Skipping Breakfast for Lifters and Non-lifters

I'm pretty sure everyone in America is told that breakfast is the most important meal, not lunch, nor dinner. Why? So far the list seems to be: It's healthy in a holistic sense (not health related to lower bodyfat levels); it breaks-the-fast and jump-starts your metabolism; it gives you energy for the day and makes kids smarter; for those that want to gain muscle it's the best time to eat because you are most insulin sensitive; if you eat in the morning you have all day to burn the energy because you aren't doing that at night (hence why you shouldn't eat after 7pm)

The Case for Eating Breakfast, to Break-the-fast

For direct health and longevity aside from that related to bodyfat levels, I've never heard of a benefit for eating breakfast, ever, so we can skip that. For fat-loss, you are supposed to break-the-fast or supposedly you will have all day to burn off the food (more specifically carbs, I'll detail this later). For those that train, it will help you gain the most muscle, right? Probably not, I'll discuss this later, too.

Regarding the idea that eating early gives you the whole day to burn off calories, because you don't in your sleep is moronic. Have you ever heard of REM sleep? Have you ever woke in the middle of the night sweating your ass off, for no apparent reason? That's REM sleep. You were restoring your body, and that take a TON of energy. Not once during the day do you use up so much energy that you get hot and start sweating profusely with no additional movement needed (exercise). This is a very carb and energy expensive process, especially considering that you are incapable of movement during REM sleep.

Ok, so you still burn calories when you sleep. Got it. So in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter when you eat the food because you continually burn energy about evenly all day, every day, right? Well, unfortunately calorie burning is not the only factor for fat loss regarding the general population, especially for those that weight lift. So we are going to have to dig deeper.

Should I Have Cereal or Oats for Breakfast, or Not?

There is a known fact that everyone is more insulin sensitive in the morning, and less in the evening. That's why we are told to have cereal or oatmeal for breakfast and no carbs past 7pm. This is all related to muscle cells. They want food in the morning, bad, they have been "starving" for hours and need food. And at night, they won't and can't pick up as much, so why feed them at all if they are incapable? Right? That's what nutritionists and the media tell us, so we listen.

What about the fat cells? Well, unless you do something to take them out of the equation (which works REALLY well, discussed in a second) they grow the same amount as the muscle tissue. They are just as sensitive to insulin in the morning and insensitive at night. The current trend of timing foods will make the fat and muscle cells grow and shrink the same amount, together. Well shit. So I have to get fat to get muscles? Yup. If you eat like everyone tell you to.

Well what if you tried the opposite? What if you didn't eat carbs in the morning and only ate them at night? You wouldn't grow as much in the morning because the cells are not getting any insulin, and you wouldn't grow as much at night if they aren't sensitive. So I won't gain a lot of fat, but I also wont gain a lot of muscle.

So, it seems that breakfast does have its pros, but also cons.

Let's get slightly more confusing and throw working out into the equation. When doing so, the biggest advantage is that you will receive is preferentially locating glucose to muscle cells, over fat cells. This is a VERY big thing and has a very large effect. Basically, the muscle cells are very sensitive and begin taking up as much sugar as possible, so much so that the fat cells don't have a chance to grab any. This is great, but it only lasts about an hour or so to such a great extent, though this effect lingers and dwindles down about 24 hours after working out.

This means you can eat any carbs you like post training and the muscles will gobble it up, way more than normal. This doesn't mean your body's natural hormone levels and sensitivities change, though. In the morning, fat and muscle tissue are still very sensitive to sugar. Your muscle tissue will be super sensitive to picking it up, but the fat cells will still be grabbing it, too. This isn't all bad, but if you are like most people, you have a job or school and need to perform. You better throw that out the window after you eat because you are going to have the biggest sugar crash of your life from the high carbs and high sensitivity to them.

