Intermittent Fasting Without Skipping Breakfast | 9 Tips To Make It Easier & More Efficient

Written by Nabeel Kallas in Intermittent Fasting

You’re a family guy/gal. You appreciate the time you guys have together each morning at breakfast. You’ve decided to take on intermittent fasting, but you don’t want to lose that precious time every day. It may be for another reason, perhaps related to your routine and lifestyle, that makes you don’t want to be skipping breakfast. You’re wondering, “is it possible?” Well, it is possible.

I’ve done intermittent fasting in many, many patterns over the years, and I’m here today to show you that it can be done without skipping breakfast. Plus, to give you tips on how to make that easier on yourself and more efficient.

Do You Have To Skip Breakfast For Intermittent Fasting?

You don’t have to skip breakfast in order to do intermittent fasting. What you can do instead is either skip dinner the night before or have a late breakfast. If you don’t do one or both of these things, you will end up not fasting enough time for intermittent fasting to start having its effects.

Is It Better To Skip Breakfast Or Dinner On Intermittent Fasting?

Breakfast is the easiest meal to skip on intermittent fasting. This is because it’s much easier to continue a fast than to start one. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll already have fasted for 8 hours of sleep, and 4 hours in the prior evening. Wait only 4 more hours to eat, and you’d already have fasted for 16 hours.

So, you’ve probably read this before at MasterMinding Perfection, but I’ll say it again. In general, the better alternative is the one that works for you. It’s better to do intermittent fasting skipping dinner and be able to actually commit to it and be consistent with it than to try to do intermittent fasting skipping breakfast and only be able to do it once or twice a week because it doesn’t fit your lifestyle.

That being said, if you have a flexible lifestyle and looking for what is better, skipping breakfast is the way to go. It’s much easier to continue fasting than to start anew in the middle of the day, which is what you would be doing if you skip dinner.

Is Breakfast The Most Important Meal Of The Day On Intermittent fasting?

There is no meal on intermittent fasting that is scientifically proven to be the best meal of the day. What actually matters is what you’re eating throughout the day, how much you’re eating, whether or not you’re meeting your micronutrients, and what you’re breaking your fast with.

Let’s talk about each of these four things.

  • What You’re Eating
    It’s crucial to monitor what you’re eating outside your fasting window. In the end, the old saying “You are what you eat.” is still true today.

    You can’t expect to get healthy just because you’re doing intermittent fasting if you’re eating loads of junk and zero-value foods in your eating window.
  • What You’re Breaking Your Fast With
    It’s a very important factor that people usually don’t pay enough attention to. You’ve done the work, you have fasted for hours upon hours, so you decide you need a treat. You’re just going to break your fast with a sugary treat. Because you deserve it. And you do. What you’re not considering is how this much sugar right after a fast is doing you harm. It’s not that it will be erasing all the hours of fasting, however, it can prevent you from reaping the benefits of your fast beyond your fasting window.

    Sugar will spike your insulin too much, too soon.

    A meal with some healthy fats, protein, and fiber is your best bet.
  • How Much You’re Eating
    There can be a “too much” as well as a “too little” scenario. You can’t expect to be eating calories beyond your needs and then lose weight just because you’re doing intermittent fasting. You also shouldn’t think that cutting your calories down too much is going to benefit you. I have an article just on that idea.
  • Meeting Your Micronutrients
    Monitoring your macros from fat, protein, and carbs is crucial. However, you shouldn’t be ignoring the micronutrients that your body needs on a daily basis. You’re gonna be making it harder for you to commit to the diet when you ignore the vitamins and minerals. Deficiencies can make you feel tired, sleepy, and hungry all day long.

9 Tips To Make Intermittent Fasting Without Skipping Breakfast Easier And More Efficient

1- Consume Bulletproof Coffee In The Morning

You want to be able to sit with your family at the table in the mornings and eat with them. So why would I suggest you just drink coffee? Duh, you know coffee is allowed while fasting.

