Breakfast benefits our body and brain. It provides us with flue after an overnight fast – actually, that is where its name comes from, breaking the fast! Without eating breakfast, you are efficiently running on empty, just like trying to start your car with no petrol!
Breakfast benefits your metabolism, assisting you to burn calories through the day. Moreover, it also helps us focus at school or at work and provides us the energy we actually need to get things done. However, these are only a few reasons why it is the most significant meal of the day.
Numerous studies have associated eating breakfast to well-being, including better concentration and memory, lower chances of getting heart disease, diabetes, being overweight, and lower levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol.
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Advantages of Eating Breakfast
Following, we offer some of the most significant, possible benefits of breakfast, according to research:
- Energy needs
Persons’ energy needs vary depending on life stage and activity levels but generally, men need more energy than women. Raising children require a lot of energy, as an instance boys aged 7 to 10 years should eat approximately 1970 kcals a day, and girls aged 7 to 10 years should consume approximately 1740 kcals daily. For adults, women require approximately 2000 kcals a day, and men approximately 2500 kcals daily.
- Memory
According to a review of 47 studies for eating breakfast released in the 2005 Journal of the American Dietetic Association, consuming breakfast is likely to boost cognitive function linked to memory and concentration.
- Heart Disease
According to a July study in the journal Circulation, consuming breakfast was linked with a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease in men between ages 45-82. The research also found that skipping breakfast was linked to insulin resistance, hypertension, and raised blood sugar levels.
- Diabetes
According to a study published this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Skipping, breakfast can increase a risk of diabetes in women. Females who consumed breakfast an average of 0-6 times weekly were at a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who consumed breakfast every day.
- Weight Loss
A study found that individuals who consumed breakfast as their largest mealtime lost an average of 17.8 pounds over 3 months. According to the study published in July in the journal Obesity, the other contributors ate the same number of total calories a day, however, consumed most of their calories at dinner. Moreover, over the same time period, the large dinner group only lost an average of 7.3 pounds each.
Other breakfast benefits include:
- Consuming less fat through the day;
- Having a lower BMI;
- Having higher daily fiber intake;
- Having higher daily calcium intake;
- Meeting recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption, and
- Having better performance (attention and memory)
Disadvantages of Missing a Morning Meal
Numerous studies have found certain disadvantages of skipping breakfast:
- Less likely to meet recommendations for eating fruits and vegetables;
- More likely to be overweight;
- More likely to eat unhealthy snacks, and
- Research of children and adolescents have found that those who don’t consume breakfast are apt to be overweight.
Making Good Breakfast Choices
You may think that a cup of coffee and a muffin ought to do the trick, however, professionals advise being much more careful when choosing your breakfast. As a nutritionist, I offer you some suggestions that can help you to choose what to eat in the morning:
- High-fiber cereal with fruit and milk, soy, or rice milk;
- High-fiber bagel or toast with tablespoon of peanut butter;
- Select protein bar and a glass of milk or yogurt;
- Low-fat protein shake with fresh or frozen fruit, and
- Later, as a mid-morning snack – you can also eat 1 serving of fresh fruit
Furthermore, always read labels on processed breakfast selections in order to see if they’re really healthy choices – especially with some yogurts and protein bars; some of them may contain a lot of added sugar.
Try to keep sugars under 20 grams; look for bars with around 6 to 10 grams of protein, and 4 or more grams of fiber.
You can also consult a dietitian and share your food preferences and limitations, so he/she could help you with a good plan of action.
Conclusion:
When you consume breakfast you’re telling the body that there are numerous calories to be had for the day, and when you skip morning meal the message the body gets is that it should conserve rather than burn incoming calories. Therefore, breakfast benefits our whole metabolism and eating meals in the morning is so important.
Nutrition advises from Victoria Vito:
- breakfast should be consumed within 2 hours of waking
- a healthy, well-balanced breakfast should deliver calories in the range of 20 to 35% of the guideline daily allowance (GDA).