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Comment by bgilroy26 | Hacker News Reader

>The truth is probably people have different metabolisms and if you are hungry in the morning you should eat and if you are not you shouldn't.

Bodies don't always cooperate, if you are going to exercise strenuously in a given day you had better eat some kind of breakfast whether your body feels like it or not.

Breakfast is always going to be the opportunity to eat when you have more of the day ahead of you. That's true by definition, and it's the principle behind the chestnut about it being the most important meal of the day. There isn't much more to it than that.

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>if you are going to exercise strenuously in a given day you had better eat some kind of breakfast whether your body feels like it or not

Or what? As someone who has undertaken week long fasts while participating in competitive sports with no discernible performance difference, I'm skeptical. Your body doesn't "run out of fuel" because you haven't eaten for 12 hours.

Everyone is different. These rules of thumb, including breakfast being extra special, are silly.

Well, it runs out of certain kinds of fuel. But luckily, evolution gifted us with multiple Plan B's to prevent silly malnourished mammals from keeling over the first time they missed a meal!

Meh, I did 4 hours driving followed by 4 or 5 hours of whitewater kayaking on Saturday, with hardly anything to eat until afterwards. (I have been doing a bit of intermittent fasting the last couple of years, and that seems to help in such situations).

>Bodies don't always cooperate, if you are going to exercise strenuously in a given day you had better eat some kind of breakfast whether your body feels like it or not.

I've done many multi-day hikes and a 24 mile one-day hike. I can confirm that eating breakfast before setting out in the morning is absolutely crucial. Like the old saying goes, an army marches on its stomach.

I'm normally not hungry in the morning, so this was a challenge. The few times I did skip breakfast on these hikes, I had to stop half-an-hour in to correct my mistake, as I felt completely drained.

> I've done many multi-day hikes, and a 24 mile one-day hike. I can confirm that eating breakfast before setting out in the morning is absolutely crucial. Like the old saying go, an army marches on its stomach.

Shockingly, people are different. I much prefer a snack on the trail to breakfast before.

This is my experience as well.

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