Imagine driving all night on the interstate highway. After the eight hour drive, your car has provided you with power, lights and a mechanical system that kept you safe and got you where you needed to be. That all took energy -- energy derived from the gas you put in the car. Neglecting to fill the tank after that long night on the road will cause your car to putter and eventually stop.
Our bodies are no different -- as we sleep, our bodies work hard. The heart works to keep blood moving through our body, our brain function allows us to breathe and our hormones continue to send messages. While we sleep, we can be assured that our body will take over and we'll wake up the next morning ready to face another day. This process only works well if we feed our bodies the fuel it requires. That fuel is breakfast.
Unfortunately, many of us forget to fill the tank. Neglecting to eat breakfast means our body may start to putter (metabolism slows down to conserve energy that we still have left in the tank) which affects our brains, our energy and our overall disposition to healthy eating throughout the rest of the day. If you thought skipping breakfast was the best way to lose weight, you are unfortunately misinformed.
I tell my Lifestyle 180 participants to eat within an hour of waking up. This is important for restoring not only their glycogen stores, but can also immediately start getting the daily vitamins and minerals their body needs. There's a lot of evidence that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why? Breakfast eaters are better able to manage their weight. They consume higher quality calories throughout the day and tend to eat more frequent, smaller meals and snacks. That, in turn, helps to keep blood sugar levels stable. Research shows that children who consume breakfast have higher levels of concentration in school and perform better on tests. Breakfast clearly affects our energy, our mind, our weight and our daily food choices. 78 percent of participants who reported their success in the National Weight Control Registry, a database of individuals that have lost at least 30 pounds and have kept it off for one year or more, reported eating breakfast every day
Follow these simple rules to get the most out of your breakfast.
Think before you eat, will this food benefit me or hurt me? Most breakfast foods available from a drive-through window are probably not the best options. If you're on the go and too busy to eat a healthy breakfast at home, keep food at work. Good examples include oatmeal, milk and cereal, natural peanut butter and whole grain crackers, etc. The most important lesson to take away from reading this is simple: eat breakfast! Plenty of evidence exists that you'll more likely to maintain a normal body weight if you do so.
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Breakfast good for your health and good for your weight control
Recipes for Health: Breakfast Grains - Series - The New York Times
Less sugar spikes, less LDL cholesterol oxidation (pollution) and inflammation in the arteries,
much better for blood pressure!
Low glycemic throughout the day . . . it is a lifestyle and very cardio friendly.
Low glycemic (no weight gain) Oat & Pineapple Breakfast Cookie recipe(s)
http://www.ForHerHeart.org/heartrecipes.aspx
Too much citrus in my diet gives me hives, corn is the only grain that doesn't give me bloat and soy gives me the blahs. Not the blues. The blahs. There's a difference.
Besides, it's beginning to look like carbs are the real culprit where heart disease is concerned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfsT-qYeqGM
The actual China study doesn't support the book called 'The China Study'.
http://www.angrytrainerfitness.com/2011/01/top-10-breakfast-cereals/
Pork belly is amazing (uncured bacon, basically). A little piece of that will keep you satisfied all morning.
Forge the carbs..they will just cause a crash and hunger by mid-morning. The worst thing to have is fruit juice..just a glass of sugar water and the sugar is fructose, which is a big health no-no.
Those of us with insulin-resistance can't utilize glucose and it stores as fat, causes high blood sugar and insulin levels, and on and on. Read the science.
My body can't metabolize carbs, so I guess they are "poison" to me.
An oxymoron
Then set the timer for 60 minutes and excersise.
Then breakfast.
Works for me ! :)
My usual breakfast during the week is steel cut oats, blueberries, chia seed or flax with crushed unsalted raw almonds or sunflower seeds. Weekends and heavy workouts, I drink a cruciferous juice(kale, cauliflower, watercress, apple, carrots,broccoli) when I put in over 5 miles running or have a soccer game. I usually fill up on beans and ocassionally some fish as protein after a heavy work out.
#2 Why is saturated fat to be avoided?
#2 Saturated fat? Are you serious?
When glycogen stores run low, your liver recruits glycogen from the triglycerides stored as body fat. This is not the most efficient way to restore glycogen, so both your mental and physical acuity suffers. Having a breakfast high in whole grains replenishes the glycogen stores quickly and efficiently. Adding whole fruit with fiber - not fruit juice - also provides quick glucose for energy.
If you don't require breakfast and don't suffer from sluggishness, it's quite possible you have amply loaded your glycogen stores before bed or your body is accustomed to converting stored fat back into energy. Neither of these is particularly optimal for heart health, as you may be elevating your triglyceride levels in the process.
Elevated triglyceride levels are a key contributor to heart disease. Triglycerides carried "back and forth" in your blood stream (excess sugar in your diet, recruitment of fat back into glycogen) are believed to be the source of inflammation and arterial plaque buildup. It's wise to avoid eating patterns (eating large meals late at night / excess sugar consumption) that elevate triglyceride levels.
Just a tip from a heart attack survivor...
When you eat does matter, just not for the reasons stated here.