Well, bulletproof coffee is not just coffee. It’s almost a meal on its own. A meal that is allowed while fasting.

From my own experience, I know that that hard thing about not being able to eat breakfast with your family in the morning is that, yes, I’m sitting there with them, and yes, there’s a cup of coffee in my hands but seeing all the foods on the table used to make me hungry. And the coffee I consumed didn’t help with that hunger. Especially that before intermittent fasting, I used to eat breakfast AND drink coffee each morning with them. So just drinking coffee not only didn’t help, it rather made me hungrier.

However, with bulletproof coffee, I felt satisfied. It was really like a meal. That’s thanks to all the fats you’re going to put in it. Not only that, there is a wide variety of choices you can choose from to make the best bulletproof coffee for you, depending on what you like and what you already have in your kitchen.

2- Drink Decaf Bulletproof Coffee In The Evening

Hoping that I have already convinced you of bulletproof coffee, I will also suggest replacing your dinner with a cup of BPC. This is for those of you who thought “What, I’m only allowed to drink BPC in the morning? I want real food at breakfast.” Then, you can skip dinner and have a cup of BPC instead. The thing is, you have to make the sacrifice of skipping a meal, be that dinner or breakfast. The choice is yours.

If you choose to go with this plan, make sure to use decaf coffee, to help you sleep better at night.

3- Get Yourself Familiar With Brunch

If you can skip neither breakfast nor dinner, you can move their times around. Early dinner or late breakfast, aka Brunch, is your best bet. This is basically playing with the times and names of meals to better suit your schedule.

4- Add Less Carbs To Your Last Meal

Our bodies are not always math-friendly. 1+1 doesn’t always equal 2. Fasting for 16 hours with the last meal being eggs and avocado, is not the same as fasting for 16 hours with your last meal being two bags of marshmallows and three chocolate bars.

Putting the “healthy” argument aside, the macros you’re eating, no matter where they come from, play a big role in the hormones that get secreted into your blood and how fast your body can get into the state of fasting.

5- Add More Fat And Protein To Your Last Meal

Touching on what we have just discussed, healthy fats and protein are your best bet to kick off your fasting window.

Again, it’s not the same as fasting after a meal full of sugar and fasting after eating some fat and protein. This can make you get away with an hour or two of fasting. Which means you’re fasting less and getting more results.

6- Break Your Fast With Less Carbs And More Fat

Just like how well you kicking off your fasting window plays a big role in the results you’ll see long-term, so does how well you end that fasting window, and with what you opt to break your fast. Believe it or not, sugar and high-glycemic-index foods will hurt your progress and not give you as good of results by kicking you out of the fasting state in minutes, whereas breaking your fast with some vegetables, healthy fats, protein, and fiber will maximize the state of fasting and make you reap its benefits longer.

I know that bar of chocolate is so attractive and seducing when you’re breaking your fast, but believe me on this, it can wait.

7- Get To Know The Stuff You Can Consume While Intermittent Fasting

Don’t make the mistake I hear from people all over the time. There’s this idea that fasting is prohibiting all kinds of food and drink consumption. But that can’t be further from the truth.

There is one type of fasting that requires not consuming anything in the fasting window, called dry fasting. However, that is not the case with intermittent fasting.

There are many drinks that you can sip on while fasting. It may seem like there are too few options to choose from, but hey, you’re fasting. Something is definitely better than nothing. These drinks range from coffee to the endless types of teas out there. There’s also flavored water, which you can prepare in your kitchen in a minute or two. This can be huge in the summer, getting to drink this cold water flavored with lemon, mint,.. etc.

What you should note, though, is that all of these drinks must be sugar-free.

Another rule of thumb would be to make sure that everything you’re consuming remains under 50 calories.

References:

Nabeel Kallas

I'm a medical doctor with a lot of passion for Keto & Intermittent Fasting. They have completely changed my life and I am beyond honored to help you experience that same change. I'm ready when you are. Read more here.

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