Do you eat breakfast?

[Jess]

I never used to eat breakfast, because I find it difficult to eat first thing in the morning, but now I make myself. On weekdays, I have breakfast biscuits or an oat bar. At weekends, bacon sammiches or dippy eggs & soldiers or crumpets!

[noxious.sunshine]

We're working on getting into the habit of eating breakfast every morning. We're just not hungry until like 1 or 2 p.m. though.

[Iceglow]

Gah, I had a huge reply typed up and lost it. Suffice to say Noxy, the TLDR: if you're doing portion size and meal times right, plus have sufficient activity; you will be hungry between 6am and 8am every morning.

Effectively, what you're looking at if you're not TLDR on this post is the following:

1) Breakfast (no more than 30g or 2 slices of toast and a single poached egg) to be eaten between the hours of 6am and 8am.

2) Lunch - Rich in protein and complex carbs, to be eaten between 12 and 2pm Portion size is no bigger than your 2 fists together on a plate.

3) Dinner - Rich in protein, as devoid of carbs, even complex ones as possible. To be eaten between 6 and 8pm. Dinner is no bigger, than lunch but shouldn't be much smaller either.

(Note: I'm basing this in part of my own life time schedule which will be including a circa 11pm bed time and a 5:15am wake up time).

This will leave additional plenty of calories and some spaces for 1-A) which is a snack between Breakfast and Lunch (say 9 - 11am) which should be fruit or nut based. I'd say if you want Granola then put it here. The Granola takes about 6 hours to be digested. If you have it now, it'll give you a good time period prior to working out to digest the snack and get the maximum energy in to your system before sleep. 2-A) is an afternoon snack and this should be less heavy than snack 1-A) it could be that this is purely a bit of fruit. The reason for no 3-A) is because frankly, your body will not digest that snack fully before you go to sleep. Once you've gone sleep your body shuts down most of the active digestive processes and so more of the contents of the snack will be either converted to fat.

Your workout should ideally fit in to your day between 9am - 11am or between 3pm - 7pm. Note; the afternoon slot is preferable. You'll have eaten your complex carbs and be full of energy and that means you'll work harder and for longer. Proteins will break down in your digestive tract within 2 - 3 hours of consumption normally which means you'll absorb most of the dinner's goodness before you go to bed.

It gets more complicated when you include protein rich supplements like whey shakes. Your body after working out, will burn fat to provide the energy needed for immediate recovery, even if you're asleep (albeit at a slower rate). Which is why keeping a protein rich, carb devoid evening meal at least 2 - 3 hours before bed helps your body lose weight quicker as it gets burnt away fast and anything your muscles need is then drawn from the fat cells on your body. This is one of the key reasons why People looking to lose weight are advised to avoid using protein supplements and to have egg at breakfast. As protein shakes, will actually stop the body from burning that fat because it has a readily accessible source of energy that is particularly designed to burn easily. This is great when you're trying to gain mass, or have a very low body fat percentage but not when you're looking to lose weight.

However, it's still highly inadvisable for anyone on protein shakes to drink them in the evening after working out. In fact, I'd go so far as to say you should always opt for them to be consumed prior to working out, or if involved in your immediate recovery phase of working out you should drink them ASAP after the workout ends and should never consume them past 6pm. If you do, the added energy and protein will stop your body from digesting the dinner you're about to eat meaning your body will generate fat rather than burn it.

If you really cannot drink your protein shakes prior to working out and it's past 6pm when you finish, you're best off leaving the shake until the next morning. This means your body will burn your dinner (put a small amount of carbs in if you have to) and fat to provide energy for the immediate recovery of the muscles. If you drink the whey shake when you wake up first thing (i.e. for me when I do this it's at around 5:30am so "Meal 0)" on my list. It will simply stop your body from continuing that process until it has another source of energy to burn (which would be the breakfast in an hour and a half or so).

Don't worry if you can't follow this exactly. I understand the science of this and how to apply it but I'm the first to admit that I have my failures with relations to the actual implementation of this.

I know long post and slightly derailing the thread (perhaps better suited to the health and fitness thread over in the Lifestream forums but hey. It is a valid post in response to Noxy, the science is all there.

[BlackFire]

Sometimes I do. Or I sleep past twelve and have lunch instead.