Believe it or not there was a great deal of commotion in the health world a few months back over the question of whether or not to eat breakfast.
Actually, meal skipping in general has become somewhat of a “health” trend recently and intermittent fasting is now fairly well known with many people perhaps even you or someone you know having given it at least some kind of attempt with the intention of experiencing some kind of health gain. If you want to get the verdict on fasting read my earlier blog “Is Fasting Good for You?” because in this post we’re going to keep to the specific area of breakfast eating (or skipping).
As far as I could tell the main argument that breakfast wasn’t the so called “most important meal of the day” it has commonly been touted to be was that eating or not eating breakfast did not impact weight loss and in some cases was found to increase peoples weight when they were told to add it in. However, from my viewpoint the benefits of eating breakfast go far beyond weight gain or loss so in this post I am going to share my top 3 pros of eating breakfast (plus a few additional titbits).
- Eating Breakfast Gives You Energy
This may seem obvious but what’s greater than having energy?
Truly, what’s greater than having the energy and vitality to not just get through your day but to love your day?
There is nothing more fundamental to our survival and beyond that our enjoyment of life than energy.
Abundant energy is what gives us the ability to be fully present, engaged and interested in our lives.
Energy is what makes it possible to jump into each moment and opportunity rather than sit it out.
Think about it on the days you’re feeling alive and energetic are you more likely to say yes to opportunities such as talking to that stranger, playing the silly game with your son, going to dance class after work or flying through your to-do list than on the days you’re feeling flat and lacklustre? Yes! Of course, because energy gives us confidence, it gives us the ability to be spontaneous. Why? Because having energy lets your body know from a physiological perspective that everything is ok. It’s a huge stress on your body if you are not eating enough food (aka energy) and the first things to go on the list of priorities are all the fun extras!
The truth is that without enough energy everything is an effort.
Do you want to crawl through your day with bedtime being your only highlight? Only to repeat the same thing the next day, for the whole week, the next week, the month, the next month, the year, the next year… your life… Or do you want to give yourself more of a chance than that!?
Energy is the fuel for love, passion, connection and contribution to a wider and greater good than yourself.
Energy is the fuel for thriving.
With energy you can be a greater friend, parent, lover, business owner, dog owner, teacher, lawyer, doctor, plumber literally a greater everything because you have the passion and the joy to give because you have the energy to give you want to give and giving from a place of wanting to give trumps exhausted obligatory giving a million trillion times over.
By choosing to eat breakfast you’re choosing to have energy for your whole day and not just part of it.
Choose breakfast and choose joy.
2. Eating Breakfast Improves Your Memory and Learning
Could your memory be better?
Perhaps you may like to consider giving an experiment with breakfast a go because skipping breakfast has been linked to having negative impacts on both memory and learning1-10.
Studies show that memory and school performance decline when people skip breakfast and this appears to be related at least in part to blood glucose levels (BGLs) in which low BGLs equal poorer memory and academic performance.
Hence the type of breakfast eaten is just as important as the eating of breakfast itself and choosing foods which release glucose over a longer period of time (for example wholegrains and milk in combination or eggs and toast) appear to be the best kind of breakfast to help us preserve acquired information (i.e. create memories) and to readily use stored information (i.e. access memories).
So, when choosing what to have for breakfast go for a combination of the macronutrients and include a source of carbs (for example bread, rice, cereal, oats), protein (for example eggs, tofu or yoghurt) and fats (for example avocado, nuts and seeds or olive oil) for sustained energy as well as a good mix of micronutrients because on top of the energy your brain also needs a steady supply of micronutrients (for example vitamin B6, vitamin B12, folic acid and copper) for optimal functioning including memory and learning.
3. Eating Breakfast Sets You Up For A Day In A Good Mood
Want to know the real secret to being happy?
A: Eat a good amounts of food, regularly.
Want to know the real secret to being really happy?
A: Eat a good amount of carbs.
Seriously, that’s some scientifically sound information right there. What you eat affects your brain and anything which affects your brain affects your mood.
Your prefrontal cortex (the front part of your brain with all your higher-level thought processes that make you uniquely human) is super sensitive to changes in glucose availability and changes in your mental function including alterations in concentration, focus and tolerance are often the first signs of a nutritional lack.
There’s actually quite a bit of research around mood and food and in particular that eating carbohydrates puts us in a more clam and relaxed mood.
There are studies showing that when people didn’t include carbs at breakfast or ate protein rich meals, they were less tolerable and less happy in comparison to groups that ate a breakfast which included a good amount of carbohydrate. Diets low in carbs have been associated with increased anger, depression and tension and when meals are based on cereals or vegetables (aka carbs) rather than meat or fish (aka protein) study participants reported better mood.
There’s one really simple reason for this and it is that glucose (aka sugar) from carbohydrates is your body’s main energy source.
In particular evidence shows that low-glycaemic index (GI) and high-glycaemic load (GL) meals have the most beneficial effect on mood. With participants in one study reporting feeling more confident, less sluggish, less hungry, and less thirsty11 after eating a low-GI, high GL breakfast.
It’s no wonder you’re going to feel in a better mood if you eat carbohydrates with meals and eat regularly because essentially you are letting your brain know it has a good supply of the energy it needs (which is 20-25% of your daily calorie intake- not bad for an organ which makes up 2% of your body weight!).
