I’m new to Huel - on my first week, but sure I’ll be sticking with it.
My query is about whether being someone who doesn’t eat breakfast, whether this would make me less likely to lose weight on Huel?
I’ve never really been much of a breakfast person, and now I’m trying to lose weight - I’m even less keen to grab anything for breakfast because it’s extra calories. I’m getting in to the habit of having Huel for lunch, a low calorie afternoon snack and then dinner - plus 30 mins on exercise bike in the evening.
I know everyone says “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, but after a quick Google, I’m not convinced it’s as crucial as people say.
Skipping breakfast is good for you! If you are only eating between between 12 and 8 then you are fasting for 16 hours. Fasting is good for you.
There is no special rule to dieting. As long as calories in is less than calories out then you will lose weight.
Fasting helps dieting for me as it means I can eat 2000 calories between 12 and 8 so I’m not hungry in this period and my body has adjusted to not eating for another 16 hours.
However if I eat breakfast I am then starving come 11-12 so it’s counter productive! More calories and more hungry!
Wow, that would definitely not work for me. If I skipped breakfast I’d be dead by about 10am and then pig out at lunch time. Terrible. I find that consistent well proportioned meals throughout the day sustains me.
I was never a breakfast person, could never face food, but since I started Huel I have a Huel breakfast most days. Not necessarily first thing, but by 10.30am.
I have lost weight, although it wasn’t really my intention…but I was a little heavier than I liked.
I see merits in fasting too…and find 16 hour fasting quite easy, although on a fasting day I wouldn’t eat 2000kcal between 12 and 8.
The great thing about Huel is you can easily graze on it, so even if you don’t feel like having much first thing in the morning, you can start it and just sip away at it throughout the morning.
In fact, with Huel you can totally abandon the concept of meals and just drink it when you feel like it.
Hi @itsjoerack! As @punner91 has already mentioned, skipping breakfast (and lunch, too!) may actually help and confers other benefits. More here and here.
Actually, your brain will work a lot better with ketones, the trouble is with eating breakfast in the morning (we all eat breakfast when we eat regardless of the time break-fast breaking fast get it) if you eat in the morning your cotisol is spiked so straight after your breakfast you get hungry again hence why most people then eat lunch but if you fast till 6 hours after you have woken up maybe have a black coffee or fruit in to stave off big meal you will run better plus take advantage of the 2000% increase in HGH at night and through your fast which preserves lean muscle and sheds fat as you are controlling your insulin and allowing it to use more of you fat stores.
Think about it our hunter-gather ancestors and hunter gathers today do not know for certain when there next meal will come the body knows this so keeps you on the ball during your fast with ketones so you can hunt better,if we did not we would never have left africa, and you never see and overweight tribesman.
The concern with skipping breakfast is that it has been shown that it can lead to over consumption later in the day - just an abstract unfortunately, any other articles you can find please share!
I.e. you end up super hungry later and eat your breakfast and some later in the day.
If you don’t over consume and don’t find it impairs you mentally, then skipping breaky could work for you. For me, I don’t have a problem scoffing down a hearty breakfast first thing! So it certainly would not work for me!
My breakfast Huel is my favourite meal of the day and I feel great for at least three hours after before having my second Huel. I’d be a right grump if I skipped breakfast
100% this. I skipped breakfast for a long long time. All it meant was that I ate crap at work in the mornings and really sh_tty lunches because I was starving.
Now I have Huel for breakfast and my morning hunger pangs are gone, so I snack less and get a better quality lunch because I’m not just trying to fill myself up.
Thanks everyone, it’s really good to hear everyone’s insight in to this.
Well in this case, I’ll continue with this current regime of no breakfast / Huel for lunch / regular dinner - although I have to say, I’m noticing that with dinners, I have an appetite unlike anything I have had before! Last night I ate my dinner in record timing, like some kind of neanderthal!!
I think my body is still getting used to a lower calorie intake in the day, as I am struggling with exercise in the evening after work too as my energy levels feel a little lower than usual - so it’s probably no wonder that a lower calorie intake in the day combined with exercise is making me so hungry for a fuller dinner.
So it does raise the question for me that perhaps if I had breakfast, perhaps I wouldn’t feel as hungry in the evenings?
I’d be curious to know what would happen if you swapped your meals around but ate exactly the same things. What I mean is, have your huge pig-out dinner for breakfast and skip your evening meal instead. It would be interesting to see if there was any difference in how you feel.
Also, eating breakfast doesn’t necessarily have to mean as soon as you wake up. I wake up at 6am, but I don’t have my Huel until 7am. In that first hour I like to do some journal writing or meditation, then some exercise if I have time. I like to have some warm water a while before having breakfast. It seems to get my digestive system moving.
I also use a light alarm which gradually wakes me up from 5:30. It’s nicer to wake up that way rather than suddenly be startled from sleep by a horrible alarm sound.
I too am not really a breakfast person, but as someone else mentioned it makes me insanely hungry at about 11am if I don’t eat anything. I hate mechanically eating food I’m not enjoying, which is one of the reasons I like Huel so much.
The Huel helps, because if I really can’t stomach breakfast (maybe 50% of work mornings), I make Huel with two scoops, put off drinking it, and start at about 10am.
I’m probably not eating any such thing as a meal, I’m consuming probably 140 calories per hour for 12 hours of the day sipping huel 5 days a week (saturday and sundays are a mixture of normal food and huel)
Excellent video.
reminds me of the warrior diet, a pretty neat book which explains and says the same thing, tho they suggest under eating during the day then having one big meal in the evening.
It says something like, we used to not eat during the day to make us alert for hunting, then later on we’d feast. seems the romans did this (and greeks? don’t quote me!) thats not eat day time but feast later.
seems your body produces SIRTs after 6-12 hours of not eating (and thats good, it says!)
easy to do with huel.
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