This variability depends on many factors, some really justifiable, others simply leading to greater care for general psycho-physical well-being.
Having breakfast is therefore better than skipping it? In the past, any professional would have answered firmly "yes. Today, however, with a vaguely provocative tone, we answer" it depends ".
Before going into the merits, let's make a brief summary of the salient aspects of the breakfast meal.
about 5% is attributed, 40% to lunch and 35% to dinner.These percentages are obviously indicative, but there is a gradual reshuffling of the global subdivision.
Just like breakfast, other meals are slowly evolving too. Dinner seems to increase, lunch seems to decrease, and snacks tend to multiply.
Having said that, in reality, today the slice of the Italian population that respects the breakfast ritual is constantly decreasing.
This "turnaround" is mainly attributable to three contributing causes:
- the acceleration of rhythms, the thickening of commitments and the consequent decrease in free time;
- the change in collective nutritional habits, which on average sees an increase in the attitude to calorie excess;
- the change in the level of global physical activity, especially that related to daily, work and domestic activities, instead tending to decrease.
Few have breakfast as our local tradition would like, but perhaps it is also the normal adaptation to modern rhythms.
This phenomenon is less pronounced in Anglo-Saxon countries where, "quantitatively" speaking, breakfast has a "higher importance than our lunch (lunch), which is equivalent to little more than a snack, while dinner (dinner) is anticipated at About 19:00 and, compared to us Italians, it is slightly poorer.
So why is it still said that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day?"
etc.) immediately after the night fast, and to deal effectively and immediately with the energy commitments of daily life until the next meal.
Well, for at least half a century now, for most people, the morning caloric needs are actually low, the night's sleep shorter and the dinner more abundant.
We understand right now that the "need" to have breakfast and its "entity" are always "relative"; affect this need:
- Metabolic state: it depends on the temporal distance and on the composition of the previous meal, on the quality of sleep and its duration;
- Subjective tendency at the moment of awakening and for the whole hour to follow;
- Time available;
- Support objective: it depends on the temporal distance and the composition of the next meal, as well as on the possible presence of a secondary snack in between;
- Imminent energy need: it is due to the basal metabolism, to the brain activity, to the work of the systems - especially the muscle - and to a possible recovery after training.
Even the demands of those who participate in sports are certainly different (higher) than those of sedentary non-sportsmen. Either due to a possible workout, or fueled by the so-called post-workout oxygen debt - which depends on the training load and the time elapsed since the last session.
But be careful, we are not saying that those who play sports always have a higher energy demand than those who do not, nor that while doing sports it is mandatory to have breakfast. It all depends on the "real numbers", which are the calories introduced, the time that passes and the energy consumed.
That said, if 15% of the calories attributable to breakfast are not redistributed correctly, or if the fasting period is not well manageable, negative consequences could arise.
slimming. To be precise, this system is used in the techniques of "intermittent fasting" - be careful, however, it is not enough to skip meals to adopt this line; the programming is anything but simple and periods of abstinence from food of several hours (up to 16) are required without then increasing the other meals.There is also to say that an incorrect management of this method can lead to the opposite effect. A too long pause between dinner (or the evening snack) and the following lunch (or mid-morning snack), with its significant energy deficit, would cause a feeling of "excessive hunger", then increasing the possibility of "bingeing".
Since the goals sought by those who train regularly - not only in the disciplines proper, also in high-level fitness and bodybuilding - are the increase in performance and / or the improvement of body composition, the management of meals becomes a fundamental aspect.
Yet, if we analyzed the habits of what we could define as real "examples" or "models", we would find a "heterogeneity that is, to say the least, disorienting. Why?
