The problem is that many of us are so busy that we simply don’t have time to eat breakfast. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of organizing your morning meal when you’re trying to stay in shape or develop muscle. If you want to adhere to a certain diet or try intermittent fasting, this issue becomes even more complicated.
The science behind intermittent fasting has been a point of debate. In recent years, dietitians and researchers have focused on the latter way of eating. This style of eating has helped people speed up their weight loss by boosting their metabolism while also limiting the amount of calories they consumed, according to one research paper published in the Annual Review of Nutrition. Another study revealed that intermittent fasting may also improve a person’s capacity to withstand oxidative stress, potentially lowering inflammation.
This style of eating isn’t without its flaws. According to a study published in Frontiers in Nutrition, people who followed this way of eating usually experienced more frequent headaches, especially at first as they adjusted to the new diet cycle. Another research from PLoS One found that intermittent fasting might induce digestive issues including diarrhea and constipation. Another key piece of evidence researched how intermittent fasting affects consumers who want to both bulk up and build more muscle mass, and the findings aren’t good.
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined how a time-restrictive eating strategy like intermittent fasting affects weight reduction in obese and overweight persons. The participants were told to consume as much food as they desired between noon and 8 p.m. each day, with no dietary restrictions. According to the researchers, this form of eating had no significant impact on the participants’ weight in the study, but it did have a major disadvantage. The group that lost weight in the study appeared to lose most of its lean mass, i.e. muscle mass, rather than stored fat.
The main drawback is that the participants were permitted to eat whatever they wished, and the outcomes may or may not be significantly different if they followed stricter diets or counted calories as well. Meanwhile, it appears that this eating plan without any restrictions might spell disaster for those who want to gain muscle while reducing fat.
To summarize, the Harvard Medical School evaluated the study and determined that while intermittent fasting has a lot of promise, it also has several pitfalls. The difficulty with intermittent fasting, according to them, is that everyone who follows the plan need nutritional assistance and should follow certain exercise routines in order to see genuine results. They also pointed out that without performing resistance training exercises or eating proper diets like the Paleo diet or Mediterranean diet, intermittent fasting has a high risk of failing.
Whether you do intermittent fasting or not, make sure you avoid skipping breakfast, otherwise your gains will gradually go down. Don’t let your muscles shrink away because you skip breakfast.