Same calories but more weight lost? Yes, please!

I used to skip breakfast and intermittent fast until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. At the time you could have never convinced me that it was not healthy. EVERYONE was doing it. I totally bought in to all of it because I felt AMAZING on ketones that were helping me heal inflammation. Little did I know I was making my circadian rhythm off balance while pushing my hormones into a stress state.

What is interesting to note – most diet changes work beautifully. . . until they don’t. So, if what you are doing right now is working, GREAT! Just keep in mind that as your body heals and adapts, what you are doing may stop working. So please keep reading and pay attention to the downsides of long morning intermittent fasts. Instead of doubling down, just note that it is a signal to change, not a failure. For me, I noticed more body fat and less muscle. Who wants that? Also about that time my sleep became disrupted.

The problem wasn’t fasting. It was fasting in the morning and eating late. Later in the day meant my circadian rhythm wasn’t primed for food and the food I ate went mostly to storage. Using Intermittent fasting properly can be extremely healthy.

Fasting can be supportive. Fasting through the morning while loading calories at night is where things went sideways for me. I wrote about intermittent fasting HERE.

Before I forget, there is a free recipe download at the end of the post. Enjoy!

This study right HERE compared two groups of overweight women eating the same number of daily calories (~1,400 kcal) for 12 weeks but with different calorie timing:

• Big Breakfast Group: ~700 kcal breakfast, 500 kcal lunch, 200 kcal dinner
• Big Dinner Group: ~200 kcal breakfast, 500 kcal lunch, 700 kcal dinner
• Breakfast defined as the early morning meal, eaten when circadian signaling is primed for food.

Results:

• The big breakfast group lost more weight and greater waist circumference reduction.
• They had significantly greater decreases in fasting insulin, glucose, and ghrelin and these are key metabolic markers linked to diabetes and appetite regulation.
• They also showed better overall glucose tolerance and metabolic profile improvements despite eating the same calories as the big dinner group.

It wasn’t WHAT they ate, but WHEN they ate.

I can already hear it. “I’ve never been hungry for breakfast ever.” or “I feel sick when I eat breakfast.” Well, not eating breakfast may be common but it is not normal. A chronically low morning appetite or absent appetite in the morning is often a signal, not a preference.

It can reflect:
• Leptin resistance
• Poor circadian signaling
• Cortisol mismatch
• Disrupted sleep cycles

And skipping breakfast and loading calories at night reinforces the problem.

What about people who don’t want to lose weight? Breakfast is a hormone signal. When you eat a real breakfast (especially protein + fat) early in the day, you send this message to your brain that there is food available and there is no need to conserve and hold on to everything. It:

• Improves leptin signaling (there’s enough energy! YAY!)
• Lowers stress hormones later in the day, and improves thyroid signaling
• Prevents the body from slipping into conservation mode and spare MUSCLE! WIN!
• It helps with skin remodeling, skin tone and elasticity. Think less wrinkles and better muscles.
• Better signaling from your body about when you are full and less food noise in the evenings.
• BETTER SLEEP which improves everything.

Skipping breakfast, especially chronically, tells the body the opposite. That is how people end up:

• Cold
• Tired
• Losing hair
• Losing muscle

That’s metabolic stress.

What I’m trying to say is eating breakfast is metabolic confidence. We all need that!

If you need ideas for breakfast options, download my free Protein Packed Breakfast recipes.