health

Can breakfast help keep us thin? Nutrition science is tricky

20 Comments
By CANDICE CHOI

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To make this article in some way relevant to Japan, it's a pity that so few cereals or major components of western breakfasts are so hard to come by in Japan. Even import shops in Tokyo tend to only sell the same 6 cereals you can get in any supermarket in Japan, + oatmeal.

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Going home for a visit and walking down the cereal aisle at the supermarket is like Christmas morning as a kid. I always buy too much! hahahahaha

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Cereal in general isn't a good breakfast food, as it's often high in sugars. Of course, that's not true across the board, but for the most part.

I start every day off with some vegetables, two eggs, a couple of sausages and oatmeal. I've been doing this for years, starting back when I used to be a bodybuilder. Being a breakfast eater means I don't have a control self to compare against, but that said, it's always worked well for me. It gives me good energy to start the day, and I usually eat a medium sized lunch, and then a regular dinner. Even though I'm prone to getting fat by genetics (my family is not a skinny one), my body-fat ratio is always in the 15 - 25% range. Some of that of course is helped by the fact that I go to the gym 3-5 times per week, but diet trumps exercise when it comes to weight loss. Exercise is the icing on the cake (or should that be lack of?), diet is what is most important.

When it comes down to it, keeping a good body fat ratio comes down to eating healthier foods, and not eating too much. So simple, and yet so difficult.

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Cereal in general isn't a good breakfast food, as it's often high in sugars.

That's particularly true in Japan. It's better to stick to those with smaller amounts of sugar or no added sugar. Check out some of the muesli (usually imported), all-bran and porridge with no sugar. It's also sometimes difficult to differentiate between sugar and carbs on Japanese packages. Granola and most other stuff in Japan is packed with sugar.

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leftover pizza or lasagna makes the best breakfast.

Definitely tastes great! Not the healthiest way to start the day though. Though if healthy ingredients were used, not the worst way to start it either.

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Nutrition science is "tricky?" Not at all -- it is as straightforward as you can get. But manufacturers of PROCESSED JUNK FOODS (especially breakfast cereals) absolutely do not want that science to reach the consumers. They will go to ANY LENGTHS to lie, cheat, and deceive in order to sell their products. It is up to individuals to not get taken in by false advertising and packaging.

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Calories influence weight. Nothing more, nothing less. You need to know how many calories you need and adjust accordingly.

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Calories influence weight. Nothing more, nothing less.

Research in recent years has shown that there may be more to one's weight than just calories. For example, time-restricted eating, where one restricts their food intake to a period of 9-11 hours in a day (from the first to last food of the day), fasting for the remaining 13-15 hours of each day. Even with the same calorie intake as people in the control group who eat at any time, time-restricted eating appears to lower body fat those who practice it.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20150507/time-restricted-eating

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/a-12-hour-window-for-a-healthy-weight/

https://draxe.com/time-restricted-eating/

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Coffee, OJ, bread (ideally real 'fresh' bread i.e baguette or round loaf, unsliced) and butter/jam (nutella once in a while), mandarin (or other 'seasonal' fruit) as breakfast staple.

Once in a while (in my case 1 week/month): yoghurt and cereals, or crepes/pancakes (with nutella/jam). Not saying it's the healthiest brekkie around but it's done the job for me. And am no nazi, I don't mind the occasional fry up.

Dunno how ppl who skip breakfast (am talking proper breakfast not takeaway 7/11 cappuccino/ muffin on the way to work) do tbh. Plus having a 30-40min breakfast reading/watching the news, with your partner (or not) is imo the best way to start the day.

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Stranger: You totally misunderstand the processes going on with time restriction. It is just proves that the body can adjust to less calories by changing the times of consumption. Sometimes the body needs more calories to function, and with time restrictions is shows that the body can use less calories.

Calories and how much energy they use or as you might consider burn are as stable as at 1 atmosphere, water freezes at 0 degrees centigrade. It is a fact.

People that go on binge diets find that they do not lose weight as the body is will shut down needing calories and maintain weight, but of course if you are starved like in concentration camps, you body will then start attacking fat deposits and eventually muscle leading to a slow death.

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Stranger: You totally misunderstand the processes going on with time restriction. It is just proves that the body can adjust to less calories by changing the times of consumption.

No, it's not less calories. Each of the three articles I linked to is clear on that:

the mice that were time restricted didn’t become obese. That was remarkable, Panda says, because they were still eating the same number of calories as the others and getting those from a high-fat diet. He has since repeated those results with different kinds of high-fat and high-sugar diets. Each time, it turns out the same way. No matter how poor the diets of the time-restricted mice are, they don’t gain weight.

