The term “breakfast” comes from combining “break” and “fast,” and literally means to break the fast. When we sleep, there is no food intake for the 6 or so hours, and it’s only because your metabolism slows down during this period.
As soon as you wake up, however, your body requires fuel once more to help you get through the day’s activities.
If you skip this important meal, you’re more likely to crave snacks during midday or eat more the rest of the day.
With hunger also goes crankiness, and no one wants to associate with anyone in a foul mood so early in the morning. Poor memory has also been linked to skipping breakfast, which means that this nutrition abstinence is not advisable for adults and children alike.
But why do so many people skip this meal, if it’s so important?
Aside from their misconception that it would help them become slimmer faster, many think it’s a waste of time, and often there is a lack of readily available breakfast fare in the home.
How much breakfast should one have?
There’s an undeniably wise advice that goes: “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a shopkeeper, and dinner like a pauper.”
But realistically, your aim should be to consume the same amount of calories for each of these three meals. To be more specific, the calorie breakdown should be as follows: 25% for breakfast, 30% for lunch, and 30% for dinner, with about 15% for snacks during the day (best eaten in the afternoon).
A good breakfast should have some fiber and some protein.
Protein can come from lean meat, beans, soy, or eggs. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, on the other hand, provide the fiber your body needs. One example of a healthy breakfast may consist of a bowl of high-fiber cereal with low-fat milk, a hardboiled egg, and a grapefruit.
There are some people, though, who aren’t used to having breakfast or don’t feel like eating this much so early in the day.
They should either train themselves to eat less at dinner, or split breakfast into two installments – having the egg at home and perhaps eating an apple or a small bag of nuts during mid-morning.
What do studies reveal about breakfast?
There is convincing evidence showing that people who skip breakfast tend to be more unsuccessful with their attempts to lose weight.
This is because they make up those calories – with gusto – the rest of the day.
A study done in Madrid revealed that obese people spent less time, ate smaller portions, and had less variety during breakfast than people with normal weights.
Brenda Malinauskas, an assistant professor of nutrition at East Carolina University in North Carolina, conducted a study which showed that 48% of obese women skipped breakfast, while of overweight women, 40% did the same. Surprisingly, only 27% of normal-weighted women missed this meal.
When you take a hearty breakfast, your metabolic fires for the day ahead of you are stoked.
Conversely, without breakfast, your metabolism slows down and so does your calorie-burning. Not only that – even your mental and physical performance will suffer when breakfast is habitually skipped.
M. Jamal
P.S. It’s interesting how most tend to enjoy breakfast on vacation… yet it seems like a chore to skip through when we’ve got to rush to office. I try to line up my heaviest meals (including snacks) throughout the morning, then go lighter towards the evening… how about you?
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[...] I’ve covered this in an earlier post: “Don’t Skip Breakfast Even While Slimming” [...]