Years ago I used to tell people that I could go all day on a single cup of tea in the morning and not bother eating until the evening meal. People would tell me that was bad for me and that I should have breakfast - that it was the most important meal of the day. In truth, I wasn't hungry at that time. If I got stuck into some sort of activity, like going skiing, I would be able to ski all day then have a meal in the evening. During the day I might have a coffee or not - depending on whether I felt like a break. In fact the drinking of coffee or tea seemed more like a social thing, or a habit, (in the case of the early morning one). I could certainly forego these drinks without being aware of any effects.
In more recent years I have tried to get into the habit of having a breakfast, partly because of what people had told me. I got into the groove of having some cereal, perhaps with fruit, but always with half cream and half milk, plus sugar sprinkled on top. I usually felt hungry by midday and would have some sort of meal like a pie and doughnut. In the evening I would have my normal meal. During those years I packed on the weight. About three years ago I watched the movie Fathead by Tom Naughton and decided to start a new habit. I began cooking a breakfast every morning consisting bacon, eggs, tomato and onion - all fried in dripping or lard. This was delicious. I began to lose weight - at least for a few months, until I injured my knees and could no longer walk for my three to four weekly games of golf. I also got tired of getting up and going to all the effort of cooking breakfast. I started putting on weight again. I got up to 89kg. I could no longer wear my good suit. That was a nuisance, since it was what I always wore to funerals. I decided to revisit Tom Naughton and along the way I found other people like Georgia Ede. The results of my research saw me take us on Our Journey. But the thing is - I don't worry about not having breakfast any more. I am quite content to have my coffee with full cream in it in the morning - maybe two, since it is quite "moreish". Then I head out for golf or some other activity and don't concern myself with food for the rest of the day. When I get home I prepare an evening meal, and that, plus another coffee later on, is enough for the day. I might have a snack of some nuts or a piece of cheese at some point or other. Anyway - the original subject - about breakfast being important... I think that is probably true if you eat carbohydrates. Eating carbs puts the blood sugar up and then the body needs to use it or, if it cannot use it, store it as fat. (Insulin takes care of this). When you have used up the supply of sugar, which you do fairly quickly, the body tells you to replenish it by making you hungry again. You eat more carbs and then the cycle continues, all the while your body stays in sugar burning mode - storing excess sugar as fat. It never goes into fat-burning mode. When you think about this in terms of our early evolution, it makes sense that our bodies be able to do this when food, including fruits, were plentiful during warmer weather. We could store our food as fat and then when the weather got colder or food became less plentiful, we could just use our reserves of fat. Problem is, in our modern western world, food is generally very plentiful. On top of that we have developed highly refined carbohydrates and sugars which are, oh, so convenient, to eat. Delicious too! They are making us fatter and fatter. Our switch from eating meats and whole foods to eating carbs over the last couple of centuries seems to have gone unnoticed. Meantime, misguided scientists, thinking fat must cause us to get fat, (seems logical doesn't it?), have created studies to try and show that fat is the cause of all our ills. In spite of the fact that there is not one reputable study that shows a causal link between eating fat and poor health, we have been persuaded to avoid fat and eat vegetables and grain. We are getting fatter! My meals, including caloric and nutritional data for the last 3 days, indicate that I eat low carbs and high fat. Most of my calories come from eating fat. I don't know for sure, (because I cannot measure it), but I think that I'm in a state of nutritional ketosis. This means that my blood sugar is likely to be fairly constant through the day. My body is in a mode that is burning fat for fuel rather than sugar. Because I'm directly accessing the plentiful supply of fat that I have, it is always available to supply my brain, (so I can concentrate on my golf swing) - and my muscles, (so I can execute it properly). In spite of me not having breakfast for the last 5 months, my golf has never been better - and I've lost 10kg to boot! (Normally my golf gets worse during the winter - going from a 12-13 handicap out to a 17. I was on a 14 handicap at the beginning (April) of this diet and I got down to 11 in August.)
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Gregg SheehanProblem solver from way back. Currently working on the challenge of weight and health. Hence this website. Archives
November 2020
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