Hobbits eat at least seven meals known as breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. ~J.R.R. Tolkien

Seven meals a day may have seemed like a fantastical notion in 1937 when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. But in 2012 most of us eat exactly like Bilbo Baggins. Just think how many times you have heard the admonishment that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Apparently this notion originated back in the 1950′s with the Iowa Breakfast Studies which purported to show that eating breakfast improves cognition. The Iowa Breakfast Studies were commissioned by the Cereal Institute which makes the findings suspect to say the least. Convincing an entire generation of Americans to roll out of bed and immediately tie on the feed bag is a great way to sell a lot of cereal. Just sayin’.

Which is not to say that breakfast never makes sense. If you wake up at 4:00AM to milk cows and toss hay bales until 7:00AM then breakfast might be a good thing to consider. But if your morning exercise consists of walking from your parking space to your office then I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you don’t need breakfast.

But I’m soooooooo hungry!

Unfortunately gnawing hunger is a symptom of insulin resistance. It means your body’s fat burning systems are down-regulated and the only way you can get energy is by spiking your blood sugar with that muffin, cold cereal and orange juice first thing in the morning. In other words, your metabolism is broken because you eat breakfast. You trained yourself to need it.

So how do you break the pattern? A simple way to get rid of the breakfast habit is to delay the start of your first meal around two hours per week for about a month. So if you ordinarily eat at 6AM, this week don’t eat until 8AM. Next week wait until 10AM. And so on. This is a very simple and easy way to change your relationship with food in a profound way.