Should you Skip Lunch for Weight Loss

Intermittent fasting entails skipping breakfast or lunch. If you’ve tried everything and still can’t shed inches off your waist, intermittent fasting might be your salvation. However, I would not advocate missing lunch.

Winter is approaching, which means that our digestive fire is at its pinnacle. This permits us to better absorb fats, proteins, and whatever junk foods we prefer at this time of year. People acquire weight during this period because our bodies continuously need more food to remain warm.

Furthermore, winter is a time for festivity. On December, you’re likely to indulge in freshly baked goodies, hot chocolate, and whatever other sweet you can find. Then there’s New Year’s Eve, when you’ll stay up late eating hors d’oeuvres and drinking bottles of fizz. Then, when outside temperatures plunge, you spend more time indoors, making you regret not signing up for that gym membership on January 1 after all.

So is it ok to skip lunch?

Skipping a meal appears to be a simple approach to reduce calories and aid with weight management. However, studies suggest that eating at precise times helps your body respond to hunger and fullness cues, maintain appropriate blood sugar levels, promote metabolism, and eliminate cravings.

Skipping meals increases your chances of feeling hungry later in the day, which can lead to overeating and weight gain. There is also data that says skipping meals on a daily basis may put you at risk for a variety of ailments and premature ageing.
If you’re attempting to reduce weight or eat better, skipping meals is not a good way to start.

So the straight answer is, don’t skip lunch, it is because at lunchtime our digestive fire is at its highest, and you should not feel weak, depleted, irritated, or painfully hungry during work hours. If you experience any of these, you should introduce more solid foods immediately.

skipping lunch reduces the quality of the diet can be significantly depleting for those who are young, very elderly, pregnant, breastfeeding moms, menstruating, are underweight or undernourished, or have any type of chronic illness.

Side effects of skipping lunch

Increases Stress

When you fast for long, your blood sugar levels take a dip, signaling your body to start producing cortisol. Cortisol, commonly referred to as the “stress hormone,” is released to try to help regulate that dip in blood sugar level, but it’s also creating a stress response in the body triggering oxidative stress. This can not only leave you feeling depressed and demotivated, but also causes mood swings, irritated and frazzled behavior.

No Energy for the Day

Skipping lunch means fewer calories for the rest of your day to run on, leaving you feeling like dragging. And you certainly shouldn’t aim to hit the evening gym to burn calories through exercise. As you’ve skipped lunch it just leaves even fewer calories for your brain to use up triggering dizziness.

Uncontrollable cravings for junk food

Skipping lunch and breakfast can quickly turn into an act of damaging oneself, and your jeans could actually end up feeling even tighter. In fact, there are plenty of studies out there that associate skipping meals (breakfast in particular) with obesity.

When we skip lunch our brain triggers intrusive thoughts of food as well as a loss of control over eating your next meal or snack—particularly when it comes to those burgers and pizzas. This means your efforts to lose weight by skipping meals or ignoring your hunger cues to eat within a specific window could actually backfire and lead to binge eating.

Risk for Nutrient Deficiencies

Skipping meals could lead to severe nutrition deficiencies. A study found those who skipped breakfast had lower daily thiamin, niacin, and folate intakes, while breakfast eaters consumed more nutrients rather than fattening carbs and sugar.

Irregular digestion

Skipping meals leads to the release of stress hormones, which could lead to nausea and diarrhea, and you could even become constipated. Similar to when you’re feeling anxious, the stress response released by the body when going too long between meals can thwart the digestive system and make your bathroom trips unpredictable.

Your body knows exactly how much it can handle, and listening to your hunger and fullness cues—along with eating fiber-rich plant foods—will help you regain proper digestive habits.

Still, Can you skip lunch and not be hungry?

If you’re in good shape, young, not breastfeeding, not menstruating, and not taking any medications, you can skip lunch and replace it with lighter options like juices and smoothies.

Now that your energy from breakfast has worn off, the idea is to eat a hearty breakfast with slow-releasing carbohydrates to fuel your whole day. After a 10-hour fast since supper, our muscles are completely drained and hungry in the morning. Eating healthily in the morning helps you revive your muscles and avoids overeating in the afternoon

Which meal to skip when you are trying to lose weight?

If you are really considering skipping meals, go for skipping dinner. now there are two major reasons why skipping dinner can really help in your weight loss journey

First, when people skip their lunch due to their intermittent fasting or busy schedules, they tend to gorge during dinner which is the main culprit of adding on calories and feeling of sluggishness throughout the morning and day. The trick is to skip dinner if your goals are strict or keep it light in calories with soups, salads, lean meat, and yogurt salad will aid in keeping your digestion proper.

Another reason is dinner has the minimum effect on diet quality when compared to lunch, according to the studies, skipping a meal does reduce daily caloric intake between 252 calories (breakfast) and 350 calories (dinner). However, skipping breakfast or lunch decreased diet quality by about 4.3 percent, whereas skipping dinner lowered diet quality by just 2.6 percent.

The best way to eat is to have breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper, just make sure your dinner is loaded with needed nutrients to replenish and repair your body while you sleep

Hence skipping dinner could be your best way to start shedding kilos.