Why Skipping Breakfast Is No Longer A Good Idea (latest research)

Talk to me about time-restricted feeding, because for a long time, that was like the hot new girl in school, and everyone loved it, and it was really interesting. But it seems like the trend is swaying at least a little bit away from time-restricted feeding, especially on a morning. So what's your— how do you conceptualize all of this now? So time-restricted feeding or time-restricted eating, you know, it's a form of intermittent fasting, right? And I think that, Many people, when they think about intermittent fasting, they think, okay, well, I just need to skip a meal. I need to have a period of— I need to extend my period of time where I'm not eating, and the easiest way to do that is skip a meal. And, that's kind of what happened.

So, Dr. Satchin Panda, a good friend of mine, big circadian biologist researcher, does a lot of research on time-restricted feeding. And, we talked about this almost 10 years ago. Essentially, there's a circadian reason to eat your food within a certain time window, and then have a period of rest and fasting, right? So, everything on our body runs on a clock, including our metabolism. And, you know, sort of, so we're most insulin sensitive in the morning, least insulin sensitive in the evening, right? So, you know, your blood glucose levels will go much higher with the same carbohydrate intake in the evening versus the morning, even, you know, just Your calories are the same, everything's the same. There's also some argument to be made by, you just need a period of rest.

Like, your gut digestion, all that, like, energy is being diverted to do that when you're digesting food. Like, that's a big thing. And there's also a lot of responses that happen after you eat a meal, causing inflammation and things like that, that divert energy there. So, it's taking energy away from other things like repair. So, repairing processes usually happen when you're in a fasted state. So, just like when you're sleeping, your brain shuts down, Right? Like, your brain, if you didn't sleep, your brain's not going to repair. It's not going to stop. Like, you need that rest period. Well, the same goes for, like, other organs. Like, they need a rest period. And so, it's really important to have that rest period, right?

So, the longer the rest period is, the better in terms of, like, having enough energy to, like, do those repair processes. Things like that require energy. And there's also, you know, other reasons as well. But generally speaking, there's an argument why it's good to have a rest period, a fasting period, right? Does it need to be 16 hours? Does it need to be 20? Does it need to be 12? Like, I don't really know that we know the exact time to that, but what we do know is that talking about this to the public was translated to, I need to skip breakfast. That was like the take-home was, okay, I need to do a 16-hour, I need to eat my food within 8 hours and do a 16-hour fast. And the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to skip breakfast and extend my fasting period. Lunch at 12.

have dinner at 8, graze between then, and it's hands off. Exactly, and that was kind of the take-home, the practical implication there that everyone started doing. The problem with that is that, you know, so our muscle is the biggest reservoir for amino acids, just like, you know, we store glucose as glycogen in our liver and our muscle, we store triglyceride as, you know, We— fat as triglycerides in our adipose tissue. We don't really store muscle. I mean, we don't really store amino acids, but you can kind of think of the muscle as a reservoir for it, because when we have a period of basically we're not getting an intake of amino acids, we need it. We need amino acids to survive, like we need them. And so, our body pulls from our muscle.

So, in the morning, if you think about it, what's the longest period you go without having amino acids? Well, it's when you're sleeping. So breakfast is actually really important. It's important to get protein, amino acids in that first meal, because if you extend that fasting period by skipping breakfast, your body's going to be like, I need protein. I got to make a bunch of proteins to like have my heartbeat and my kidneys function, right? So it's going to pull amino acids out of your muscle. And so that can cause muscle atrophy. particularly if you're not doing resistance training. So amino acid is one way to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. The other way to do it would be resistance training.

So there have been studies done, like for example, women that are doing time-restricted feeding, they will not lose muscle mass if they're doing resistance training. So— Does it mitigate the gains of resistance training by doing that? It mitigates the atrophy, So it's mitigating— Sorry, does time-restricted feeding, i.e., skipping breakfast, limit the gains made from resistance training if both of those things are done together? Not if you're getting enough protein. I mean, not in that study, at least. I think if you're not getting enough protein within a 24-hour period, yes. But if you're getting— so to get your gains in, and I'm sure you've had people on talking about this, but the RDA for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight.

And that was, like, determined, like, forever ago when we were using older techniques. We, as in scientists, not me, 'cause I haven't personally done this experiment, but the scientific community was using techniques that underestimated amino acid losses. So, these committees were set up to determine, okay, how many, how much amino acids do, you know, what quantity of amino masses do we lose every day, and how much do we make sure we have to get each day to replenish that, right? And so, those losses were underestimated. In other words, we're losing more than they thought. And so, what does that mean? That means, oh, maybe the RDA for protein is too low.

So, people like Dr. Stuart Phillips and others have now redone these experiments with newer, more sensitive technologies, because that's what happens with time, right? We get better technologies, more sensitivity, and they've now determined that it's actually 1.2 grams per kilogram to just bare minimum prevent losses. So, another 50% on top of what was originally— 50% on what originally. And, if you're actually doing— if you're physically active, if you're doing resistance training, that goes up to 1.6 grams per kilogram by the way. Wow. Not the minimum. Well, 1.2 was the minimum, but to build muscle, to get the gains you're talking about. And, there's actually been studies done in older adults. This is a big problem. Older adults, they're not as sensitive to amino acids.

