What If You Stop Eating Breakfast For 30 Days?

Hello Health Campions. What would happen if  you stopped eating breakfast for 30 days? You  

have probably been told that breakfast  is the most important meal of the day  

and therefore it would be a terrible idea to skip  breakfast. You have probably heard things like,  

the brain only runs on glucose and if you don't  refuel the glucose with the breakfast then  

you'll run out of brain juice. That after 12 hours  without food when you're waking up your glycogen,  

your carbohydrate reserves, would be almost gone.  That you have to refuel your energy and your vital  

nutrients. That these are things you have to  fill up on you have to top off every few hours  

before it's too late. Don't do that then  you will become lethargic and unfocused and  

you're becoming unproductive and your life will  go down the drain and you'll probably be half dead  

before you even get to lunchtime but it turns out  that none of these are actually true. So let's go  

through and talk about what actually happens. Will  you actually run out of glucose? Well not nearly  

as soon as people might think because you have  something called glycogen that's the storage form  

of glucose. That's the reserve of carbohydrate  that your body has. And people will tell you  

that you're using mostly carbs and therefore you  run out quickly but the biggest reason that your  

body uses a lot of carbs is if you feed it a lot  of carbs. It's not such a strange concept whatever  

fuel you feed your body the most is what your  body is going to use the most. And if you do  

that all the time then your body will get adapted  to it so if you eat a lot of carbs your body will  

use a lot of carbs both because they're there  and because your body wants to get rid of them  

because it can only store so much and an excess  is really unhealthy because it causes high blood  

sugar and metabolic problems. So therefore  if we reduce the number of carbohydrates  

and or the number of meals that we eat in a day,  now your body is going to find another source of  

fuel. If you stop feeding it so much carbs it'll  start using something else and the stored fuel on  

the body for the most part is fat and that's the  stuff people want to get rid of so if you cut back  

on one fuel source it will start using more of  another. And if you go low carb and I'm not even  

talking ketogenic let's just say you go from  300 grams of carbs to 75 or a hundred. You just  

reduce it dramatically now you're not feeding  so much carbs so your body gets better at using  

something else which in this case is going to  be fat. And fat is the preferred fuel for the  

body when you are at rest such as when you're  sleeping especially, and if you're low carb you  

probably will use somewhere between 80 to 95%  of the energy from fat. And when you're at rest  

most of the energy consumed, most of the work  done in your body, is by your vital organs,  

and they prefer fat and that's why you're going  to end up in this range. Now another thing to  

understand is that the body maintains certain  amounts of glycogen if you have on high carb  

diet then you will probably maintain a little bit  more but it doesn't mean that you don't maintain  

any if you're on a low carb diet. That's part  of what the liver does it wants to maintain  

a certain amount of glucose reserves and if you  are on a low carb diet, if you're teaching your  

body to use fat, then this is going to last  longer. The glycogen doesn't get used up so  

quickly so if you're on a high carb diet and  your body is trying to work its way through  

the carbohydrate you will probably maybe use up  half of your glycogen in a 12 hour period. However  

if your body is already accustomed to  using mostly fat, now it's going to use  

much much less of that glycogen, and it will  last much much longer. So after a 12 hour period  

that glycogen will probably have barely been  touched. What about nutrients don't we have to  

replenish them well obviously we do have to eat  on a regular basis your body has certain needs  

just not the way that we have been told that  you're going to run out after a few hours.  

So the nutrients that we have in the body the  vitamins and the minerals and the other resources,  

we have enough for days and weeks and months and  in some cases even years. There's nothing that  

you're going to run out of in a few hours. Well  what about calories for energy how soon do we have  

to refuel that well we talked about the glycogen  the carbohydrates, that we have stored in the  

body, that depending on how good we are at making  energy from fat, the carbohydrates might last us  

a day or two but that's a very very small amount  compared to all the fat that we have stored. Fat  

is the most effective form of energy both for  usage and storage we have more calories per gram  

and it takes less space and less weight to  store it also. The fat is going to last us a  

long long time so if you're an average person  maybe 150 pounds an average would be like 25%  

fat if you look normal weight you're not super  athletic or super overweight now you have a  

hundred and thirty thousand calories stored  on your body. That's gonna last you a while  

what if you're a little more athletic if you're  a big guy with lots of muscle 200 pounds 15% fat  

you still have over a hundred thousand calories.  And if you are obese if you're like 285 pounds 50%  

fat which is not that unusual now you have half  a million calories. You're not going to run out  

of energy anytime soon. And what about cognitive  function and focus are you going to be lethargic  

unfocused and unproductive are you going to feel  half dead before lunch. Well this is kind of  

interesting because a lot of people that I work  with they report that they get more energy they  

get better focused. In fact some people say that  you know I love that I lost the weight. I loved  

how all of my blood work came back better. All my  health markers are better, but I have to tell you,  

the single biggest transformation in my life is  how much energy I have, how much focus I have.  

But then a lot of people will miss breakfast  today and they feel terrible, and here we fall  

prey to the syndrome of trying something for too  short a time. It's kind of like someone tells us  

to change our diet and then this person comes and  says well it doesn't work because I ate a carrot  

once and nothing happened. Well we have to stop  thinking like that because if your body is used  

to something and you change it once, your body  hasn't had time to transition to become better at  

doing something else. So it's going to take just a  few days, but then you will find that you actually  

probably feel better. But also let's take a look  at the bigger perspective of the animal kingdom  

and where we came from from our ancestors.  Now ancestors they did not have any cereal,  

low-fat milk, waffles, crackers, pop-tarts,  pancakes, toast, jam, or even orange juice.  

