BBC i. Player - Horizon - 2. Eat, Fast and Live Longer. Michael Mosley examines the science behind fasting, as he sets himself the ambitious goal of living longer, staying younger and losing weight without changing his lifestyle. And he wants to make as few changes to his life as possible along the way. He discovers the powerful new science behind the ancient idea of fasting, and he thinks he's found a way of doing it that still allows him to enjoy his food. Michael tests out the science of fasting on himself - with life- changing results. Why Does Breakfast Make Me Hungry? I thought I’d share my thoughts on that with you today. ![]() ![]() Note: Major Update July 1. July 1. 7th. But I proved them wrong. Why Does Breakfast Make Some People Hungry? As mentioned, it wasn’t without grounds that the question piqued my curiosity beyond that which could be attributed to food selection. In questionnaires, clients would often note that eating in the morning made them ravenous before noon, and sometimes no more than an hour after a steady breakfast. On Facebook, in emails, and in casual conversation, anecdotes to a similar effect kept popping up too frequently to be explained by mere coincidence. Or to be shrugged off with a half- assed answer, with the underlying assumption that everyone’s eating crap for breakfast. These folks weren’t eating Cheerios rounded off with a peanut butter sandwhich and a large glass of orange juice – you know, the usual Average Joe breakfast that would make anyone hungry an hour later. No, these guys had your typical fitcentric breakfast with the kinds of foods that most of us ate at one point or another – oatmeal, dairy, eggs, etc. Often, but certainly not that often since the increasing popularity of Paleo, a meal characterized by moderate to high amounts of carb and protein, relatively low on fat, and more often than not a decent chunk of fiber. You can spend all day arguing about the healthiness of whole grains and dairy (just not here, thanks), but fact remains that these foods could not singlehandedly explain the fact that breakfast triggered hunger in some people. Hell, just google “why does breakfast make me hungry”, “hungry after breakfast”, or “breakfast makes me hungry”, and you’ll see that forums are swamped by people with the same experiences. I’ll add myself to the aforementioned crowd. Omitting breakfast may have been the single greatest improvement to my diet when I embarked on my intermittent fasting regimen back in ’0. For me, like countless other Leangains practitioners, breakfast was a huge pain in the ass and skipping it made all the difference in the world. Compared to before, dieting became almost effortless. Go to the BBC Four 50 Years of Horizon. Eat, Fast and Live Longer. What’s It All About? Intermittent Fasting and the 5-2 Diet Plan. The 5-2 Challenge. Figuring Out What To Eat On Five Hundred Calories A Day. What is the 5:2 diet? Eat what you want five days a week, send your body to starvation mode for two. The part-time diet that still allows you to eat chocolate cake. Not to mention long- term maintenance. No more counting the hours .
This is of course very interesting to me, because it’s a damn strange thing. Why is it that some people are better off not eating anything at all in the morning? How can you be better off with zero calories than hundreds of calories under these specific conditions? It just doesn’t make sense. So I set out trying to answer that question, and finally arrived at a satisfying hypothesis a mechanism behind that mysterious post- breakfast hunger surge that so many of us experience. The original article ended up being 1. Far too long for most people’s attention spans, and way too technical for most peoples level of understanding. Yesterday I sat down and rewrote the whole thing, trying to convey it all in the same manner I’d use when explaining it to my girlfriend, bro, or invisible friend, to which I’ve retold this whole thing to numerous times now. That’s Berkhanese for “some things are simplified from my perspective, but it’s still complex enough for the lay man, and hopefully decent enough to satisfy the expert.” Enjoy. Not breakfast in the original sense of the meaning, i. It’s something you’ll instantly be able to relate to, because you have the same experience, or something that makes you wonder what the hell I’m talking about, because you simply don’t have that problem. I’m guessing most of my readers fall into the former category, so I won’t be spending much time on academic discourse in attempting to define the phenomenon beyond what I’ve already done. Simply put, some people get hungry, very hungry, and/or experience cravings of various magnitude shortly after eating breakfast in the morning. In the scientific literature, researchers who specialize in research on appetite, hunger and addiction, make a distinction between the aforementioned terms (i. For me personally, the sensation can be described as hunger, in the sense most of you probably think of hunger. Post- breakfast hunger sets in somewhere between morning and noon, usually 3. However, some people have mentioned that irritability and impaired ability to focus on tasks that require sustained amounts of concentration, co- occurs with post- breakfast hunger. An important point is that the same meal will not trigger this early and/or pronounced sensation of hunger if consumed later in the day. Post- breakfast hunger cannot be explained by differences in food choice, but by certain individual