I’ve stopped skipping breakfast. I’ve decided it’s not a very good way to lose weight and apparently there’s evidence to back this up.
All calories are not equal – it depends what time of day they’re eaten. The same calories eaten in the morning are less fattening than exactly the same calories eaten in the evening. This is due to our circadian rhythms – in the morning our body turns our food into usable energy for our muscles which is an energy intensive task so not only are we burning up calories by walking and moving around, we’re burning up additional calories creating glycogen for our muscles to do all these things. Our body doesn’t do this in the evening because it’s expecting to go to sleep and doesn’t need to create this energy. It doesn’t matter if we don’t go to sleep or stay up late. Our body simply hasn’t evolved to eat lots at night time.
The fasting diet would therefore work best if it recommended a huge breakfast, a big lunch, and then to skip dinner. I now eat a huge breakfast and skip dinner and I think I function better during the day because of it. Dr Greger explains the research well in this video – breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.
rachel.blog 
I eat most when I’m hungry and leave things when I’m not. My weight doesn’t seem to change, but sometimes my energy levels do.
That sounds sensible 🙂 We should all do that.
Trouble is, sometimes my eyes are bigger than my belly and it’s wasteful. Fortunately I don’t mind left overs and the hens like salad treats too.
I was wondering how you were doing. My fasting seems to be working, which means that for the first time in a few years I have things in balance. I think our body types also come into play – I am most awake in the mornings so I can power through not eating anything. I start to flag midday into the evening so I need to eat then, and a problem I have is hunger waking me up if I get dieting wrong. So I eat most of my food between 12 and 6, which balances my usable energy needs against disturbed sleep. My other dieting friends have no problem going to sleep a bit hungry though. It sounds like you have worked out your balance, as you don’t seem to be craving Marmite any more?
I thought I would find it hard going to sleep hungry too but I’m actually not that hungry. It has been fine so far. I only want to lose 1kg and then I’ll go back to eating dinner but just have a very light one and avoid the Ben and Jerry’s peanut butter vegan ice-cream 🙂
I’m no longer craving marmite, no, and I like eating a nice big breakfast. I’ll try it for a month or so and see how it goes.