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I think if there's one big idea about nutrition, it should be that there are no one-size-fits-all answers. I skipped breakfast for most of my childhood, and I had no idea why I was so lethargic all the time. I was typically anxious from undone schoolwork, etc and had no appetite in the morning. I'd self-medicate with cigarettes.

I started forcing myself to eat breakfast about a year ago and my mind is so much clearer, seemingly as a function of relatively-stabilized blood sugar levels.

But that's just me. It could be totally different for someone else.



>> But that's just me. It could be totally different for someone else

It is. I haven't eaten breakfast for 20 years, and I don't suffer from any kind of lethargy, tiredness or hunger. I even cycle to work for 30 minutes each day, on an empty stomach, and often don't eat until 1PM. For me, it's actually the other way around: if I eat anything before lunch time, especially sugary things, I often get nausea.

So I guess that confirms your point, there simply is no 'one-size-fits-all answer', everybody has different metabolism. Obviously some things are clearly bad for you, like overeating, insufficient dietary variation, lack of essential nutrients, etc. But these are simply solved with just common sense. For the rest, 'nutrition science' is completely worthless IMO, and more often than not driven by marketing or scientific echo-chambers.


> I started forcing myself to eat breakfast

I tried that when I was having lethargy problems mid-morning, but my digestive system doesn't seem to switch on until a while after waking up and if I consume anything more solid than milk before it tells me it is ready I get unpleasant indigestion feelings.

I tend to get hungry and have my first food at ~1030 or a little before. The exception is the days I have a long run into work (a 7.5-to-10K slow run, instead of the usual 2ish Km walk) - I want food as soon as I've showered in that case.

Exercise before work has itself cured the lethargy problem it would seem and it doesn't need to be as strenuous as a 7+K run. Just the difference between the old routine of cycling in, to doing a few situps & dips before getting dressed and briskly walking in, seems enough to make a marked improvement even into the late afternoon.


So very true. We're all crazy variable as humans.

I'm 6'2" and broad, and thick. I've had a great friend from childhood who's 6'2" and skinny as a rail. We could not have more dissimilar ways of eating healthfully, but doesn't that make sense when you think about it? He basically eats little meals all day, and I concentrate my calories so that I don't stay constantly hungry and engaged in eating.

The only advice that's truly universal, is that you can't lose weight unless the equation is (Calories-In - Calories-Out) = Gain/Loss. How you get there is totally individual though.


That was also my case as an adult. Solved by eating much more at night, carbs included. I was just not consuming enough calories.

So, another myth - carbs are bad at night - that did not apply to me.


Carbohydrates are bad for me, period. I'm diabetic (type 2), and even the American Diabetes Association says I should be eating around 60g carbs/meal.

After some rudimentary data science liberally using the glucometer, I can tell you what my body does after all types of simple sugars as well as some complex sugars... And my limit per day is around 10g carbs. I will change this up to reintroduce some foods I may not normally eat (like high fiber low carb bread, or Ryvita rye crisps).

When I was initially diagnosed, my fasting was 161mg/dL and a1c=7.1 . Now, my blood sugar when I wake up in the morning is around 85-105, which is normal. I've also lost 50 lbs


If that's what you can get from ad-hoc data science on yourself, I'm looking forward to what we will learn a couple of years down the line from fitbits and what will come after them. Scary, yes, but there's also an immense upside.


Sample of one without correction for caloric intake?

See, losing weight fixes many numbers.


Correct. I only controlled for carbohydrates (total and [carb-fiber] for net carbs )

After 6 days of low carb diet, my hunger went down dramatically, and I started to feel better. I started to notice weight loss around day 10.

Now, the more I study about T2 diabetes, my 'guess' is that it's a metabolic disease. Someone who's T2 gets high blood sugar, the sugar is eventually processed to fat, causing extreme hunger when the glucose is out of the body (back to normal levels), causing the person to eat more carbs.

That would also explain why things like the Atkins diet does work for certain people; it works for those whom are predisposed to T2 diabetes. It doesn't work and can harm greatly those whom aren't susceptible to T2...

But that's my pet theory.


It's obviously a metabolic disease. Insulin is well described as a metabolic hormone. T2 diabetes is the signal not getting processed.

The big open question is what causes it.


To which you might add 'at this period in my life'. Your requirements may well change. For many older people, 'carbs are bad at night' is not a myth.


Agree.

I do believe that carbs are bad with people with broken metabolisms (poor insulin sensivity, poor glucose control, etc), but once you have that fixed, carbs are an excellent source of nutrients and energy. Again, that was my case (38 years old at that time; 45 now)


A balanced diet where you don't eat too much seems to be the other big idea.

Of course, both of these big ideas don't make good books or TV shows or special diet products.


Au contraire! That idea makes an excellent book, and also a pretty good free article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....


The ad playing for me in the margins is, appropriately, for some crunchtastic version Kellog's Raisin Bran. Now with more sweet raisin clusters!


Ideas, shmideas. What we need is prospective studies of good quality. Mostly because hindsight does not work due to way too many correlations which cannot be untangled even with best statistical methods.

There are very few of those good prospective and long term studies. And way too few have follow up study.


This is true for parenting too. You cannot take cookie cut wisdom and apply (CROSS APPLY t-sql style) to all.

The wisdom has to be applied "Bayesian" style ... "Given subject with attributes x, y and z, apply optimisation function."


You don't have valid data to do that, because almost nobody does. The best data driven result is to eat much more fresh fruit and vegetables. Skip highly processed ready to eat food.

Perhaps eat much less meat that Standard American Diet. Sure, high protein diets tend to cause rapid weight losses, but there is not enough trustworthy data to ascertain their long term safety and effects.


My bike ride into work usually feels significantly more sluggish if I skip breakfast and/or coffee.


The coffee and the timing of your last meal on the previous day(6pm? 10pm?) probably has a lot more to do with it than the breakfast.

If you eat breakfast at XX:XX and start cycling at XX:XX+30, you won't actually be using the energy from the food you just ate, whereas the caffeine will take effect almost immediately.




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