Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight • Hacker News Board

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#31

Post by flountown » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 5:56 AM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #27

flountown wrote: post #17

At the end of the day it will always be calories in vs. calories out. My personal experience is that I try to only eat 1 meal per day. Intermittent fasting is nothing new, and when I combine it with a low carb diet, it is extremely effective for me. I went from ~300 down to 225 in a matter of 4-5 months. As long as I am busy, I hardly notice any hunger during the day now that I am used to the schedule and the 1 meal…

I do something similar, two meals targeting 1,000 apiece. That means each meal can be a huge variety of things, even eating out where you wouldn't normally consider eating while pursuing weight loss, such as Chipotle. It's been very successful and my family thinks I'm on drugs with how quickly I've been losing weight. Like you, hunger sucked at the beginning, but now I never even notice it.

My go to with Chipotle is to get a bowl w/ fajita veggies subbed for rice and beans, double barbacoa, cheese, lettuce, hot salsa and sour cream. I will eat what I can and then mix the leftovers with eggs the following day.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#32

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #2

Skipping breakfast is part of the "carb backloading" diet. Seems to work well.

You also have to lift weights of at least 70% of your max on a regular basis. It also has a single specific limit on carb intake for every body type.

Sleep is probably the best diet in existence.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#33

Post by jsmthrowaway » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:01 AM UTC

flountown wrote: post #31

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do something similar, two meals targeting 1,000 apiece. That means each meal can be a huge variety of things, even eating out where you wouldn't normally consider eating while pursuing weight loss, such as Chipotle. It's been very successful and my family thinks I'm on drugs with how quickly I've been losing weight. Like you, hunger sucked at the beginning, but now I never even notice it.

My go to with Chipotle is to get a bowl w/ fajita veggies subbed for rice and beans, double barbacoa, cheese, lettuce, hot salsa and sour cream. I will eat what I can and then mix the leftovers with eggs the following day.

Yeah, the bowl is the trick, even with the double protein. When I tell people the tortilla is 300 calories alone they universally gasp and refuse to believe me.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#34

Post by flountown » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:01 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #3

The more interesting question I think is not whether skipping breakfast might help lose weight, it is whether the weight loss is due to lower overall caloric intake, the timing of digestion reducing bioavailability, the timing of when sugar became available to the body impacting targeted fat burn or somehow enhancing the body's ability to burn fat cells, or maybe the types of "breakfast" foods skipped, or just genera…

Honestly, I think it is a mix of glycemic index being affected by the longer fast and eating less. As I stated in my response below, my experience has been that the fewer meals I eat, the less I overeat.

I know that last statement isn't anything groundbreaking, but if you can get through the initial hunger created by changing your eating schedule, it can be hugely beneficial to limiting your caloric intake.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#35

Post by fezz » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:08 AM UTC

flountown wrote: post #17

At the end of the day it will always be calories in vs. calories out. My personal experience is that I try to only eat 1 meal per day. Intermittent fasting is nothing new, and when I combine it with a low carb diet, it is extremely effective for me. I went from ~300 down to 225 in a matter of 4-5 months. As long as I am busy, I hardly notice any hunger during the day now that I am used to the schedule and the 1 meal…

Also look at a caloric intake / use over a larger moving window. The notion that our body functions on a daily unit of time is artificial. If you look at a larger window, managing a diet becomes easier.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#36

Post by vezycash » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:11 AM UTC

I researched Yokozunas and here's my findings.

They skip breakfast every single day and exercise for at least 5 hours before breakfast.

After lunch, they sleep. With plenty food and no physical activity, the body converts the food to fat. Same thing happens after dinner - sleep.

Before electricity, people ate dinner before sun down. This left enough time for some digestion and burning of excess energy.

My conclusion:

Skipping a meal is a great idea. The question is when. I've decided that the best time to skip a meal is dinner - not breakfast. Or as I tell my friends, Sleep Hungry.

Edit:

Yokozunas in Japan have perfected the art of inputting normal sized people and outputting obese people. I figured doing the exact opposite is the key to weight loss.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#37

Post by tsotha » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:11 AM UTC

clessg wrote: post #6

This is why it's hard to take the field of nutrition seriously. "New study finds peach fuzz makes you lose weight" 5 years later "New study finds peach fuzz makes you gain weight"

Yeah. Between nutritionists and economists it's hard to know who not to trust the most. Nearly everything we were told as children about what constitutes healthy eating turned out to be wrong - it's no surprise obesity is such a problem.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#38

Post by ginmugen » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

vezycash wrote: post #36

I researched Yokozunas and here's my findings. They skip breakfast every single day and exercise for at least 5 hours before breakfast. After lunch, they sleep. With plenty food and no physical activity, the body converts the food to fat. Same thing happens after dinner - sleep. Before electricity, people ate dinner before sun down. This left enough time for some digestion and burning of excess energy. My conclusion:…

Any success?

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#39

Post by vizeroth » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:23 AM UTC

hngiszmo wrote: post #25

Axsuul wrote: post #19

Losing weight comes down to a pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid is a calorie deficit. It's simple science and fact that eating less calories than your maintenance calories (basal metabolic rate) will cause you to lose weight. Once you tackle that, you can move up the pyramid and fine tune to maximize the weight loss by incorporating tactics such as meal timing, quality of ingredients, types of food eaten, or differe…

I guess it's trivial what you say about calorie deficit but the trick is how to not devour that tasty something that you know is there in your fridge when your plan to eat less for a few seconds is only your second priority. Humans get hungry after 4h of not eating with exception of when we sleep. So less sleep results in more craving for food but eating a ton, minutes after waking up results in hunger 4h later. I wa…

The first trick is to not have that thing in your fridge, and I know as much as anyone how hard that trick can be to pull off (one helpful part is to go to the store after you eat). In fact, the only quick meal/snack I tend to have on hand is oatmeal (or occasionally yogurt).

I regularly eat 10-12 hours after I wake up, and rarely feel hungry before I hit the 10 hour mark, unless I make a habit of eating during that time period. If I decide to follow a whim to eat breakfast on two or three consecutive weekdays, I will be hungry at breakfast time on the following day, regardless of what I ate the day before, or when I last ate. The worst part, though, is that it sometimes takes longer for that hunger to stop coming at breakfast time every day than it does to get it to start coming in the first place.

Something else that helps, for me, is to get at least some amount of exercise first thing in the morning. I take a short (~1.5 mile) bike ride over a fairly mild route (mostly flat or downhill) on most mornings (when it's not raining). In my unscientific observation, it kick-starts my metabolism, which it needs, since I'm definitely not getting exercise at work. After that, I primarily have to keep my mind busy, as boredom typically leads to eating just to do something.

Re: Skipping breakfast might help you lose weight

#40

Post by vezycash » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 6:23 AM UTC

ginmugen wrote: post #38

vezycash wrote: post #36

I researched Yokozunas and here's my findings. They skip breakfast every single day and exercise for at least 5 hours before breakfast. After lunch, they sleep. With plenty food and no physical activity, the body converts the food to fat. Same thing happens after dinner - sleep. Before electricity, people ate dinner before sun down. This left enough time for some digestion and burning of excess energy. My conclusion:…

Any success?

I'm not over weight. Just a beer belly I grew from college. It's reduced a lot. The only exercises I do are 5 measely sit ups in the morning and cycling at night (if I eat late to burn up the meal before sleep.)