?
It has been pointed out that by skipping breakfast you are more likely to gain weight. So, why is it that you gain weight by not eating? To answer this question we are going to have to do a little math.
After skipping breakfast the first thing you might be thinking about is when lunch is. By the time lunch and dinner come around you must be starving. How you react in this situation is almost unavoidable. The probability that you over eat during lunch and dinner in response to missing breakfast is high..
In the long run, the number of days you skip breakfast increases and your body has to adjust to function with lower energy needs. In other words, your metabolism slows down gradually. Then, when you eat your next meal you are not able to burn of the calories you consume. Continuing in this manner leads to a formula for gaining weight.
Overeating (Lunch/Dinner) + Condition inducing excess nutrient storage = Proneness to weight gain
This is why skipping breakfast has the reverse effect of making your more prone to gain weight.
Opinion for the skip breakfast diet
There are benefits to skipping breakfast not just relating to dieting.
This is what actually happens when you skip breakfast!
Amongst supports of this diet there are many who say it is less stressful on the body and it's actually easier to concentrate on an empty stomach. Let's look at why this may be the case.
The human body is said to take as much as 18 hours from start to finish in processing what we eat. The thought is that if a person eats 3 meals per day, it's the same as not giving the digestive system time to rest. This is why it is thought of as being easy on the body, giving it time to rest, cleanse itself.
Consider the situation when you have dinner every day at 6 PM and then skip breakfast the following morning. This gives your body enough leeway to fully digest what you had for dinner the other day before proceeding with lunch. It makes sense that the body would be less burdened with digestion.
In regards to the lack of glucose being sent to the brain, it is said that in this case, there is no reason to worry. The reason is that beta-Hydroxybutyric acid begins to be used as fuel by the brain when glucose levels are low.
If you are thinking about starting up on the skip breakfast diet…
Before beginning to think about starting up on the skip breakfast diet, special precautions need to be taken into consideration. If you are used to eating 3 meals a day and suddenly stop eating breakfast, as your body is not yet fully adjusted don't expect it to function the way you are use to. It's not uncommon to have difficulty concentrating at first.
That is why when considering the skip breakfast diet it is necessary to make the transition slowly, allowing your body to adjust as you move closer and closer to skipping breakfast.
Points for the skip breakfast diet
- When first starting out, it's important that you take the transition in steps, eliminating the amount you eat gradually allowing your body to adjust to the change.
- As you progress it is important to make sure you are one the right track reviewing other people's opinions of why they succeeded or failed.
