A quick one to start the day here folks. By now I’m sure you’ve read my first post on skipping breakfast, and the follow-up piece on how to capitalize on this fat loss strategy, but I wanted to share an additional article from Keifer over at Dangerously Hardcore, further hammering home the benefits of delaying feeding until a few hours after waking.
And look at how fit and energetic she is!
The Coles Notes:
- A Spanish study from the International Journal of Obesity stated that subjects who ate their main meal of the day before 3pm lost significantly more weight than people eating later in the day. Both groups consumed roughly the same amount of calories.
- What the authors of the study did not mention is that the morning group lost weight because they lost significantly more muscle. This study tested body fat at the very beginning, but conveniently omitted mention once the study was completed; in the end, the referred only to weight. The people eating at night may not have lost as much weight, but they lost more fat.
- Moral of the story? You can’t talk about weight loss and not address changes in body composition, and you shouldn’t be able to publish a study on it in a scientific journal without revealing precisely what kind of weight was lost. We should always look at studies with an objective eye- in order to push the myth that eating breakfast is better for fat loss, they needed to skew the results of their study and begin referring to weight loss instead of fat loss and body composition.
To remind everyone why skipping breakfast is beneficial to fat-loss:
“Every day the body starts as a fat-burning furnace. Even during exercise, without eating breakfast, the body burns far higher levels of fat than normal and causes upregulation of the enzymes necessary to burn fat, allowing fat to be metabolized faster.
Now contrast (this) with what happens as soon as you eat breakfast, one that contains around 30 grams or more of carbs. As is well known, insulin levels raise with the rise in blood sugar, kick-starting a downward spiral: the early-morning release of insulin reduces fat burning for the entire rest of the day; while cortisol levels remain high, the insulin release causes new empty fat cells to be created; and the insulin lowers levels of ghrelin and growth hormone.”
So my friends, do what you can to delay feeding when you wake up in the morning. It is unnecessary and could be preventing you from attaining your body composition and health goals. Furthermore, be critical of what you read. There are countless studies out there with misleading information, so make sure you ask the right questions and don’t jump to conclusions.
Happy Friday!
- DW
