Angela Mollard: I stopped eating breakfast and I’ve never felt better

Breakfast being the most important meal of the day is a myth, Angela Mollard writes after giving up the morning meal for a year with amazing results. Have your say.

Back in 2019 my best friend told me she’d given up eating breakfast.

Whether it was perimenopause or the demands of mothering, she’d put on weight and the easiest way to trim the kilos was to drop the meal she found least interesting so she could still have a roast or potato dauphinoise in the evening.

“I could never do that,” I told her at the time.

“If an autopsy was ever required, the coroner would discover my body is 50 per cent muesli and 50 per cent poached eggs.”

I love breakfast. All of it – porridge, poached fruit, omelettes, shakshuka, chia pudding, vegemite toast, bacon and egg rolls.

While lunch to me was typically an annoyance or a disappointment, breakfast was such a joy I’d even considered commercially producing my own granola.

I’ve banned breakfast and have never felt better, writes Angela Mollard.

But then Ron Wilson, former Network 10 newsreader and my commentary buddy on Channel 7, started to look rather svelte. Every Sunday morning he’d turn up looking slimmer than he had the week before.

Over time he lost 10 kilos by making one simple change – cutting out breakfast and eating his two remaining meals within an eight-hour period.

“It’s called the 16:8,” he said with all the authority of Jane Fonda in her heyday.

“Most carnivorous animals don’t eat three meals,” he told me, pointing out that breakfast being the most important meal of the day was a myth propagated by cereal manufacturers.

Friends who tried it seemed to have a Jane Fonda-esque vitality. Picture: Brendon Thorne.

But still I clung to my healthy brekky. I wasn’t ploughing through plate loads of pancakes and like Audrey Hepburn, who asked if she could lick on an ice cream rather than nibble on a Danish in the opening scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, pastries are not my vibe.

But then my mum stopped eating breakfast. When I first saw her after years of Covid separation she’d also lost kilos and had the Fondaesque bounce.

As someone who has resolutely avoided diets since a constipation-inducing dalliance with the bread diet back in 1986, I don’t do deprivation. But while Covid hadn’t yet struck me, boredom baking left me looking like I’d Velcroed a tray of muffins to my waist.

So I gave up breakfast because, as I figured, the hunters and gatherers didn’t feast on Fruit Loops before they headed out to slay a bison. Plus bad things happen after a big breakfast – just watch Pulp Fiction.

It took about a fortnight to adjust but I’ve not eaten breakfast for a year now and I’ve never felt better. In fact, while I generally avoid conversations where women discuss what they eat this has been so transformational I’ve become an evangelist for banning breakfast.

Since I don’t count coffee as a food group, I have a small cup about 10am then have my first meal of the day around 11am. If I’m working from home it’s typically homemade Bircher muesli loaded with yoghurt or an omelette filled with spinach, leftover roast vegies, corn kernels and cheese.

This will sound nerdy – like those who Tupperware their lunches for the week – but I also make a zucchini slice packed with vegies and eggs and keep portions frozen so I can pull them out and eat on the go.

Meal prep has also proven useful in the war on breakfast.

In the afternoon I’ll have some nuts and fruit or carrot, celery and hummus then it’s whatever I like for dinner around 6pm. I refuse to give up wine or cheese or the odd burger and hot chips are my go-to when I need to eat my feelings.

One thing I am trying to do – more for longevity than weight loss – is eat 30 different fruits and vegetables each week.

About now I should give you some science but ever since fat was demonised and we were erroneously told to eat a low-fat diet of cottage cheese on crackers and ghastly thin fat-stripped yoghurts, I’ve been suspicious of diet trends.

One guy who does make sense is Tim Spector, a professor of epidemiology in London, who says “the breakfast myth” is exactly that.

“There’s been very little research into it,” he says.

“A lot of the science about eating early in the day is becoming shakier and shakier.”

Professor Tim Spector says the scientific backing for breakfast is dwindling. Picture: Damian Shaw

I don’t doubt that a tradie rising at 5.30am needs a hearty breakfast but for the rest of us keyboard warriors it makes sense to extend rather than break our fast. Rather than fads, I tend to rely on my eyes, my stomach and my quality of sleep as indicators of wellbeing.

I’ve concluded that most cereals are basically boxed sugar, avocado or salmon can be chucked on anything to fill me up and I sleep better if I don’t eat too late.

But a couple of weeks ago I was out of town on a road trip and not wanting to waste money on cafe breakfasts I bought cereal, fruit and yoghurt which we ate before we set out each day.

But by late morning I was ravenous again and found myself stuffing down scones and toasties. I came home two kilos heavier.

Breakfast, I’ve concluded, is a con. I’ve taken it off the menu.