So what good is breakfast for a diabetic person?

[Gary_W]

Hypothetical question from someone that eats a decent breakfast pretty much every day :)

All of the nutrition sites I look at seem to claim that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The ethos behind this normally seems to centre on the fact that if you don't eat it, your BG dips mid to late morning and you don't get the energy that you need to function properly. Now I'm sure all of us suffer from low BG in the mornings on a regular basis.... ;)

As a type 1 diabetic with decent basal coverage, I know for a fact that I can wake up with a BG of 5 and stay that way until lunchtime if I neither eat nor inject bolus insulin. If I eat anything, my BG will go out of optimum range and (in terms of my performance and concentration levels) I will actually be worse off; I function best at a 5 or 6. On a normal day with stable basals, all breakfast is doing is giving me 500 odd calories that my waistline can do without unless I'm missing some deeper point. I accept that vitamins, minerals etc are needed, but let's say I get those from other meals. Isn't it better to just miss it?

I usually enjoy breakfast. I like toast, fruit and cereals and thanks to Apidra I can eat these without spiking too badly; it's an acceptable spike vs the enjoyment I get when I eat those kind of things. I did a fasting test this morning (a couple of things have been a little less predictable than I'd like) and to be honest I really didn't miss breakfast. That's not the case every morning as some days I really want to eat. But today going without until lunch didn't feel like hardship.

So the question is WHY should the likes of us eat breakfast if we know our BG is not going to dip like the experts claim it will if we don't eat? If the answer is 'because I felt like it today', fair enough. Otherwise, what's the harm in giving it a miss sometimes?

Gary

[Lloyd]

In my case, eating a low carb breakfast or a no carb breakfast like an omlet lets me keep from getting hungry or from snacking before lunch.

-Lloyd

[statdeac]

I always have some carbs in my breakfast...but then again, I run in the morning and my bg would crash without.

A high carb breakfast would feature oatmeal or cereal. A lower carb alternative would be an omlette and maybe half a sandwich. Yeah, I eat a sandwich at any time of day. Yeah it's weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah...

[volleyball]

If you're not hungry in the morning, you are either eating late evenings or eating big meals. It is better to not do those things. Your breakfast is not an extra 500 calories. It's 500 calories in lieu of 500 calories later.
You're body has been fasting all night, you need to end it.

[Harold]

For this type 2 it usually prevents a liver dump mid morning. Okay, so my morning is in the middle of the afternoon.

[xMenace]

Gary I think it's one of the biggest urban legends of the modern era. With our DPs -- liver dump and insulin resistance -- it makes no sense to fill ourselves with food. I find it works best to have big meals around your most active times of day. For me that is lunch.

I hardly ever skip breakfast completely because of the nasty liver dump I'll get at lunch. I end up feeling like **** the whole day. If I eat something like a banana or some cheese by mid-morning, I am usually much more stable.

That said, I just love an early morning PLATTER of bacon, eggs, toast, and hashbrowns with OJ and coffee. A very cold beer actually goes very well too.

[princesslinda]

It's been very hard for me to learn to eat breakfast...before diagnosis, I either skipped it or had a donut or bagel. When first diagnosed, I took a metformin at b/fast and dinner and if I took the morning dose on an empty stomach...it wasn't pretty! Now that I just take it at night, I've skipped b/fast, and my blood sugar continues to rise.

[xMenace]

Thanks Gary.

This thread got me thinking about food. Now at 9am my lunch is gone :( I was up at 5:30am today, so it almost feels like lunch anyway.

[Alice]

I enjoy eating breakfast...just not too early! I would probably overeat at lunch if I didn't eat breakfast. How can someone work (an active job) for 4-5 hours in the morning without eating some calories? Yikes...I've worked with those people...they were pretty crabby by lunchtime!

When I do basal checks, I fast until about noon or 1 p.m. and do ok. But, I'm not at work or running around much. Maybe running errands and such.

Office jobs are much less demanding on the body than other types of jobs...I've never been able to sit behind a desk much. Maybe I have a different view of breakfast!

[shabbie6247]

gary i just cant function without carbs for breakfast, i tried yoghurt with nuts a couple of times for breakfast and was totally useless until i had a carb lunch.
i just wish i could find a way to fill up and not have that midmorning spike......and still keep my brain happy. :)

oh and now im pumping i get DP when i get up....hmmmm

[Gary_W]

Thanks for the replies here. I must admit I hadn't thought of 'avoiding a later in the day liver dump' as a good reason for breakfast, but it is one. I did run high on the afternoon of the fasting test for reasons I couldn't understand, so maybe that was it.

[Jill-O]

Lately, I have no sugar added yogurt and coffee w/ some cream, spenda and equal.

[ant hill]

I generally have a good low GI breakfast of porridge and honey and milow which is a chocolate powder and that makes me satisfied till lunchtime. But then I do get board with that breaky so sometimes I will have just toast with jam or something on it.

So breakfast is important for me, So I don't understand how people go without breakfast. :confused:

[Tropo]

Lately, I have no sugar added yogurt and coffee w/ some cream, spenda and equal.

...so...how do you go on this new breakfast? How's your energy?

[Tropo]

So breakfast is important for me, So I don't understand how people go without breakfast

Perhaps nightowls manage better without breakfast. There was a theory by another member that nightowls have more pronounced DP's. If we (I'm one) have a high waking BG, then we're probably not going to feel too hungry.

[volleyball]

Nightowls usually are tired in the morning because they have been up so late. They're not hungry because they eat later in the day.
Used to be a nightowl, now a morning person

[FTW]

I was never much of a breakfast person but I do eat something small now both to avoid a liver dump, and because our first meal of the day is the hardest to control BG rise, (so if I eat something low carb in the morning, I can eat more carbs at lunch.)

Normal Weekday choices:

Atkins Caramel Double Chocolate Crunch bar
South Beach High Protein bar
1 slice Brownberry Carb Control bread with peanut butter

Weekends, which I eat later:

eggbeater omelet with smoked ham, cheese, onions, green pepper

Of course we were in a rush yesterday so I grabbed a low carb wrap with some ham and cheese for breakfast.

[bklynborn54]

ok so what is a liver dump?

[Jan B]

I have coffee and pills for breakfast. I don't understand how someone can get up in the morning and start eating! I know I'm different than most. When I eat breakfast, I eat more throughout the whole day & feel blimpie. My simple weight control trick is to eat only when hungry; not when it's "time".

I get hungry by about 1 or 2pm, then shoot (if necessary) and eat. Then I eat again around 7 or 8pm w/my husband.

[ant hill]

ok so what is a liver dump?

I am a type 1 and for the mornings ware you have a lack of insulin and at that time of the day when you get out of bed is when you see a liver dump of glucodin in the blood stream, meaning that you have not eaten anything and yet you see a increase in BG as your day gets older.
As you are a type 2 then you have insulin allredy so this liver dump don't apply to you. ;)

[Jill-O]

...so...how do you go on this new breakfast? How's your energy?

It works for me. I've never eaten "a lot" for breakfast. I have that, walk, do my "farm" chores and off to the office. I usually eat lunch between 11-12.