I mentioned the other week that I was in Belfast to watch my step-daughter in a trampolining competition.

We stayed in the city centre in a Premier Inn.

Nothing fancy, but it did the job.

It had a ‘meal deal’ option when booking.

Unlimited buffet breakfast and a two course evening meal with drink for £25.

We were always going to have the first night’s meal (got in late and she needed to get some sleep) and the two breakfasts there, so made sense to do both days.

From a cost and logistics perspective.

I knew the only options at the Leisure Centre wouldn’t be great and wasn’t sure of timings and so on.

And on the Sunday we’d be out and about then heading for the airport.

So, on both days, I had a substantial breakfast.

And didn’t bother with lunch.

Eating the tea in the Premier Inn on the Saturday and back at home on the Sunday night.

Many FitPros would advise against this.

It will ‘ruin your metabolism’ apparently.

I don’t actually know what they mean by that, I’ll be honest.

And if our metabolisms were so delicate as to be ‘ruined’ by one missed meal, I’m not sure we’d have survived and evolved this long as a species.

Now I’m not advising skipping meals as such.

It’s just ‘eating for the sake of it’ that I’m questioning.

If you’re not hungry, and it’s a bit of pain in the arse to eat, you don’t have to.

It won’t ‘stoke’ some imaginary metabolic fire.

My tea would’ve been the same either way, give or take.

So, I could’ve eaten a smaller breakfast and got some lunch.

And that would be a perfectly fine thing to do, if I’d wanted to.

But I didn’t.

Eating as I did and adding lunch would’ve only put me in a calorie surplus.

And while they are ok occasionally, it seemed a bit of waste and I’d have to average it out elsewhere or gain weight.

Skipping meals if it leads to you demolishing a family sized tub of Ben and Jerry’s or emptying the biscuit barrel probably isn’t a good idea.

But neither is eating for the sake of it if you’re not hungry and / or it’s a bit of a pain.

Always remember it’s the total / average of the day or week that’s key 🙂

Much love,

Jon ‘The Bush Kangaroo’ Hall and Matt ‘KP’ Nicholson

Jon Hall
Jon Hall

When not helping people to transform their lives and bodies, Jon can usually be found either playing with his kids or taxi-ing them around. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at RISE then enter your details in the box to the right or bottom of this page or at myrise.co.uk - this is the same way every single one of the hundreds who've described this as "one of the best decisions I've ever made" took their first step.