factors, and their interaction with a time- of- day effect of feeding on hormonal profile and metabolism. Cereal will make anyone hungry soon again, but an important point of this article is that post- breakfast hunger is independent of food choice (i. By the way, the above is part of my post- workout meal, when I occasionally include a box of cereal. I might be having some beef, potatoes, and ice cream afterwards to celebrate the new deadlift PB I just scored. Stay tuned for the video. A Primer on Cortisol. Cortisol is the main culprit behind for post- breakfast hunger, the up- until- now mysterious affliction that is the topic behind this article. Most of you probably associate cortisol with stress and muscle catabolism, and consequently with “bad” and “avoid.” This is partly correct, but mostly erroneous. Since “partly correct” is to blame for many of the nonsensical diet myths out there, it’s useless. People claiming that eating six times a day will stoke your metabolism, and that fasting causes starvation mode, are “partly correct” – but mostly full of shit, as I explained in “Top Ten Fasting Myths Debunked.”The context is often critical, and this is especially true in regards to cortisol - which is why I’m going to give you a very brief primer on this complex and multi- facetted hormone. There are almost as many definitions of stress as there are myths about cortisol, but in regards to the former, the one that appeals to me from a minimalist perspective is. Stress can be defined as any challenge to homeostasis of an individuum that requires an adaptive response of that individuum. The role of cortisol during these challenges is to boost you, not cripple you, whether the stressor is physical (e. Cortisol improves muscle and glucose metabolism, increases pain tolerance, diminishes fatigue and strengthens motivation. By the way, does this answer those of you who have asked me about my thoughts on pre- workout cortisol blockers? OK, then all I can say is good luck with those squats, buddy. Due to cortisol in response to a cognitive challenge, we can recall important facts faster and in greater detail than otherwise, maintain focus, stay alert and pull all- nighters in front of the computer if needed. Cortisol increases sensory perception, memory recall, and wakefulness. Most of the above is covered in Robert Sapolsky’s excellent book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, in which he also explains when and why cortisol becomes bad for us. Briefly, prolonged exposure to a stressor results in chronically elevated cortisol, which then does all sorts of bad things to us. There’s a time and place for cortisol. In this day and age, the line between work (stress) and leisure time (rest) is often blurred. With constant self- imposed demands, never ending obligations, and endless opportunities to work (in the office, at home, etc), the stressors of modern society are of the psychological variety and they are always present if you allow them in. In stark contrast, the stressors of the past were more often of the intermittent and physical variety. While they were probably more severe and often life threatening, there was a clear- cut line between the start and the end. And this explains the title of Sapolsky’s book, which I cannot recommend highly enough, and which I urge you to read if you want a more detailed explanation of stress and the workings of cortisol. What Sapolsky doesn’t cover in great detail however, is the cortisol awakening response and the acute effects of cortisol on insulin secretion. The Cortisol Awakening Response Most people get the concept of exercise and work as stressors, “challenges to homeostasis”, which require an adaptive response (cortisol). But few people think of waking up from sleep and rising out of bed as a particularly stressful event. However, waking up from sleep is indeed a profound challenge to homeostasis, if you think of stress in those terms. The transitioning between the passive sleeping state to the active wake state is – in a way – like a leisurely walk interrupted by an all- out- sprint. In endocrinology, there’s a special name for the events that transpire to wake you up in the morning: the cortisol awakening response (CAR), on which there exists a substantial amount of research. The rapid increase and peak in cortisol level after awakening is termed the cortisol awakening response (CAR). Although it is thought that CAR is a distinct part of diurnal cortisol rhythm, CAR and diurnal cortisol rhythm actually represent two separate adrenocortical activities. But as you waddle out of bed on the way to the shower, cortisol will continue to climb. It will reach a peak 3. We’ve now reached a key point in this hypothesis behind post- breakfast hunger, because the precise timing of the circadian cortisol peak (CAR) and breakfast consumption has some very interesting effects on insulin secretion. The Cortisol Awakening Response and Insulin Secretion. So you’ve taken your shower, dressed for the day, and done whatever else you like to do in the morning that’s none of my business, and now you sit down to eat breakfast before work, school, or whatever else. I’m guessing it’s now some 3. As you sit down to eat, or at some point right around that time, cortisol reaches the highest point of the day, which would be 2. That’s compared to 2- 5 nmol/l between evening and midnight, which is the lowest point during the circadian cycle if you want some numbers.
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