Breakfast = Break Fast

Maybe I’m late to the party on this one, but did you ever notice that the word “breakfast” is simply the combination of two other words “break” and “fast”? You probably did, but did you ever realize why?

Breakfast is the first meal of the day when you break your overnight fast. What this suggests is that over the course of human history, we’ve known that we were supposed to practice some form of intermittent fasting. Research backs this up. There are important cellular processes that only occur when you’ve gone without eating for a long enough time. You initiate autophagy that acts as a cellular recycling system where old cells get cleaned out and their raw materials used for new and healthy calles. Stem cells regenerate and renew when you fast. And the micro stress of going without food strengthens your body’s immune responses and protects you from illness. 

It’s generally recommended that you engage in a 12 to 16 hour fast overnight. 12 hours can happen pretty naturally, if you stop eating by 8pm at night and have breakfast at 8pm, then you’ve met the threshold. What gets in the way is mindless snacking and eating out of boredom or for pleasure rather than nutritional purposes. If you want to push to a 16 hour fast, the irony is that means you usually skip breakfast and break your fast with lunch. You’d have a feeding window between noon and 8pm.

Of course it’s up to you and your doctor or nutritionist to decide what makes sense for you and your body. There are many different ways you can implement some form of intermittent fasting, and even more variation for your ideal diet.

But let’s make an even bigger point. This idea of intermittent fasting is just one example of how there are so many things that we’ve learned about, and know might be good for us to do. Our life is the byproduct of our choices, and the idea is to get clear on what choices are most influential in creating the life you want to live. Just because you think you should do something doesn't mean you need to do it. What we want is usually much more complex than that.  

So whether it’s when you choose to have breakfast, what you choose to eat for breakfast, what you choose to do for your health, or what you choose to do to improve your life… Remember to ground the choice back into doing what’s highly leveraged. You can’t do everything and you certainly can’t do everything well. So pick the things that are most important to you and make them a real priority.

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