Let’s face it, not everyone enjoys breakfast. While most early-to-rise types are ready for food early in the a.m., many who consider themselves night owls cannot stomach the thought. Unfortunately for the night owls, skipping breakfast has many negative consequences, especially when you are trying to lose weight. While theoretically the idea of eating less food by skipping breakfast sounds like a useful idea, practice has shown skipping breakfast sabotages your dieting successes made later on in the day. How could that be? By missing breakfast one would most likely forgo between 300-400 calories. In fact, 10 days of going without breakfast would cause you to lose over a pound, by those counts. Unfortunately, your body knows that it is running without its morning fuel, and finds other ways around the loss.
First of all, by going without breakfast, we leave our body without fuel for nearly 12 hours or more. Sure, you may not be hungry early on, but by lunch or later in the afternoon when you finally give in, you are sure to over eat by more than those calories you missed at breakfast. This is because your blood sugar has dropped so low by that time that you begin to feel shaky, ravenous and irritable. You are far less able to fight temptation when you are caught in the midst of such a strong physical need for food, and much less likely to heed the signs of satiety when it has been so long since you havefed your body. Perhaps you are one of the few that possess an iron will? Maybe you are sure that you will not overeat or choose unwisely. Unfortunately, even with your will of iron, you will still not gain (i.e. lose pounds) by pushing away breakfast. Your body is a remarkably smart machine. If you have not fed it in more than 5-6 hours, but are still requiring it to keep up with your physical tasks, it will respond by slowing down your metabolism. Who would have thought that by eating you would raise your metabolism? Turns out it is true. The process of eating and digesting burns some calories by raising your metabolism. So, how early do you want your metabolism raised?
Finally, choosing to eat in the morning does not just get your metabolism going, studies have shown that women have greater amounts of calcium and fiber intake on the days that they choose to eat breakfast. Both calcium and fiber have been shown to be associated with successful weight loss, so you really do want more of both of those nutrients. Also breakfast eating in children is associated with greater cognitive skills, better moods and better grades. It is not too hard to believe that those same benefits are available to you, and when dieting, do not we all need something to help us with our moods?
Kerry-Ann Crawford
http://www.articlesbase.com/weight-loss-articles/why-breakfast-is-so-important-when-Dieting-340952.html
Why is it so important to eat breakfast when on a diet…? Just wondering…?
I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day bd all-and at the end of the day your blood pressure will be higher and you might overeat in the next meal-and I do eat, i was just wondering,
But why do people stress the fact that you need breakfast over any other meal? Is there more to it than just energy and controlling how much you eat?
Thanks!
Apparently breakfast kick-starts your metabolism and calories get burned more after you eat breakfast.
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breakfast is the first energy of the day for your body and if it is a healthy breakast your body will not change it into fat and use it for carbohydrates for energy. this energy is the energy that will keep you going throughout most of your day
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More to it that giving you energy, boosting your metabolism, helping you concentrate and control what you eat later because you won’t be ravenous ?
What more do you want ?
Maybe you’re one of those extremely rare people that can actually function to full capacity on a empty stomach, so you don’t have the incentive to eat breakfast, knowing that if won’t make a big difference.
Like the majority of people, I NEED breakfast unless I want to feel weak, tired, sluggish and distracted. The only time I don’t have breakfast is when I’m asked not to because I have my yearly medical check up with a blood test (or I could have surgery that day…). Then I can still drive but don’t ask me to go for a jog !
Once, as an experiment, I exercised before breakfast, because I know some people do that (probably people like you, who can) and the workout was twice harder while doing half the effort I usually do. I did some weight training and the weights seemed much heavier than usual, and instead of making improvements (more reps), I went backwards (less reps). I never did that again but I wish I could because it’s very practical to exercise and then eat, instead of eating, having to wait one hour digesting, and then exercising (I can’t exercise either within an hour of a meal).
Breakfast is just the first meal of the day, the one that will break your fast (you could have breakfast at noon if you woke up at 11am because you went to bed at 3am, but you might call it lunch…it would still break your fast, I like the idea of “brunch”).
You could have up to 12 hours of fast between dinner and breakfast (For example, if you would have dinner at 7pm and breakfast at 7am). Fasting is okay when you’re sleeping but once you get up, you should put some nutrients in your body, so they’re available right away, instead of your body having to dip into your fat reserves for what it needs (leave the “dipping into the fat reserves” during aerobics workouts).
So really breaking your fast is very important, especially for people on a diet, trying to skip meal and ending up with no energy, bad concentration and sooooo hungry. Plus a sensible breakfast is like a « free meal » because you will spend those calories just because you have a lot of energy and your metabolism is in full gear. It’s like eating one egg…it’s free food because digesting one egg uses as much calories as the egg itself, but you’ll still get the proteins and energy.
It is proven that kids who had breakfast perform much better on tests in the mornings, not because they’re smarter but because they can concentrate better. And that’s just for the mind. Your body is tired and sluggish if you don’t have some sugar in your blood.
It’s like you would drive a car with no gas in it, just enough to get you to the nearest gas station (an euphemism for fat reserves). Then you would only get enough gas to drive you to the next gas station where you would have to refuel again. You would have to stop at each gas station to refuel.
A car (who had breakfast!) with a full tank would go so much faster and with less fuss that one that has to stop all the time for refueling.
If you’re on a diet, have a sensible breakfast. Not those gazillions calories greasy fast food ones with sausages, fries and what not.
Have a piece of fruit (banana, apple, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, plums or those 50 to 70 calories little fruit cans (mixed fruit, apricots…)
Have a little fiber and sugar (I like a whole wheat toast with jam).
Maybe a cup of milk for calcium (I have one with my coffee).
Your breakfast should be between 300 and 400 calories, which you will promptly use during a “full energy” morning with no hunger.
Or you could skip breakfast, thinking that maybe you can add those 400 calories later on with a bigger lunch or dinner…think again because your body is a marvelous machine and adapts to what you feed it. If you don’t feed it breakfast, your body will make sure that you don’t spend the calories that you did not get. Then when you actually eat too much, your body will make sure to store those in fat reserves.
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