Let's say, you train in the evening, around 4pm or so and you finish around 6pm when your body's sensitivity to insulin and sugar will be the least. You have that added training window to increase muscle reuptake of glucose post workout and your fat cells will be the least sensitive to insulin, like usual. So muscle takes up all the growth potential while fat cells are hindered? That sounds awesome to me. Also, if you continue eating outside of the 1 hour window in the evening the fat cells are still going to have a hard time growing but the muscle cells still have the added growth potential from the workout (that continues to taper down for 24 hours).

To wrap this all up: Eating breakfast is not a great idea for the best body composition. If you are just trying to lose weight, I wouldn't eat it at all. If you are to eat those carbs, do so in the evening. Your muscle cells are still going to have a residual effect from working out which gives them priority over fat cells, even if you train in the morning (am workouts are not optimal for reduced fat gain, but better than nothing if that's your only option) There is one exception to breakfast, and that is bulking, which I'll include in it's own post.

Kids NEED Breakfast!!!!!!!

You may be wondering if that insulin crash from eating carbs for breakfast applies to kids. Well, it does. Worst of all, these kids hate school because of how our school system runs in the US. Combine significantly lower levels of energy, no motivation because school is lame, a federal obligation to keep kids in school and you are going to get awful results.

The best advice I can give is to drop the carbs in the morning, don't ever give your kids sugar or pancakes for breakfast before school. If you want to give your kids shit then do them a favor and do so on the weekend when they don't have to make the foundation for the rest of their life. Give them a good breakfast with eggs, meat, bacon, some berries if they need something sweet and let them prosper. The fats will hold them over for a long time and even if you don't pack their lunch they will do better than a lazy bowl of cereal.

If pancakes looked like this we all would be better off...

Oh ya, just for the public knowledge regarding fortified cereal. You know they've been finding iron shavings in the cereal. I'm not talking about the iron that is naturally found in meat and veggies, I'm talking about pulverized metal chunks, the stuff we ban from China in our kid toys, and you are putting it in the kids mouth. This isn't just in cereal, this is in many different fortified foods like flour.

You can watch the whole video, but watch the first 2 minutes at least. Don't feed your kids this crap.

So What's for Breakfast Then?

I don't expect you to forgo intaking any calories for 2-5 hours after waking. This is not because you won't run optimally, because you will, even better than with eating breakfast. You have tons of stored energy from dinner yesterday to get you through the day and workout.

The best thing to have for breakfast is just coffee, tea or water, listed from best to mediocre. Coffee and tea both have catecholamines, which are fairly strong appetite suppressants. It should be noted that regular coffee has the most, followed by decaf, then tea and decaf tea (at this point they are insignificant, don't expect much change in appetite from 1 or even 10 cups of decaf tea). The caffeine in coffee stimulates fatty acids to leave the cell, which isn't a big deal normally since fatty acids can just float in the blood stream and go right back to the fat cells. But, since you are not eating you are in a ketogenic state, a state to produce energy that is very inefficient. This means that you have to use even more fat cells to give your body energy. Couple this with the fact that coffee is a thermogenic and raises basal metabolic rate you have a win-win.

I should mention that there are a few things that can hinder and stop all this beauty from happening. Any carbs, at all, will stop this immediately. Also, even a normal serving of whey proteins can stop this. You can have a little, but I wouldn't reach above 15g of whey or 10g whey hydro.

There are some things that you can add, though. Fats, both medium and long chain fats work well. Heavy whipping cream and coconut milk are the best, and tastiest options. Feel free to add any sugar free substitute that you like, with the exception of acesulfame potassium (Ace K). Also, sugar free syrups can work, just be careful with sugar alcohols (ending in -tol) as they can make you gassy and some carbs are digested. I'm not a fan of splenda, or other artificial sweeteners, but for the purposes of fat loss and preventing fat gain they will not hinder anything. I prefer pure stevia extract [Kal is the best tasting one I've tried, and is the cheapest option because of the potency, if you buy it, get the big one], but any form will work, though the major ones at stores aren't as pure and have a stronger aftertaste.

In closing, I leave you this.

A perfect meal, aside from the beer...