Some people find that they can lose weight if they don’t eat for 16 hours a day. The most popular routine is to abstain from dinnertime until noon the next day. Why might this work? It probably has to do with insulin, the body’s main fat-storing hormone. If you don’t eat carbohydrates for several hours, your insulin levels drop. Instead of storing fat, your body starts using it for fuel. Of course, when you return to eating carbs, insulin levels rise and you go back to storing fat.
There is nothing magic about intermittent fasting. Studies show that you don’t lose any more weight intermittently fasting than you would if you cut out the same amount calories eating three meals a day. Probably the reason it works for some folks is that it addresses the main obstacle to weight loss–willpower. When it comes to eating, many of us have more willpower in the first part of the day than we do towards the last. Also, people are more consistent, less desirous of variety, when it comes to breakfast.
If intermittent fasting works, then it may seem curious that doctors have noticed for years that people who habitually skip breakfast have more weight problems than those who eat breakfast. Missing breakfast tends to make some folks overeat the rest of the day.
So should you or shouldn’t you eat breakfast? If weight loss is indeed a matter of lowering your insulin levels, then the answer is to eat breakfast but make sure it has very low glycemic load–a “Paleo” breakfast. You’ll get the same effect on your insulin levels as you would if you skipped breakfast.
In one study, researchers fed a group of subjects omelets for breakfast and another group the same amount of calories in oatmeal cereal. For the rest of the day, they ate what they wanted. It turned out that those who ate oatmeal for breakfast were hungrier and consumed more calories throughout the day than those who started the day with eggs (no carbs).
When you eat rapidly digested carbohydrates for breakfast, your blood sugar shoots up. Your insulin levels shoot up in response and drive your blood sugar down. If your blood sugar falls too far, you become ravenous before the next meal.
I suggest you eat breakfast, but make sure the glycemic load is -less than 100. Bacon and eggs work fine, maybe with a slice of Dave’s Killer Thin-Slice Whole Wheat Bread (glycemic load less than 70).
Next topic: How to keep the carbohydrates you eat from spiking your blood sugar.
