Over a couple of weeks I’ve had a little experiement going with myself and breakfast. As someone who used to skip breakfast, I now realise the importance of this meal.
Firstly, the clue is in the name “breakfast” - you are breaking the fast that your body has endured overnight. You haven’t eaten for (if you were good and ate your evening meal at the right time) something like 12 hours.
Secondly, your brain needs food to work properly (in fact we are supposed to “graze” in order to keep a steady flow of food for our brain).
Thirdly, eating breakfast is good for our metabolism, which is the process with which the body burns calories. Your metabolism, like many of your body’s processes, slows down whilst you are asleep. Your metabolism doesn’t speed up again until you eat your first meal.
So, if you don’t eat until lunch time, you might think you’re saving valuable calories by skipping breakfast but in reality your body isn’t getting valuable nutrients needed to carry out it’s routine functions, you’re not getting the energy you require to do your job or training, and you’re body isn’t burning calories as efficiently as it could be because your metabolism isn’t working at full throttle.
I realise life takes over. You might wake up late, or you have a hectic family life, so breakfast is either ignored of you grab a muffin from Starbucks on the way to the office - afterall, as long as you don’t go over your calorie intake for the day, a muffin for breakfast is OK. OK?
Well, no. Whilst 2 foods might contain the same number of calories, it doesn’t mean it’s a wise food choice. Take my little experiment, for example:
For the past 2 weeks I’ve been having either:
100g of cornflakes, with 200ml of skimmed milk and 2 teaspoons of sugar
or:
50g of porridge, with 200ml of skimmed milk and 2 teasppons of sugar
We all assume cornflakes is a good, healthy choice for breakfast, right?
On the day of eating corn flakes (bearing in mind a serving is 30g and I was eating 100g), I’m sometimes actually getting hungry by the time I arrive at work, just over an hour later. On the day of eating the porridge, I survive my pangs until well into the morning, only reaching for fruit at about 11 - 11:30am. Then there’s the nutritional information:
Not including the milk and sugar, they compare as follows:
Porridge
Energy: 180kcal
Protein: 5.5g
Carbs: 30g
Sugars: 0.75g
Fats: 4g
Fibre: 4.25g
Sodium: trace
Salt: trace
Corn Flakes
Energy: 380kcal
Protein: 7.3g
Carbs: 84g
Sugars: 8.9g
Fats: 1.2g
Fibre: 3.0g
Sodium: 0.6g
Salt: 1.6g
The porridge is lower in calories (although higher in saturates - but we’re basing this on a calorie controlled diet) and fuels me for longer into the morning and making me feel fuller after eating it. This is because corn flakes are a high GI food, so the energy is released into the body much more rapidly than a lower GI food such as porridge oats, and for less calories! Not only that, the corn flakes portion I ate has nearly 1/3 of my daily recommended salt intake!
So, my top tip.
First, eat breakfast. It’s critical. It’s one of the corner stones of weight loss. Without it, you’re already facing an uphill battle.
Second, choose a low GI breakfast - so avoid wheat based cereals (especially refined, sugary crap such as Cocopops, Frosties and pretty much anything marketed at kids). If in doubt - go for porridge, it takes 5 minutes to make in the microwave and done correctly tastes lovely.