Monday morning. Alarm. Urgh you shouldn’t of had that extra glass of wine last night. You shower a little longer than usual, and getting ready takes a little longer than you really have to spare. You’re late. Shit.
Breakfast is the last thing you’ll have time for today. At a stretch you may grab a ready-to-drink breakfast drink. Probably, you won’t.
So many girls I know skip breakfast, daily. Probably 50%. Out of the other 50%, maybe 10% of them eat well enough to be giving themselves a good start to the day.
Yep, that will sure get you energised for the day ahead
For something so simple and easy to get down-pat, and with such a huge benefit it is insane we aren’t all having a great breakfast – daily!
no breakfast = no energy for the day
What is your brain going to run on? Coffee? Sorry, that’s not going to work. Your brain needs good quality food to supply it with glucose to run throughout the day – and without breakfast by mid morning you will be in a hole. Remember, you have been without a food source all night. Let’s not even mention the vitamins and minerals that are essential to your functioning throughout the day.
The next problem is snacking. People who eat breakfast get their metabolisms cranking from the get-go. Skipping breakfast causes a low blood sugar level and ends up in a binge of snacks or crap food. Even if your eventual eating is healthy, it has been shown that people who skip on breakfast eat more throughout the day and end up weighing more than those that have brekkie daily. Snacks are nothing more than fancily wrapped poor food choices after your money.
Snacks: they're after your money
The final problem is insulin resistance. A University of Nottingham, UK study found that people who skip breakfast have a increased resistance to insulin. This is bad. Increased insulin resistance is linked with an increased likelihood of developing diabetes. The study also found that skipping breakfast can lead to increased LDL cholesterol (the bad kind of cholesterol). Also bad.
Here’s what you should be eating.
whole grains
Oatmeal (or porridge – whatever you call it in your neck of the woods), Bran, Muesli, whole wheat pancakes and so on. Not everyones cup of tea? That’s because you haven’t found your favourite way of eating it yet!
I don’t mean top it in chocolate, but try fruit, honey, cinnamon with sliced apples, brown sugar(Splenda if you’re going easy), berries – be creative. Here’s a little hint – add a tiny dash of salt to your oatmeal 
Find your fave
Find your fave
eggs
Eggs are a complete food source. They’re full of protein, vitamins, minerals and… yes, cholesterol – particularly the yolk. But, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Your own liver produces about 5x the cholesterol you can obtain from food on its own – and this is largely related to the amount of saturated fat you eat, not dietary ingested cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol, like that found in eggs, is NOT well bound to blood cholesterol.
Without getting too into the science behind it, here’s an explanation that may put your mind at ease.
“The evidence against eggs has come from confusion about cholesterol in food and cholesterol in the blood stream. The problem arose years ago when sections of the food industry decided the public would not be able to understand the fact that the body can make excess cholesterol when the diet is high in saturated fat. Instead of telling the public how much saturated fat foods contained, they chose to highlight cholesterol, tagging food labels with the words ‘no cholesterol’. To compound this absurdity, most of the foods that bore this claim had never contained cholesterol (e.g. olive oil) and many had high levels of saturated fat. Eggs are casualties of this dogma. Combined with sausages or fried in butter and eaten with buttered toast, they can certainly contribute to high serum cholesterol levels, but it is the accompanying saturated fat that is the culprit. The main message to those with raised serum lipids should be to find alternatives to saturated fat.”1– Healthy Eating Club, 2001
Don’t forget that cholesterol is an essential type of fat found in everyones body and is used by all cells in the body, as well as in the production of hormones.2
So eat your eggs, and the yolks too! Just be sure not to cook them in saturated fats, and stick to poached or boiled eggs as well as omelette’s.
Omelette's: there are tonnes of options
smoothies
Smoothies are a great way to get in valuable energy, vitamins, minerals and protein for the day ahead. You can eat them on the run too. Try using fruits, cottage cheese, low fat milk, yogurt as well as whey protein supplements in your smoothies.
Smoothies: banana and raspberry anyone?
I hope you enjoyed todays article and it helps motivate you toward getting the most important meal of the day in.
Eat like a King at breakfast, a Prince at lunch and a Pauper at dinner
1. Dietary cholesterol, 2001, http://healthyeatingclub.com/info/articles/fats-chol/cholesterol.htm
2. The facts about cholesterol levels – CSIRO, http://www.csiro.au/resources/CholesterolFacts.html
This is an excellent article! Thankyou
I often skip breakfast due to the fact i feel sick in the mornings. Any reason why this always happens? What can I do to make sure i’m getting breakfast in?
I’d really like to get this worked out because i definitely feel pretty rubbish about halfway through the morning. I drink coffee to make me feel better but then i crash even harder!
Thanks in advance!
El
Hi Elenor, thanks for the nice comment.
Feeling sick in the morning is pretty common, and has a lot to do with dehydration after 8-10 hours of sleeping and respiration.
Another possibility is that you are eating too close to your bedtime – try eating earlier in the evening, and having a small snack before bed like cottage cheese or a warm glass of milk. Peppermint tea may help too.
If that helps, great, otherwise I suggest you start eating small amounts of breakfast at first until your body adjusts. For this purpose I suggest you try oatmeal (porridge) as it is very gentle on the stomach.
Best of luck!
AT