We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day... duh!
This rule has become so commonplace throughout the health and fitness community that it’s readily accepted as fact.
“Want to lose weight? Make sure you start off with a healthy breakfast, so you can get that metabolism firing first thing in the morning!”
“Want to lose more weight? Make sure you eat six small meals throughout the day so your metabolism stays operating at maximum capacity all day long”.
There are even studies that show those who eat earlier in the day lose more weight than those who ate later in the day or skipped a meal.
So, eat breakfast to lose weight and obtain optimal health. Case closed…right?
Maybe you’re not getting the whole story. What if there’s science that promotes SKIPPING BREAKFAST (blasphemy!) for optimum efficiency, maximum muscle retention, and body fat loss?
We want to share with you a concept about skipping meals, and how your health will benefit as a result.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, but rather an eating pattern.
Now, there are a few different ways to take advantage of intermittent fasting:
Regularly eat during a specific time period. For example, only eating from noon-8 PM, essentially skipping breakfast. Some people only eat in a 6-hour window, or even a 4-hour window.
Skip two meals one day, taking a full 24-hours off from eating. For example, eating on a normal schedule (finishing dinner at 8PM) and then not eating again until 8PM the following day.
Now, you might be thinking: “okay, so by skipping a meal, I just eat less than normally overall, and thus I will lose weight, right?”
Well, that’s partially true.
Yes, by cutting out an entire meal, you are able to eat MORE food during your other meals and still consume a caloric deficit (which is an important for losing weight).
However, as we already know that not all calories all created equal, the timing of meals can also influence how your body reacts.
How does intermittent fasting work?
With intermittent fasting, your body operates differently when “feasting” compared to when “fasting”:
When you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food, burning what it can from what you just consumed. Since it has all of this readily available, easy-to-burn energy in its blood stream (thanks to the food you ate), your body will choose to use that as energy rather than the fat you have stored. This is especially true if you just consumed carbohydrates/sugar, as your body prefers to burn sugar as energy before any other source. During the “fasted state,” your body doesn’t have a recently consumed meal to use as energy, so it is more likely to pull from the fat stored in your body, rather than the glucose in your blood stream or glycogen in your muscles/liver.
Burning fat = winning. Why does this work? Our bodies produce insulin when we eat. Essentially, the more sensitive your body is to insulin, the more likely you’ll be to use the food you consume efficiently, which can help lead to weight loss and muscle creation. Along with that, your body is most sensitive to insulin following a period of fasting. Your glycogen (a starch stored in your muscles and liver that your body can burn as fuel when necessary) is depleted during sleep (fasting), and will be depleted even further during training, which can further increase insulin sensitivity. This means that a meal immediately fo