Breakfast Lunch Timing

Hi everyone

I need some help from people who has finished the course and maybe from Jeff. I m almost done with part 1 in Thrive. I don t know if Jeff will talk about timing later in the program but this issue has made me think a lot. I ll give you the neccesary info so asses me.

I finished my breakfast at 8.30 am.

Work from 9 am to 2 pm

Lunch at 2.30 pm

This is the normal time for lunch in Spain, from 2 to 3 pm. So there are 6 hours beween breakfast and lunch. There is no way for me to eat such a big breakfast to hold my hunger until 2.30. I also don t have any time for eating at my job, just a snack. I am a Physical Education teacher and I m 5 hours with the kids. I could do 3 different options and would like your opinion on which one is the best:

Option 1 - Medium size breakfast. I get hungry at 12.30 pm after 4 hours. I eat a piece fruit and handfulll of nuts.

Option 2 - Large Size breakfast. I get hungry at 13.30 pm after 5 hours. I eat just a piece of fruit.

Option 3 - Large Size breakfast. I get hungry at 13.30 pm after 5 hours. I don t eat anything and keep the appetite for an hour.

I know Jeff s doesn t like carbs before lunch (fruit) but I m moving a lot in my job and it s already quite late so I think it won t make me too bad. Which option is the best. Thanks in advance!

Hi Antonio,

What are some examples of your typical breakfast?

It consist in grass fed goat milk yogurt or kefir. 420 grams of it. It s not greece but it s full fat. I add sometimes a few nuts or tahin. Also one glass of lemon water.

I say go with option 3, a large breakfast. Get hungry at 13:30, don't eat anything and keep the appetite for an hour. Eat an even larger breakfast to help reduce your hunger or, ideally, completely eliminate it until 14:30. That is a big gap but if you eat a large enough breakfast you should be able to make it without a snack. I'd like to hear what Jeff suggest but that is what I would do at y old job. It was a similar length between breakfast and lunch. I just ate an enormous breakfast. 

8 hours ago, Everett Carroll said:

I say go with option 3, a large breakfast. Get hungry at 13:30, don't eat anything and keep the appetite for an hour. Eat an even larger breakfast to help reduce your hunger or, ideally, completely eliminate it until 14:30. That is a big gap but if you eat a large enough breakfast you should be able to make it without a snack. I'd like to hear what Jeff suggest but that is what I would do at y old job. It was a similar length between breakfast and lunch. I just ate an enormous breakfast. 

Thanks Everett. I think I could try to manage to eliminate my hunger until 14.00. I ll keep experimenting with breakfast portions. I think I need some more protein because I already fill too full with fats in my breakfast.  Is there a reason for not snacking between this 2 meal? Maybe fat burning? 

One good way for longer digestion is some raw veggies with breakfast, like cucumber or lettuce.

I go for some fried veggies with my eggs, for example some chinese cabbage or some mushrooms. I don't know whether this is good, but it adds some mass to my breakfast and I feel less hungry for a longer period of time.

On 3/16/2017 at 6:00 PM, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

It consist in grass fed goat milk yogurt or kefir. 420 grams of it. It s not greece but it s full fat. I add sometimes a few nuts or tahin. Also one glass of lemon water.

I have the same issue, I have breakfast at 6.20 AM. Basically Greek yogurt (about 225 gr) - 10% full fat - or 3 large size eggs (fried with butter). One hour later a glass of whole cow milk with coffee. Generally this way I can arrive at 12:00 - 12:30 with no snacks.

Maybe, to add a higher amount of protein source can help you!  

On 3/17/2017 at 0:25 AM, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

Maybe fat burning? 

You nailed it. This is explained in more detail later in the course.

Hello guys, I have similar question regarding breakfast to lunch nutrition.

I wake up pretty early, usually between 5:00 - 5:30 (sometimes even sooner). I get slightly hungy within half an hour upon waking. Lunch is scheduled around 12:30.

Before Thrive and few steps in Thrive I had breakfast after that half an hour - somewhere between 5:30 - 6:00 am - 4 eggs with coconut oil/butter or 3 eggs with coconut oil/butter and some curred meat/piece of cheese. Around 9:00- 9:30 I would be hungry again, so I would have 1/2 cup of youghurt with handlfull of almonds. At 12:30 I would sit to my lunch hungry like a wolf, sometimes hungry to the point that it is hard to control my portion sizes.

Couple of weeks ago, since the task about the daily energy flow opened, I tried slightly different approach: 

At 5:30,'insted of full breakfast I have coffee with generous tablespoon of coconut butter (not in my coffe, right from the jar). That surprisingly satisfies me for 2-2,5 hours. Then I have my usual breakfast somewhere between 7:30-8:00 am and by lunch I'm as hungry as I was before.

Do you think, that this is better or worse option?

I' m still learning to manage my.hunger, because I'm one of those always hungry (and then angry) kind of person and when I "starve" myself to the certain point of uncomfort by the next meal I cannot stop myself and eat way too much and then continue with all the crap junk food in the house :-D.

Hi Petra, 

The next Monday task that you unlock will answer this question. My suggestion until then is to keep up with all of your current tasks, avoid the "crap junk food", and soon you will have Jeff's complete breakfast recommendation. Nice job on nearly completing the course! Keep it up! 

@Everett Carroll Thank you very much... trying my best :-)

Everett's advice is spot on. I agree with all his points. 

I’m training in the mornings before breakfast. I typically wake up 6.30, then having approximately 1hr training (3x per week GB, 3x per week running/cycling). Breakfast is typically around 8.00 and lunch around 12.30-13.00.

Before starting Thrive my breakfast was typically consisting of oatmeal or muesli with milk, sometimes sandwitches. I got hungry around 11 o’clock and ate some snacks. Somewhere in early stages of Thrive I read from the forum Jeff’s comment about testing the fat burning efficiency (suggestion to try breakfast without carbs and see how long it takes to get hungry) and I was curious to test. It appeared that it wasn’t a big problem for me, I was able to survive until 12.30-13.00 lunch easily (4,5-5hr cap). The energy levels stayed more stable throughout the day, not so many cravings anymore. Later on I temporarily added back very minimal carbs, as especially on days with more intensive training my head became littlebit dizzy before lunch, but overall I’m a convert since then and my typical breakfast now consists of 3 fried eggs, 2 slices of bacon, greek yogurt or cottage cheese, sometimes half avocado, peanut butter, olive oil.

While reading the comments here, I’m thinking why the change for me was so much easier compared to the others. I’m37 years old, 184cm, 92kg, my body composition was recently analyzed with some fancy machine in sports centre, and the bodyfat% was embarrasingly high (20%), but muscle % was very good. I don’t look like a very lean poster person cardio man, and numbers don’t show it either. At the same time I have a long endurance sports background (body already knows how to use fat for fuel) and I train in the mornings before breakfast (I’ve always eaten relatively big breakfast, but after the training I’m never hungry like a wolf, I would survive an hour or two after the training even without breakfast). Can it be the low-intensity aerobic training and training in a fasted state that helps to speed up this process?

5 hours ago, Janno Rillo said:

While reading the comments here, I’m thinking why the change for me was so much easier compared to the others.

Because you're not a complainer is my guess.