A Different Take on the Breakfast Debate

By Guest Author

The following is a guest post from Cari Corbet-Owen. This post challenges the assumption that an early breakfast keeps you slim.

I'm tired of the 'breakfast buzz' - every breakfast article finds that eating first thing is essential. Fact is, much 'breakfast research' is done by groups that have a lot invested in the "Eat Breakfast like a King" theory.

So it's hardly surprising that researchers comes to the same conclusions. It's called 'research bias.' Researchers design their hypothesis and questions to inevitably prove their hypothesis true.

Let's look at each of the claims:

1. It kick-starts your metabolism

This implies our metabolism has stopped. Unless you're dead, this is untrue. Our basal metabolism keeps going 24/7. It's the energy our body consumes keeping our essential bodily functions going -breathing, digesting, excreting etc...

2. You won't be able to concentrate without it

Plenty of people who don't eat until they get hungry in the mornings tell me their concentration isn't impaired at all. Water and exercise help mental agility as does oxygen. But breakfast researchers don't ask questions about water consumption or exercise. It wouldn't fit their hypothesis.

3. You won't have energy

My body only wants food between 10-11am, so I only eat then. Yet, I have tons of energy having only had a large glass of lemon water and a brisk walk/jog. But let me eat a highly processed, refined and sugary breakfast cereal - and I'm lethargic and even sleepy.

4. You'll have problems with your blood sugar

If you suffer with problems of blood sugar regulation -your body will let you know that. It's an amazing biological masterpiece, constantly letting you know what's going on with it. While some people may have blood sugar fluctuations if they don't eat first thing in the morning, the vast majority don't.

5. You'll be starving

Notice how your eating pattern changes over the weekends or on holiday. Do you eat later than usual? Could that be because your body only gets hungry later?

6. You'll struggle to maintain your weight

Well yes, if you don't honor your body and eat whenever it tells you it is hungry you will most likely have a battle with the bulge. When I ate breakfast before I was hungry I still found myself getting hungry around 10-11am. And so I'd then land up eating twice. But when I eat my first meal of the day only when I am hungry and when I then eat whenever I am hungry thereafter, I eat in a way that maintains my weight just fine.

And when I do skip my hunger - and note I didn't say when I skip breakfast - THEN I land up eating uncontrollably later in the afternoon. So it doesn't surprise me that breakfast research shows that if you skip breakfast (by which they mean you don't eat at all any time in the morning) you gain weight.

The Last Word

I'm not disputing whether to 'break-the-fast' ... all I'm disputing is

a) Our unquestioning belief in breakfast research.
b) When we eat breakfast.

I don't believe in eating when I'm not hungry, nor does it fit my body clock (see more about this). But when I eat according to my body's needs I have plenty of energy and concentration, I'm never hungry and maintaining my weight or blood sugar levels is simply no problem.

Sometimes research 'sounds right' because we've heard it so often that we never stop to question if it is all true for us personally. But when it comes to what I believe - I'm afraid my body, and not breakfast research, is king!

Written by Cari Corbet-Owen, clinical psychologist and author of Mind over Fatter and The Joy-Filled Body.

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