It's called anabolic resistance. So, With the same protein intake, they won't build as much muscle if they're 65 versus when they were 30. So granddad needs to be cooking twice as many steaks. He needs twice as many steaks. And there's been studies looking at the actual RDA. If older adults get 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight, and then the other group gets 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight, the group that got 1.2 has much higher muscle mass gains. Yep. And just actually prevents the atrophy that is happening just with age. Okay. So getting back to the time-restricted eating thing. Yes. How should someone incorporate this into their lifestyle? What it sounds like you're saying is have a high-protein meal at some point early in the day.

But if you're also saying that it's important for us to have a period of rest and digest so that it's digest, rest, and repair can actually happen, How should people think about doing that, especially given the fact that, sorry, later in the day insulin sensitivity is skewed? Anyone that did carb night or carb backloading 15 years ago because they read a bodybuilding.com forum like me knows that. So you've kind of got this, oh, it's good to eat some things later in the day. There's this skew down that way, but there's also, we can't miss breakfast. So it's like, that just sounds like eating all day to me. When do we stop? Right. Yeah, sorry, I went off on a tangent there, but yeah, so the time-restricted eating, okay, there's a couple good ways to think about it.

You want to stop eating about 3 hours before you go to bed, if possible, okay? That's last bit of food in mouth. Yes, yes, because it's still, you got to add another 5, so last bit of food in mouth doesn't mean I'm now in a fasted state. You got to calculate 5 hours after that. It takes about 5 hours to digest. Okay? So, after the 5 hours after your last bit of food in your mouth, now you're in a fasted state, right? So, that's going to be when you're sleeping, most likely. You don't have to skip a meal. You can eat your food within an 8-hour period and fast for 16 hours without having to skip a meal most of the time, unless, I guess, unless you're an entertainer and your meals do come later, then— But still, you can still, like, everything's just shifted over.

And yes, you'll be less insulin sensitive later in the day, but you can, like, do some air squats for 2 minutes. Like, you could, there are things you can do to improve insulin sensitivity and also to improve glucose, blood glucose levels, like, later in the evening if you're having a meal, and we can talk more about that later. But anyway, so there are things you can do. I think that the way to think about it is, the easy way is to stop eating about 3 hours before bed, That's a really easy, and also your sleep improves, 'cause when you're digesting, if you eat like right before you go to bed, your body's like awake. It's like awake, right? It's like digesting and using energy. It's not— Even beyond what's happening physiologically, just the sense of being full.

So I was a club promoter for 15 years, which meant that we would work from, we'd set the club up at 9:00 PM and we'd finish at 2:00 in the morning and I'd get back and the food that I'd prepped that morning, the day before's morning would be there waiting for me. Oh, well, you know, I haven't eaten in 6 hours, 7 hours, something like that. Okay, so I'll get in and I'll eat. But just the discomfort of having a lot of food in you, like even that sucks, right? And, you know, the other thing is with thinking about it, I think a lot of people got all like, you know, in a tizzy over the fact that like if you looked at the time-restricted feeding, and the weight loss, a lot of the weight loss was due to caloric restriction because people were just actually eating less. They were skipping meals.

Yep. And it's like, yeah, so a lot of weight loss, I mean, when it comes to weight loss, like calories in, calories out matter, like energy balance, right? So that's important. I think that's where a lot of people were like, oh, time-restricted eating doesn't matter because it's all about caloric restriction. And it's like, well, yeah, if you're looking at what endpoint are you looking at? Are you trying to lose weight? Then caloric restriction, like you should be, not eating. Get there however you want. Right. And most people that are obese, even overweight, they can actually fast and not lose as much muscle. Some people will go on a fast or limit their— they'll skip meals basically, and they can lose up to 30% of their weight will come from muscle. That's crazy.

It's crazy unless you do resistance training. Resistance training is important. Which will mitigate that. Which will mitigate that. Presumably only if you're having sufficient protein outside of that intermittent fasting window? Not necessarily. That will help you gain more, but mitigating the atrophy because— You've got the stimulus. You got the stimulus. Okay. What would you suggest as a good selection of breakfasts that people could have that kind of meet the criteria that you're talking about here? What would be some of the things? Eggs, right? Eggs would be like, depending on your body weight, If you're a dude, you're probably going to have more like 5 eggs. Scrambled eggs are great.

You've got, I mean, it's got the protein and eggs are really high and they have like lutein and choline in them. I mean, choline's important for brain function. Lutein, it's much higher in greens like kale, but there's some in at least pasture-raised eggs. The farm, the non-conventional eggs or whatever they're called, those are terrible. But— What is that? Just to interject there, what is there to know about eggs? How do you select your eggs? Pasture-raised, because you want them to eat like grass and stuff, the chickens, because they're getting like lutein from the greens, and lutein is really important for brain function and eye function.

I would love to talk about that more when we talk about cognitive function, 'cause it actually, there's like a lot, there's not enough lutein in an egg to substitute what's done in clinical studies, but there is in kale. So, but still, it's good to get a source of it. So, I think eggs is a really good, source of protein for breakfast because it's, you know, it's just, it's very nutrient dense with the choline as well. Choline's really high in egg yolk. Bacon and eggs, steak and eggs. Yeah, I mean, like, whatever your, your jam is, like, for the, for the protein. Bacon and eggs, steak and eggs, you know. I like to also have some smoked salmon and eggs.