They didn't have any of the things that we call  breakfast, nor did they have a fridge or a pantry  

where they could go and retrieve these things. And  what about all the other animals on the planet?  

Are they going to be weak because they're hungry  and now they can't hunt and they perish. Well  

eventually after several weeks and months then  they will deteriorate and perish without food,  

but if you look at this cheetah. It's the fastest  animal in the world is he gonna wake up and say  

"I didn't have any breakfast" and he's gonna pout  a little bit and say, "I don't feel so fast today.  

I don't think I'll catch anything". No of course  not. That's ridiculous and you hear how ridiculous  

that sounds. So what actually happens is that  when we don't get the breakfast now the body  

changes it starts mobilizing resources. It has  various hormones it has adrenaline and cortisol  

and growth hormone and neurotransmitters and  what happens is you actually get more focus  

because it's more important than ever that you're  able to stay focused and you have the energy  

to pursue whatever you need to do to put food on  the table. And now that you understand that it's  

not strange or abnormal or dangerous to miss  breakfast or any other meal once in a while,  

let's talk about what happens if you stop eating  breakfast for 30 days. The first two three days  

there may be a slight setback you might get  a little tired, hungry. You might have some  

cravings you might get a headache or feel a  little off and that's just because your body  

isn't used to it. You've been doing one thing  for so long and anytime you change it, your body  

goes - what happened? Where's my usual stuff. But  as soon as you're past the first couple of days,  

now things start getting better. As you cut back  on the frequency of meals and it wouldn't be a bad  

idea to cut back on some carbs as well, now your  body is going to increase its fat burning. If you  

stop putting one thing in it's going to burn more  of something else. And as you increase your fat  

burning now you find that you have less hunger  and less cravings and because you don't depend  

on carbs and frequent meals you get more stable  energy. You're not dependent on topping off your  

blood sugar every couple of hours and now actually  your energy will increase because it's more stable  

more sustainable. And when you get into that  fat burning as we talked about you have an  

almost unlimited supply of energy available.  And if you go for 30 days without breakfast  

and you do some blood work you find that a lot  of your metabolic markers are going to improve,  

and that's because you are doing something called  intermittent fasting. You're doing time restricted  

eating so instead of having a late evening snack  maybe at nine and then a breakfast at seven which  

would give you a 10 hour fasting windows. Now  you just extended that fasting window by about  

six hours if you instead of having breakfast you  wait till lunch and you don't have to do this  

immediately. You don't have to push the total six  hours just skip the breakfast and then have like a  

healthy snack maybe and and as you get used to it  it will be very very easy to not even think about  

food before lunch. And next time you measure your  glucose you'll probably find that it's better and  

you will find that your fasting insulin is better  and that's something I recommend measuring that  

is rarely done but it's one of the best markers  for insulin resistance. You'll probably find that  

your long-term glucose is going down your a1c. And  you'll also find that insulin resistance markers  

and other markers of cardiovascular disease,  risk markers, are going down like triglycerides  

and VLDL, very low density lipoproteins. So all of  these have to do with blood fats and if you become  

fat adapted, if you put less carbs in, your  body burns less carbs and it burns more fat,  

and less of the fat hangs out in the blood.  And one of the biggest changes is going to be  

in your total insulin resistance, because  insulin is released in response to eating food,  

and if you give yourself an extra six hours  without food, that's six hours where your insulin  

is allowed to keep dropping. And after 30 days  without breakfast you'll probably find that  

you have lost some weight and that's primarily  because your insulin has dropped, your growth  

hormone has increased and your fat burning has  increased. And this goes all together like we said  

when you go longer without food, then your insulin  drops, and insulin is a fat storing hormone  

it stores fat and it prevents the release  of fat. It prevents the access to fat  

so when insulin drops now all of these reserves  you have on your body they become more available.  

Growth hormone is a fat burning hormone and these  two put together is going to make a significant  

difference in your ability to burn fat.  But then it gets a little confusing because  

then there is research, and you go online  and you read something, and it says this  

study found that people who don't eat breakfast  are five times more likely to be overweight.  

But that's not really what the research says  and if you try to see what they studied and  

what they're saying, it's not that skipping a  meal makes you fat. It's that for some people  

who don't eat the right things and don't  understand how it works if they skip a meal  

they're going to do something else to compensate  for it. So what the research actually says  

is that people who skip breakfast tend to double  up on donuts and snacks. So when you start  

doing this it does not mean that you have free  access to the vending machine, right? You have to  

start understanding this and making some changes  and understand that it might be uncomfortable for  

a couple of days, but after that it's going to  be easy sailing. But maybe the best part of all  

is the sense of freedom that you get, because you  will spend less time cooking you spend less time  

eating. And if you have more time what could you  do if you have an extra 20-30 minutes every day  

what could you do with that? I'm sure there's  some people who could use a few minutes extra  

sleep. Maybe you'd like to go hiking take up  some new hobbies you have a few hours a week just  

by not eating breakfast. But it gets even better  because now you start realizing that there is no  

such thing as specific meal time. Those are  just habits. When your body is independent  

of that schedule you have so much more  freedom if you're involved in something  

or you're working on a project you don't have to  interrupt it just because there is a certain time.  

You're not a slave to a habit you're not a  slave to a food schedule. You don't have to plan  

your entire life around a food schedule  anymore. If you enjoyed this video,  

you're going to love that one. And  if you truly want to master health,  

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