What happens to the body if you regularly skip lunch? A doctor tells us

The growing pace of life, especially in big cities, often puts us in front of the choice of how to spend our time with maximum benefit or how to combine several things in one time period. In such conditions we often forget about ourselves and our needs.

Candidate of Medical Sciences, doctor of integrative, preventive and conventional medicine, nutritionist

Today, the right number of breakfast-lunch-dinner meals is given a tremendous amount of attention by scientists and nutritionists. Some believe that three meals a day is right, others believe that five or six meals a day is fractional, and adherents of interval fasting prefer two meals a day. And each of them is right in their own way.

When we talk about meals, we mean a certain cyclicality – for everyone it is individual, as well as sleep. People for centuries have been accustomed to a certain frequency of meals. Let’s not dig into the Paleolithic, but if we consider the diet of an average peasant – early breakfast, most often a piece of gray bread, a snack in the field – which can be called lunch – bread and a drink, dinner at home (and early enough – at 15:00-17:00) – most often cold wheat soup, bread, sometimes eggs or meat, butter, sour milk drink and herbaceous vegetables.

Meals were nothing special. The everyday “refueling” of the body had to be nourishing and uncomplicated. It was often necessary to skip lunches – there was not enough money, crops were not ripe.

Lunch in many types of nutrition is considered the main meal: first, second and compote. However, the amount of food should fully correspond to the norm of the individual: both in terms of nutrient composition and the amount of food consumed (for example, many people do not tolerate gluten, and in the syndrome of excessive bacterial growth (SIBR) fiber should be a minimum). So today, the statement that lunch is the main thing is losing its relevance.

If you are not following any nutritional protocol (for medical reasons), it is best to focus on the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate. More on this in the link below.

The shift of medicine and dietetics to personalized nutrition gives us the understanding that lunch itself can be at different times, in different form and volume for each person. It depends on nationality, taste preferences, health status, weight and gender, genetic characteristics and much more.

Therefore, when we talk about the importance of lunch, it is worth emphasizing that all meals are important. Both breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But even more important is what they consist of.

What happens to your body if you change your eating habits

What happens if you’re used to eating one meal plan (say, breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time), but then decide to give up lunch for a month, for example?

• Chances are you’ll feel very hungry right up until dinner, which can cause you to overeat. The body will want to eat something carbohydrate, sweet, that is digested quickly to replenish stores. Over the course of a month, snacking on carbohydrates and the predominance of carbohydrate foods in your evening meal will cause a spike in blood insulin and may even lead to insulin resistance.
• If you are used to dining on protein foods, you can likely drive yourself to a deficiency of protein, homocysteine, and other important amino acids within a month. Your hemoglobin and blood iron levels can also drop during this time.
• Because of the long gap (unaccustomed to you), you may develop gastritis.
• Most likely, if you spontaneously refuse lunch and do not replace the meal with additional nutrient support, the balance of the microbiota will shift in favor of pathogens or protozoan fungi – thrush may develop.

But all of the above syndromes apply only to the case when a person is accustomed to eating the same lunch every day at the same time, with approximately the same set of products. And only when there is a prolonged lack of such a meal.

In the principles of nutrition, regularity and sufficiency of nutrients for the normal functioning of the body are important. What will be useful to a representative of the northern people, can kill a representative of the southern country. And vice versa. Everything is individual, listen to your body, your preferences and regularly check the deficiency of trace elements, vitamins, amino acids and other nutrient components to correct their balance in time.

A strong craving for a certain product can be a signal that there is an imbalance of nutrients. In the previous material we told you what the basic taste preferences can mean.