Is breakfast the most important meal of the day or is it best not to eat anything in the morning? We tell you what happens when you skip breakfast and start the day without food.
Should you have breakfast “like a king” in the morning, shouldn’t you? The answer to this question is far more complex than you might think. Because there are both health factors and scientific data that speak in favor of breakfast, as well as those that see some advantages in omitting it. This is about the daily course of our insulin levelIndividually different, which means that some people can process carbohydrates better in the morning and others in the evening. The job we do is also very important: do you have to work hard physically on a construction site, on a farm or as a parcel delivery man? Then your body is naturally dependent on the energy of a breakfast. In the following you will find out for whom the omission can be worthwhile and what health benefits result from it.
Table of Contents
These 3 things happen when you skip breakfast
1. Your body starts its cell cleansing program
Arguably the greatest health benefit of skipping breakfast is the consequent activation of autophagy . This health-promoting process is a kind of cleansing program of your cells, which eliminates broken proteins and thus keeps your body clean and protects against diseases. However, the cleansing regimen only really kicks into high gear when we haven’t eaten any calories for 12 or even better 16 hours . Any spikes in blood sugar levels, including from sugar and milk in morning coffee, disrupt autophagy. The now popular intermittent fasting is a simple method to do something good for your body, but it is not suitable for everyone.
2. They lose weight unless…
If you consistently skip breakfast, you will lose weight in the long run, unless you make up for the calories you saved elsewhere during the day. If you are very hungry in the morning but still skip breakfast, you may reach for snacks such as chocolate bars, gummy bears or bread rolls because of the (hot) hunger . Before you know it, you’ll have replenished the calories you originally saved with several pre-lunch snacks. So it only adds up if you’re comfortable waiting until lunch. However, skipping a meal doesn’t have much of an advantage over cutting calories altogether when it comes to losing weight. Have so Studies on intermittent fasting have shown that subjects who skip breakfast or dinner lose just as much weight as people who reduce their calories by the same amount across all meals.
3. You are more focused
If you do without cornflakes, rolls, etc. in the morning, your blood sugar level will stay nice and even for the next few hours and the roller coaster ride of insulin response and deeply falling blood sugar will not happen. Above all, people who are not very hungry in the morning can benefit from not eating at first, but only drinking water, tea or black coffee. So you can fully concentrate on the first tasks of the day without the gastrointestinal tract still being busy with digestion.
However, this point can vary greatly from person to person. Because each person has a different chronobiology with their own insulin curve. For about 20 percent of people , insulin levels don’t rise until the evening, making them better able to tolerate a carb-loaded dinner than a carb-loaded breakfast. For the remaining 80 percent of people, however, it’s the other way around: They process breakfast better than they do dinner. Skipping breakfast when your body is craving energy can backfire and your concentration is interrupted by constant hunger and cravings.
Conclusion: should I skip breakfast?
A general statement about breakfast cannot be made since each person has a different chronobiology with an individual insulin curve over the course of the day. However, 80 percent of people seem to benefit from eating breakfast and, if they’re intermittent fasting, skipping dinner instead. This is also the opinion of the German Diabetes Center (DDZ) , since a meta-analysis showed that “men and women who do not eat breakfast in adulthood have a 33% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes”.. This is probably especially true for the 80 percent of people whose insulin levels are higher in the morning than in the evening. Eating a high-carbohydrate dinner keeps blood sugar levels high throughout the night and increases the long-term risk of diabetes. An evening digestive walk can lower blood sugar again – nevertheless, dinner should not be too large and not too late.
As you can see, no generally valid statements can be made about breakfast. If you’re not hungry in the morning and don’t feel like eating, you shouldn’t force yourself to eat . It is much more important to drink water, tea or coffee after sleeping. However, if you like breakfast, you should make sure to choose from healthy ingredients and not buy a white flour roll or sweet pastries on the way to work. Instead, opt for oatmeal, whole grain bread, or fruit and vegetables. If you are unsure whether your insulin level is high in the morning or in the evening, you can have this checked out by a doctor or find out yourself with a blood glucose meter (cheap models are available from Adia orSD CodeFree).
