There’s been a growing debate over the past few years over whether or not you should have breakfast or not before you start your day. Growing up in the pre-Internet days, there was no debate about the importance having breakfast. Breakfast, we were told in those pre-social media days before smartphones and tablets, was the most important meal of the day.
We were brought up and conditioned to have our bowl of Cheerios or Lucky Charms before heading off to school or, if our parents were not rushing out the door themselves to get to work on time themselves, we might have had the luxury of enjoying a healthier breakfast of toast and eggs prepared for us. But most of us during those less hectic times would have had a bowl of cereal placed before us and told to hurry up and eat so we wouldn’t be late to school.
This dogma of breakfast being the most important meal of the day was so ingrained in us that we were convinced that if we missed our breakfast we wouldn’t have enough energy to pay attention at school or play dodge ball at recess. There was no debate. Breakfast was as necessary to our wellbeing as brushing our teeth before bedtime and drinking eight glasses of water a day.
I followed this practice of having breakfast for most of my childhood, but realized, as I got older that I usually wasn’t hungry when I woke up in the morning and felt fine, maybe even better, without breakfast.
I began skipping breakfast occasionally and as time went on I dropped it entirely, except on weekends when I might enjoy some pancakes and eggs with a cup of coffee. It took some time getting comfortable rejecting the advice I had been taught and conditioned to believe since childhood.
And it wasn’t just my parents telling me how important breakfast was to start my day. Television commercials that aired during the morning cartoon broadcasts would drive home this point home continuously every morning as well. I can still see that leprechaun dancing around a lush green field with a colorful rainbow leading to a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms.
But as time went on, I gradually began to skip breakfast. It wasn’t out of any particular concern for my health, or part of any diet plan, or a desire to extend my overnight fast an extra few hours. I simply realized that eating breakfast before rushing out the door to work never felt that great.
When I was younger I seemed to have a stronger appetite after I woke up, but as I got older my appetite in the morning was either very light or non-existent. I soon reached a point where I simply wasn’t that hungry in the morning and had no desire for breakfast at all. The morning appetite was gone. That is when I began skipping breakfast Monday through Friday. On the weekends, when I didn’t have to rush off to work and didn’t feel any time pressure to eat quickly, I would occasionally enjoy a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and sometimes pancakes. But for the rest of the week, a cup of coffee or two was just fine.
At the time I was practicing a somewhat modified version of intermittent fasting, although I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t come upon the term of intermittent fasting until years later when I began to look for ways to get my blood sugar under control. Despite all of the challenges the Internet has brought to our lives with its relentless attack on our attention spans and its ability to distract us, it has been an incredible source of information for health conscious individuals.
It’s allowed me to educate myself on a variety of nutrition and health related subjects. Without the internet I never would have learned a lot of what I know today about the effects of carbohydrates on my blood sugar levels or how simply extending my overnight fast a few more hours would help me feel healthier throughout the day.
While the internet certainly has its negatives—its threat to our attention span being the primary one—there’s no doubt it has offered many of us an alternative source of information to help us challenge many nutrition myths we were brought up on. Without it, I might still feel guilty about skipping my bowl of Lucky Charms every morning.
