Some of you might be surprised to know that it's a myth.... breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. I am sure some would be relieved to know this.
Eating a hearty breakfast is considered a corner stone of a healthy diet. Skipping it, we are told, will make us hungry and prone to overeat for the rest of the day. Although we think it’s a universal truth, it’s really not.
When I was a kid my mom use to say that I should eat my breakfast (6a.m) before going for sports practice in the morning, if not I will not have energy to run and will faint. I believed this and use to force myself to eat breakfast as soon as I wake up though I was not hungry.
It is simply not necessary to eat the minute we wake up. We imagine that need to “fuel up” for the day ahead, but our body has already done that automatically. Just before we wake up, a natural circadian rhythm jolts our bodies with a heady mix of growth hormone, cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenalin). This cocktail stimulates the liver to make new glucose, essentially giving us a shot of the good stuff to wake us up. This is called the dawn phenomenon.
Many are not hungry in the morning. The natural cortisol and adrenalin released stimulates a mild fight-or-flight response, which activates the sympathetic nervous system. Our bodies are gearing up for action in the morning, not for eating. All these hormones release glucose into the blood for quick energy. We are already fueled up and ready to go. Morning hunger is often a behavioral learned over decades, starting in childhood.
A large breakfast is thought to reduce food intake throughout the rest of the day. However, such does not always seem to be the case. Studies show that the more one eats at breakfast, the higher the total caloric intake over the entire day. Taking breakfast may increase the number of eating opportunities in a day. Breakfast eaters therefore tend to eat more and eat more often.
Some tend to think, skipping breakfast will slow our metabolism. Study had found that the total energy expenditure to be the same whether one ate breakfast or not.
The main problem in the morning is that we are always in a rush. Therefore, we want the convenience, affordability and shelf life of processed foods. Sugary cereals are the kings of the breakfast table, with children as the primary target. Nearly 73% of children regularly eat sugary cereals. Most common breakfast options toast, bread, sugary yoghurts, Danishes, pancakes, donuts, muffins, instant oatmeal, fruit juice. Clearly the cheap refined carbohydrate and sugar seems to be the supreme.
Here are some commonsense questions you may ask yourself about breakfast.
- Are you hungry at breakfast? If not listen to your body and don’t eat.
- Does breakfast make you hungry? If you eat a slice of toast and drink a glass of orange juice in the morning, and you feel hungry an hour later? Then don’t eat breakfast, if you do then avoid refined carbs and sugar and choose egg, avocado, green smoothie instead.
- Skipping breakfast does not give you the freedom to eat a Krispy Kreme donut as a mid-morning snack either.
- The word breakfast literally means the meal that breaks our fast, which is the period when we are sleeping and therefore not eating. Don’t eat breakfast because you have to eat, or you’ve been doing it for years, and if you do, choose real food not cheap, unhealthy food like substances.
