Skipping meals

[yellowduck]

Heya :-). Everyone says that it is such a bad idea to skip meals, particularly breakfast, but no one ever really explains why. I regularly skip breakfast during the week because I leave at 6.30am and can't face food at the time even on the odd occasion that I feel quite hungry. Also it's the control factor again. But is the reason the whole 'starvation mode' thing that our bodies resort to or does it really do some damage? xxx

[haysi06]

yellowduck - I aint no doctor - but I think they do say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. think about it, you have been sleeping for 8 hours, and may not have eaten 2 hours before you went to bed. your body needs nourishment and needs to keep blood sugars steady. try a yogurt or a bit of toast, i do believe that your body has probably conditioned itself to missing brkfast - but think you should try to have something.

[Lonnie]

When I was in the forces, you could be put on a charge for missing breakfast, it was a commanding officers parade, we were told that it is the calories of the first meal of the day that the body uses, more than any other.

[Scarlett]

It's just because you will have gone from maybe 7pm the night before, to 7am the next day without eating- 12 hours is a long time to go without food. Your body needs it as fuel. Even when you are asleep your body is burning calories, digesting food, repairing your body, growing new skin and hair etc. When you wake up you need to feed it again so it can function properly. If you don't, your bloody sugar level will fall and you will feel dappy and possibly faint. You will therefore risk eating junk for a quick fix, that does you no good.

You should eat something like porridge that will give you energy over a longer period and keep you feeling fuller for longer. Hopefully it should carry you through until lunchtime. Without breakfast your metabolism and system won't start properly and you will just end up pushing your body without fuelling it. It, in response will want sugar and quck fixes which result in quick highs and then worse lows.

[hannahjo]

All the above posts are right, breakfast is very important to keep your blood sugar levels stable and also to break your night time fast (hence why its called break-fast!)

[hannahjo]

Ooops! Forgot to say, it�s ok if you don�t feel like eating right away � most people don�t. Just try to eat within a hour or two of waking, but the earlier the better.

[funnywebsite]

I don't usually eat breakfast. But I saw a T.V programme on BBC a few months back and they were working out someones biological age, not their real age and it was worked out that by skipping breakfast you loose 1 year of your life. I have skipped breakfast for so long that I can't change my habits that easily. But it is obviously bad for you for them to say you loose 1 year off your life. Obviously it doesn't go into detail like if you usually ate breakfast from age 0 - 21 then gave up for 1 year then started eating breaking at age 23, can you just loose 9 months? Who knows?

[RainbowBrite]

I get the same thing - I can't face eating when I first get up, although I have got into the habit of eating one slice of toast. A good idea (this is what my boyf does) is to buy a load of fruit at the start of the week and just eat it at your desk (if this fits in with your job!). That way you don't get hungry waiting for lunch and you eat way more fruit than normal which must be good! (I never used to eat fruit until I started doing this!)