With growing evidence suggesting there are real health benefits to fasting, I decided to make a small tweak to my daily routine by skipping breakfast for two weeks to see how — or if — it had any impact.
I've interviewed a number of personal trainers and fitness influencers who have told me that they go big at breakfast, and that this is when they factor carbs into their day because they'll have the rest of the day to work it off.
Because of that, I've often assumed that eating a bigger breakfast would make me eat less over the course of the day — although I'd never tested the theory. Personally, I crave savoury breakfasts, and usually eat lots of toast, eggs, and avocados with breakfast both on weekdays and weekends.
For this experiment, I decided to skip breakfast each morning, creating a fasting window of between 15 and 16 hours a day. This meant eating my evening meal by 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. at the latest, and breaking my fast at midday each day.
Because I wasn't eating until noon, I had to rely on coffee to get me through the mornings — but my intake didn't change.
I normally drink at least one, usually two, coffees each morning, so I expected to be drinking a lot more while fasting. I was previously told that caffeine can be used as an appetite suppressant while fasting, but I found my coffee intake didn't really change at all.
This was perhaps because I was drinking almost a gallon of water a day.
While fasting I drank way more water than I usually do. On a normal day I was guilty of not always getting the advised two litres, but in this experiment I was drinking 1.5 to 2 litres of water in the morning before I had even broken my fast.
I'd continue drinking water throughout the afternoon, so I was drinking almost a gallon of water a day by the second half of my three-week trial. It's a habit that has stuck with me since.
The stomach growling was embarrassingly loud...
Skipping breakfast as a meal wasn't so much the problem — instead, it was not eating the pieces of fruit that are on offer in the office kitchen, which I would usually snack on throughout the morning in addition to breakfast.
I was told to expect possible headaches and hunger pangs, which I didn't really experience, but the stomach growling was really loud — which wasn't ideal at work. And it didn't go away within a few days.
...And it didn't stop during week 2, which was just as hard as week one.
My stomach grumbling didn't stop well into week two. In fact, on some days it felt like it was worse in the second week than the first.
By about 11.10 a.m. I was starving again and the growls would kick in, so I got into the habit of getting a snack of some fruit prepared in advance ready to eat at exactly 12 p.m. Just having it by my desk in the last 15 or so minutes of my fast seemed to spur me on.
The growling made me feel pretty distracted in the first two weeks of my trial, and I wasn't getting the energy boost that some people claim to have.
Fasting was really, really hard the morning after a few drinks...
In my first week of skipping breakfast I went for a few drinks with a friend that had been in the diary for weeks. The following morning I was absolutely starving and could barely concentrate at work. I wasn't hungover, but I was really craving bread or something else carb-heavy to soak it all up.
...Or the morning after a workout.
The morning after my first workout during the trial, I was still really hungry, despite having devoured a carbonara after the gym the night before.
This was the aspect of my experiment I couldn't get behind — it seemed pointless to starve myself until noon having worked out the night before, but I stuck to the plan and held out.
Still, I found that I was saving money.
I was spending less on food, not only because I wasn't buying breakfast, but because I had to plan ahead.
When you're factoring in a fasting period of 15 or 16 hours, you need to make sure that you have proper food ready to eat when you break the fast, because you're so hungry. I didn't want to have to wait to go to the supermarket to buy lunch when I was starving, so I got a lot better at bringing in leftovers or storing ingredients at work to make lunch.
It also made me more mindful about what I was putting in my body...
From a mindset perspective, it seemed silly breaking a fast to eat junk, so I was eating more nutritious food in general.
As with any diet, it made me re-evaluate what I was consuming, and I was more conscious of eating balanced meals. This extended to my evening meals, an example of which can be seen above.
...And I ate less overall.
I noticed that even though I had a longer-than-usual period where I didn't eat, I didn't find myself over consuming in my non-fasting hours. I ate roughly the same amount of food over the rest of the day as I normally would.
This may also have been because I was drinking more water, but I found I was listening to my body more in regards to whether I was hungry or thirsty.
While I wasn't counting calories, I seemed to be eating less food, and was on my way to a caloric deficit.
Weekends were generally easier than weekdays.
It was a lot easier to fast until midday on weekends than weekdays, except for the first Sunday of my trial when I forgot about my fast and ate a slice of last night's leftover pizza for breakfast.
This is hardly surprising, though, as I usually get up later and will have a brunch-like meal rather than an early breakfast.
I turned a corner in week 3.
I was originally planning to skip breakfast for just two weeks, but at the end of the second week I felt myself turn a corner, and things started to feel a whole lot easier.
The fast didn't stop me from eating breakfast items, either — I just ate them later in the day.
I didn't eat the brunch in the photo above until 3 p.m. during the second weekend of my trial, and it felt easy. The following day I didn't eat until 3.30 p.m. I could feel a pattern starting to emerge so I decided to carry on skipping breakfast for another week.
After my experiment I rewarded my efforts with breakfast from Pret — and it made me feel bloated, tired and more hungry.
I officially ended my trial on the Tuesday, but I was not feeling hungry until about midday over the next few days. On the Friday, I decided to reward my efforts with a Pret brioche breakfast roll, a breakfast I'll often treat myself to at the end of the week.
I noticed it made me feel really bloated, a bit sleepy, and by 12 p.m. I was hungry again for lunch. By the end of the day, I realised I had consumed a lot more than the days when I was skipping breakfast.
Skipping breakfast has changed the way I eat — and it's had other benefits, too.
The single best thing that came out of my trial was my dramatic increase in water intake.
While I didn't notice any dramatic changes in weight loss in my three-week trial, it also made me re-address what I'm putting in my body. The process made me question why I was eating: habit, boredom, or actual hunger?
I also felt like I was achieving something, by exercising self control and not giving into eating as soon as I felt a tiny bit hungry.
I no longer want to be eating at my desk just because it's breakfast time. Equally, I won't restrict myself the day after I have worked out if I'm hungry in the morning.
However, I'm naturally not feeling hungry until much later in the day than I was before — and I'm eating less over the course of the day.