The role of the breakfast is to awake your metabolism from a 10 to 12 hour fasting. While you sleep your metabolism slows down and burns up less calories. Breakfast is the alarm clock of the metabolism telling your body that sleep time is over and it must get into full gear. For your body breakfast is the fuel it needs to function all day long. When you go to work without eating something is like trying to start the car on an empty fuel tank.
Studies have shown that adults like children suffer if they are deprived of their breakfast. People that skip breakfast are less happy, mentally and psychically. Glucose is an essential nutrient needed by your digestive system. That is why you must eat something first thing in the morning.
It is easy to skip breakfast if you are on a diet thinking that you are saving calories. Sure that is true but it is also true that your metabolism will be slow, will burn less calories, and you will get fatter not thinner. So instead of suffering of hunger it is far better to eat something to jumpstart your metabolism. The only downside is that the options for a healthy breakfast are few.
Isn’t it true that sometimes you get hungry soon after eating a meal. The explanation are simple carbohydrates, like baked goods, that pass fast into the bloodstream creating a sugar rush. When the sugar rush passes as fast as it has appeared you get a mega hunger. The solution lies in eating complex carbohydrates like the ones from cereals or whole wheat bread and proteins from dairies and light cheeses.
The human body is a well build machine. It’s up to you to keep it running efficiently and at top performance. You must feed your body the best fuel you can and for that breakfast should never be skipped. It’s far more important than you can realize.
A 2001 study has showed that a healthy nourishing breakfast is far more important in a weight loss program than the total number of calories eaten that day. People that eat cereals for breakfast and eat healthy tend to be much more healthy body. You should eat as much fibers as you can and reduce the quantity of fats you eat. On the other hand people that skip breakfast tend to be fatter because they eat more during the day and the body has the whole night to pack fat allover.
A good and healthy breakfast can contain cereals, skim milk, low fat cheese, fruits, whole wheat toast, fresh juice made of fruits and vegetables, green tea… If you have more suggestions of healthy aliments for a healthy breakfast write them down in the comments below.
August 3, 2009 at 6:06 am
I’m going around responding to all these articles stressing the alleged importance of breakfast. I see you have “studies have shown…” phrasing without naming or providing the nature of the studies. Maybe that’s convincing to some, but not me. Here’s my take:
I lost 25-30 pounds 7 years ago, and have kept the weight off. But the fact that I’ve succeeded where most people fail doesn’t stop the “experts” from scolding me for daring to buck conventional wisdom.
I don’t eat breakfast.
I don’t eat lunch.
I don’t swallow the claims that this is bad for my health.
Many people prefer to scold than stopping to consider something that may help them. But doesn’t my success in an area dominated by soul-crushing failure indicate you should consider my points?
My own story of weight loss is, of course, anecdotal, so how about some research that supports my claims: first, Dr. David Levitsky, professor of nutrition at Cornell, conducted a controlled study where subjects skipped breakfast. They ate more than they usually would at lunch, but not enough to make up the difference. There was a net loss in caloric intake. Dr. Mark Mattson of the National Institute of Aging had subjects skip breakfast and lunch, then had them eat a prescribed, full day’s allotment of calories worth at dinner. They neither gained nor lost weight, but his opinion was that if left on their own they’d eat less for dinner. That’s my experience. Exercise discipline and don’t eat junk-food (except occasionally), and you won’t eat more throughout the course of the day. Just make sure you have a good selection of assorted, nutritious foods for your one meal.
As for metabolism: one’s basal-rate of metabolism never stops, but it does decrease while sleeping. It’s true that eating can increase it – through what’s called thermogenesis – but then so can drinking a glass of cold water.
My routine is tough at first to get used to, but I think many can relate to how you get into a “zone” where you just don’t feel hungry. Today I ran 11 miles/17.7K on an empty stomach (btw- I’m not lying; I have better things to do than misrepresent myself on an internet forum). When I finished at about 1, I had plenty of fluids, but no food. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all about how “bad” that is for you. Talk to the hand. I’m right on this; I’m TELLING you. I’m not going to claim it’s the ONLY way to lose weight, but long-term success stories are rare, so I’m clearly doing something right. And I feel utterly confident that the “Breakfast is the most important meal” canard will be revised, as part of ongoing scientific inquiry, in due course.
August 3, 2009 at 11:09 am
Dude you have a astounding willpower. Eating only one meal per day without binging several times per day is fabulous. I recommend people to eat breakfast and eat several small meals every day because that way they don’t have to feel hunger and thus avoid binging and using lots of willpower to refrain themselves from binging.
I believe its better to eat several times per day, starting with a good healthy breakfast. I feel better psychologically in the days when I eat breakfast than on those when I skip it. (I am grumpy when I am hungry) Eating so that you don’t starve your body also helps speed up your metabolism and bypasses many hardwired mechanisms out body has to protect ourselves.
September 27, 2010 at 8:26 am
I don’t eat breakfast or lunch myself and have been doing so for at least 25 years. Though I have never been overweight I can say it is a very healthy way to live. I think healthy foods in moderation and exercise are probably the two most important factors in staying healthy at an ideal weight. I eat about 90% whole grain stuff, fruits, vegetables, nuts and fish. The other 10% is anything I feel like eating, junk or not. I exercise at least 30 minutes a day 4 days a week often 5. I am now 52 years old and people don’t beleive me when I tell them my age. Like when I go out, very young women will ask me out, I will have to tell them I am older than their father or my girls are older than they are.
Eat well and exercise regularly, very simple.