And:

Salk scientists fed groups of adult males one of four diets: high-fat, high-fructose, high-fat and high-sucrose, and regular mouse kibble. Some of the mice in each dietary group were allowed to eat whenever they wanted throughout their waking hours; others were restricted to feeding periods of nine, 12 or 15 hours. The caloric intake for all the mice was the same.

And:

However, once they had access to the same food any time they wanted, the mice’s weight gain doubled despite eating the same number of calories.

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Very good. Perfect proof that medicines do not make one become obese.

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I don't get what that is in reference to.

But, while the studies are not conclusive, they are indicating that weight gain/loss my not be based on calories alone.

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I find that with the same calorie intake and same amount of exercise, the amount of sleep I get makes a huge difference. Too little sleep and I gain weight; a good solid 7 hours on average, and the pounds fall off.

Too little sleep causes the brain to produce more of the stress hormone cortisol, which has the effect of making the body want to hang onto the fat.

Too little sleep also causes the brain to produce more of the hormone ghrelin, an appetite-booster; so that lack of sleep makes you want to eat more, and to tend to choose foods with higher calorie values. So calorie-counting is harder.

So if you want to lose weight, eat healthy, take the dog out for a long walk every day, and go to bed early.

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Overnight oats are my go-to breakfast. Healthy and cheap and can be mixed with all kinds of fruits, nuts etc.

Basic dieting is: calories in vs. calories out:

①If you eat more than your body needs (including any exercise you do) then you will gain weight (fat/muscle gain depends on amount and type of exercise). ②If you eat less than your body needs (including any exercise you do) then you will gain weight (fat/muscle loss depends on amount and type of exercise).

In general a healthy lifestyle is all about diet, exercise, and sleep in my opinion. I would hope these days that most people are at least aware of the nutritional difference (calories aside) between a candy bar and piece of fruit for example.

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@Iomamae: You got it right.

@strange:

Let's make a hypothetical story here:

3 People each weigh 100kg. Each BMI (Asian Index/Other Race Indexes balanced)

1 is normal weight for BMI 2 is fat for BMI 3 is obese for BMI

All three eat 1000 calories per day.

We change to the timing study and watch what happens.

1 becomes too thin and her doctors are worried 2 starts to lose weight and she eventually balances out to a lower BMI 3 starts to lose and might balance out as fat

You cannot change the laws of calories and energy needed to burn them, but from these studies, it shows, although not 100% that timing intake of calories can increase the metabolism, thus burning more calories in less than the past 24 hours each calculated at before the time changes in consumption. Perhaps it is pushing the burn down to 20 hours instead. Make sense?

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/simple-math-equals-easy-weight-loss https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-quantitative-relationship-between-calorie-loss-and-weight-loss http://modernhealthmonk.com/how-many-calories/

Please do not give the illusion to those that are obese that they can follow a clock and become thin and beautiful like a Sports Illustrated Swimming Woman.

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You cannot change the laws of calories and energy needed to burn them, but from these studies, it shows, although not 100% that timing intake of calories can increase the metabolism, thus burning more calories in less than the past 24 hours each calculated at before the time changes in consumption. Perhaps it is pushing the burn down to 20 hours instead. Make sense?

Honestly, no, it doesn't. The theory behind what you are might be correct, but I can't follow what you've laid out here to understand what you are saying.

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Well, I've re-read your post again, and I think that I get what you are saying. I think basically you're saying that calories in need to be calories out, or one gets fatter (or skinnier depending on which way the imbalance goes), and that timing the intake of your food can change how your metabolism processes those calories.

If that's what you're saying, I agree - which is what the studies I posted were showing. By limiting the time of intake, the amount of calories one burns (calories out) increases due to changes in metabolism.

But, this is different to what you said originally:

Calories influence weight. Nothing more, nothing less.

The first part of your comment is correct - calories influence weight. And to some degree the second part of your sentence is also correct, in that a deficit of calories will drop your weight, and a surplus will increase your weight.

However, there are factors that increase whether or not you have a surplus or a deficit of calories, your metabolism being a major one. And a time-restricted diet appears to influence your metabolism in a positive manner, making it easier to create a deficit of calories than eating at any time of day. This means that time-restricted eating can influence your weight, and as this isn't directly a calorie thing, it's why I commented originally that your point that nothing more or less influences weight, isn't really correct. Choosing the time you eat can influence your weight, though it does it by influencing the number of calories you burn, which goes back to your point that calories are what influences weight.

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Why does this article in no longer available?

I also would like to recommend on a great article that has been written by my friend Efrat which is a Pharmacist and Iridologist, the original article is available here:

http://restaurants-nearme.com/3-nutritional-tips-anyone-can-do-energetic-morning-successful-day/

Her best suggestion is: "In the morning eat like a king"...

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