Protein is also important to your mood because protein and in particular the amino acids that make up proteins are the precursors to neurotransmitters including serotonin and norepinephrine which are chemical messengers that essentially tell your brain how to feel. If you have a deficiency of any of the amino acids this will affect your body’s ability to produce neurotransmitters and hence have a flow on effect on your mood.
Some Other Health Points to Consider When Choosing to Eat or Skip Breakfast
In one study those who skipped breakfast were found to have a higher insulin response and increased fat oxidation after eating lunch which is an indication of the development of metabolic inflexibility. If breakfast skipping is continued for a long period of time it may lead to low-grade inflammation and impaired glucose homeostasis and therefore energy balance and because chronic inflammation is a risk factor possibly increase your risk of developing metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes12.
Other studies have indicated that people eating breakfast have lower blood cholesterol than those not eating breakfast13-16 and as high blood cholesterol is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) it is generally a good thing to have lower blood cholesterol levels.
The Moral of The Story
I need breakfast. Not everybody needs breakfast. The main question you need to ask yourself is are you hungry? On top of this are you living your days fully involved or are you just getting through?
At the end of the day it is about getting to know your needs because there is no diet that will ever be healthier than listening to and honouring what your body is asking for.
As a human being you are built to adapt and survive under a wide range of conditions including timing and composition of food intake. You are more resilient that anyone has likely ever given you credit for. We wouldn’t have made it this far as a species were we so fragile that there was one exact way we all had to eat.
Human bodies (including yours) are literally designed for health and it is when we give away our power (most often unknowingly and with well meaning intentions) to the outside world in the form of shiny new diet and bio hack promises that problems arise. Therefore, any steps you can take towards rebuilding or increasing trust in your body are worth taking, everything else not so much.
Please don’t skip breakfast when you really want to eat breakfast because you heard it was better for you somewhere. On the other hand if you really don’t want to eat breakfast and your way of eating whatever that may be works so well for, you have peak brain function and are achieving all the things you want to then by all means continue.
If you’re unsure I highly encourage you to give working with a dietitian some thought because we not only care but we also can give you the right information for you to make your own informed choices.
With All My Heart I Hope You Found This Information Useful and Inspiring
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
Reference
- Pollitt E, Leibel RL & Greenfield D. Brief fasting, stress, and cognition in children. Am J Clin Nutr. 1981. 34, 1526–1533.
- Pollitt E, Lewis NL, Garza C, et al. Fasting and cognitive function. J Psychiatr Res. 1982. 17, 169–174.
- Conners CK & Blouin AG. Nutritional effects on behavior of children. J Psychiatr Res. 1982. 17, 193–201.
- Vaisman N, Voet H, Akivis A, et al. Effect of breakfast timing on the cognitive functions of elementary school students. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1996. 150, 1089–1092.
- Wesnes KA, Pincock C, Richardson D, et al. Breakfast reduces declines in attention and memory over the morning in schoolchildren. Appetite. 2003. 41, 329–331.
- Mahoney CR, Taylor HA, Kanarek RB, et al. Effect of breakfast composition on cognitive processes in elementary school children. Physiol Behav. 2005. 85, 635–645.
- Smith AP, Clark R & Gallagher J. Breakfast cereal and caffeinated coffee: effects on working memory, attention, mood, and cardiovascular function. Physiol Behav. 1999. 67, 9–17.
- Simeon DT & Grantham-McGregor S. Effects of missing breakfast on the cognitive functions of school children of differing nutritional status. Am J Clin Nutr. 1989. 49, 646–653.
- Chandler AM, Walker SP, Connolly K, et al. School breakfast improves verbal fluency in undernourished Jamaican children. J Nutr. 1995. 125, 894–900.
- Benton D & Parker PY (1998) Breakfast, blood glucose, and cognition. Am J Clin Nutr 67, S772–S778.
- Micha R, Rogers PJ, Nelson M. Glycaemic index and glycaemic load of breakfast predict cognitive function and mood in school children: a randomised controlled trial. Br J Nutr 2011 Nov 28;106(10):1552-61.
- Nas A, Mirza N, Hägele F, Kahlhöfer J, Keller J, Rising R, Kufer TA, Bosy-Westphal A. Impact of breakfast skipping compared with dinner skipping on regulation of energy balance and metabolic risk, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2017. 105; 6:1351–1361.
- Stanton JJ, Keast D. Serum cholesterol, fat intake, and breakfast consumption in the United States adult population. J Am Coll Nutr 1989. 8: 567–72.
- Resnicow K. The relationship between breakfast habits and plasma cholesterol levels in schoolchildren. J Sch Health 1991. 61:81–5.
- McKeown NM, Meigs JB, Liu S, Wilson PW, Jacques PF. Whole-grain intake is favorably associated with metabolic risk factors for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the Framingham Offspring Study. Am J Clin Nutr 2002. 76:390 – 8.
- Liese AD, Roach AK, Sparks KC, Marquart L, D’Agostino RB Jr, Mayer-Davis EJ. Whole-grain intake and insulin sensitivity: the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Study. Am J Clin Nutr 2003. 78:965–71.
