I suspect that people who skip breakfast tend to eat more calories in the evening, and eating late usually elevates your blood sugar for longer than the same meal would if you ate it at 9am or even 2pm.

So I discovered after wearing a CGM (just out of curiosity -- I'm not diabetic and I'm a normal BMI) for a few weeks. I'm rarely hungry until 1pm or so, which meant that I was eating a meal in the early afternoon and then another around 8pm-9pm. Since my weight is stable and my A1C always looks great, I was pretty surprised to see how high my blood sugar went (and STAYED) from dinner into the early hours of the morning. Not diabetic levels, but ~110-125, not ideal when your last meal was hours ago!

I did a little experiment and if I stopped eating by dark, didn't matter what I'd eaten (even if it was an ice cream sundae) -- my blood sugar was back below 100 within a couple of hours, and stayed that way all night.

Sucks for those of us who aren't hungry in the mornings. But I try now to finish eating by 7pm or so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may be a stupid question, but what constitutes as skipping breakfast? Is it a matter of eating within a certain amount of time after getting up in the morning? I've been walking first thing in the morning and eating 30-60 minutes after that, which is a few hours after getting up. I'm usually not hungry right away but by the time I am preparing something to eat, I am feeling the hunger.

Your first meal of the day is breakfast. Breaking the fast= breakfast.

I agree; but for the purposes of OP's question and this discussion, what constitutes "skipping breakfast?"
Person A gets up at 6 am and first eats at 9 a.m.
Person B gets up at 9 am and first eats at 12 noon.
Person C gets up at 8 am and eats at 11 am while
Person C gets up at 9 and also eats at 11 am.

Have any of these people skipped breakfast?

I would say no, none of these people are "skipping breakfast."

I get up at 5-5:30, and don't eat until 11-12pm. I don't even say that I "skip breakfast" but rather, that I eat my breakfast (break fast) pretty late.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may be a stupid question, but what constitutes as skipping breakfast? Is it a matter of eating within a certain amount of time after getting up in the morning? I've been walking first thing in the morning and eating 30-60 minutes after that, which is a few hours after getting up. I'm usually not hungry right away but by the time I am preparing something to eat, I am feeling the hunger.

Your first meal of the day is breakfast. Breaking the fast= breakfast.

I agree; but for the purposes of OP's question and this discussion, what constitutes "skipping breakfast?"
Person A gets up at 6 am and first eats at 9 a.m.
Person B gets up at 9 am and first eats at 12 noon.
Person C gets up at 8 am and eats at 11 am while
Person C gets up at 9 and also eats at 11 am.

Have any of these people skipped breakfast?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ive just read that skipping breakfast raises the risk of prediabetes and internet info seems to support this.

I thought eating less was more beneficial and waiting to eat until later would be better! Like intermittant fasting which seems highly regarded.

Ignore that information. It is being put out by the processed food manufacturers

Oh yeah, where did you read that? Post the source of your information.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF is a fad. What matters is not eating between meals. Cramming your eating into 6 or 8 hours is not more helpful.
Check David Agus.

A fad? Fasting is part of most religions and millions of people fast. This has been true for a very long time.

I agree that snacking is not good. Constantly spiking your blood sugar can lead to insulin resistance.

People are participating in religious fasts to improve health. It’s also why religions exempt certain people from fasting.

Are NOT participating to improve health

It doesn’t matter why. It isn’t a fad though. Fads come and go. People have been fasting forever.

It is 100% a fad. It is being touted as beneficial for your health with zero scientific basis for it. Muslims fast for one month and not year round like the IF folks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF is a fad. What matters is not eating between meals. Cramming your eating into 6 or 8 hours is not more helpful.
Check David Agus.

A fad? Fasting is part of most religions and millions of people fast. This has been true for a very long time.

I agree that snacking is not good. Constantly spiking your blood sugar can lead to insulin resistance.

Well, if the religious people do it, then it must be scientifically sound.

Anonymous wrote:Nope. I've been skipping breakfast my entire life. I'm basically underweight by AmericN standards. Blood work completely healthy, and perfectly normal blood glucose. I prefer to have a cup of coffee with sugar free organic almond milk, go to pilates/yoga, then come back and have lunch.

So because YOU, one person, does not have high blood sugar currently, we should all ignore science and listen to you?

I think eating sugar and carb rich foods is the issue at hand...not so much the skipping of breakfast. It's wise to only eat when you are hungry, and make your servings the size of your closed fist, which is about the size of your stomach at capacity.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think skipping breakfast increases risk. It is more than people who can skip breakfast (i.e., are not hungry in the am) often having higher cortisol and blood sugar.

That type of answer makes sense to me. And I think a lot of similar headlines « Research is showing that if you do x then y happens » follows the same pattern when it comes to nutrition, it is actually because of y that you do x.

I Strongly suspect for example that all the headlines about coffee drinkers and people who drink alcohol in moderation live longer follows the same pattern. At 44, just like my dad, I suddenly started having more difficulties handling the effect of my morning coffee and the impact of my daily glass of wine. So I have been switching to tea and drinking less and less, probably will have to be sober soon.

We are both thin pre diabetics with some early signs of metabolic syndrome despite exercise and good diets and my guess is that unfortunately we are not built to live to 100.

But our data may end up contributing to the storyline of « tea drinkers and sober people don’t live as long » when we actually had to stop coffee and alcohol because our « weaker » bodies couldn’t handle them…

Anonymous wrote:This may be a stupid question, but what constitutes as skipping breakfast? Is it a matter of eating within a certain amount of time after getting up in the morning? I've been walking first thing in the morning and eating 30-60 minutes after that, which is a few hours after getting up. I'm usually not hungry right away but by the time I am preparing something to eat, I am feeling the hunger.

Your first meal of the day is breakfast. Breaking the fast= breakfast.

OP, that could be due to people overeating at lunch, especially overeating carbs, causing a huge blood sugar spike.

This may be a stupid question, but what constitutes as skipping breakfast? Is it a matter of eating within a certain amount of time after getting up in the morning? I've been walking first thing in the morning and eating 30-60 minutes after that, which is a few hours after getting up. I'm usually not hungry right away but by the time I am preparing something to eat, I am feeling the hunger.

Anonymous wrote:Ive just read that skipping breakfast raises the risk of prediabetes and internet info seems to support this.

I thought eating less was more beneficial and waiting to eat until later would be better! Like intermittant fasting which seems highly regarded.

Ignore that information. It is being put out by the processed food manufacturers

I like to eat high protein and veggies in the morning to start my day off right. I usually eat a couple of scrambled eggs (no seasoning, no butter), mixed with veggies or some plain chicken and veggies. No fruit or sweets in the morning. No skipping food in the morning. Just fuel your body right.

I don’t know but for diabetics the advice is not to skip breakfast but to have some good protein potentially with a complex carb (egg with whole grain bread, oatmeal with milk etc.)

One thing that these general rules don’t recognize is that there are different genetic variants to diabetes. Some people can eat whatever and be fine. Some people can eat great and exercise and still be at risk. This is all still being researched and the insurance doesn’t cover the genetic tests yet so most people don’t even know if they have one of these variants. It’s suspected in my family because my brother who exercises constantly, is super thin and eats very well was pediabetic. And my dad was diabetic despite only being a tiny bit overweight and eating zero junk food or soda. All his aunts and uncles had diabetes as well, back in the days before junk food even existed.