OK, listen up. Here is the absolute, 100%, for-sure reason why we're fa- ahem, big-boned.
It's not because we're skipping breakfast. It's because we're skipping lunch.
The experts have spoken ... again, as told in "Why you should actually break for lunch," an article by CNN health and nutrition contributor Lisa Drayer.
Drayer quotes registered dietitian and nutritionist Tamara Duker Freuman: "Carving out time for a satiating, balanced lunch can really help organize the eating day and keep us in better touch with our actual hunger cues. So we can eat when hungry and be less likely to snack our way through the entire workday."
We're then warned of the evils of lunch skippage. It "can cause more than hunger pangs, low blood sugar and irritability. It will also almost guarantee that you consume the majority of your calories in the evening," as well as have sleep problems. Freuman says she sees that people are better able to eat dinner in the proper moderation when they've had a proper breakfast and lunch.
And to any workaholics and slavedriver bosses out there, listen up: You/your employees should be able to get away from the desk to eat lunch. "Don't forget to use lunchtime as an opportunity to unplug and refresh your mind," Drayer urges. "Taking a screen break can slow down the pace of eating and allow you to pay more attention to the textures and flavors of foods."
As the story goes, it's best to plan our lunches, and the time of day to eat them, to avoid junk-food cravings that accompany those blood-sugar crashes. And for weight management we should stay away from what I call "linners" ... late-afternoon meals. Drayer cites a study in which linner-eaters lost less weight than midday lunchers, even when the linner meals had the same calorie counts as, and nutritional makeup similar to, the true-lunch meals.
Now the adage goes that one should eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinnertime. Apparently, said adage could be modified a bit: Eat like a king at breakfast. Be sure not to skip eating at least like a prince at lunch. If you do, you'll spend dinner (and snack times) eating like a pauper who broke into the castle kitchen.
But this new lunch advice complicates things a bit for folk like me.
I skipped many a breakfast back in the day. For a long time, I figured that was one of the contributors to my size issues as we were sternly warned that skipping breakfast could lead to those. Well, then came the intermittent-fasting eating plan, which gave me the go-ahead to skip breakfast and eat in my preferred window of time, noon-8 p.m.
So now here's the admonition to not skip lunch. Which leads to the question: Are intermittent-fasting lunch skippers doomed? If "breakfast" is at noon, does failing to eat a 3:30 p.m. "lunch" and waiting until the end of the eating window for what would only be a second meal keep one hefty?
But actually, I've been drifting back into having breakfasts due to pill-taking. The epilogue to recent column rantings about having to take prescription pills: I find myself with three pills, two of which I must take every day (the other one — Meclizine for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, which is a lot more fun to say than to be diagnosed with — I can take as needed). Of the two daily pills, one can be taken with or without food any time, but the other should be taken with food to avoid an upset stomach ... and should be taken at the same time every day. So that makes things really, really fun. If the first meal of the day isn't until lunchtime, that increases the chance that I'll forget to take the dang thing. I figure having breakfast at breakfast time is the best way to remember taking meds. But now I have to remember to eat lunch, too, and at the proper time.
One solution for lunch skippers who want to take the experts' advice; or those of us who need to remember to both eat their meals and take their pills at certain times: Set multiple alarms ... something we can do with our handy-dandy iPhones that allow for the setting of multiple alarms. I figure I could switch my intermittent fasting schedule to, say, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., having my intermittent fasting/pill-taking/lunching cake and eating it too:
Alarm: Get up for early-morning workout that, alas, isn't helping me look like J-Lo.
Alarm: Eat breakfast and take pills.
Alarm: Eat smaller lunch.
Alarm: Have yet-smaller dinner after which I'm supposed to stop shoveling food in for the day.
Alarm (about two hours after last alarm): Find something else to do to get my mind off "Sure would like a vat of ice cream right now."
Then again, the experts tell us something new every time we turn around. It's tempting to just throw up our hands and go grab some lunch, no matter what time it happens to be.
After all, it's 12 o'clock somewhere.
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