What do you do on your typical morning? If you’re like many Americans you probably grab a quick shower, get ready in a hurry, and fly out the door in an attempt to be at work on time. If this is you, what is your morning routine missing? Breakfast. Not eating in the morning may seem trivial, but breakfast has long been regarded as one of, if not the, most important meal. Modern research done on the health benefits of eating breakfast is standing behind this, and after you’ve taken a look at what a good breakfast has to offer, you just may find yourself slowing your mornings down.
While most people avoid breakfast because they don’t feel like they have time, the next greatest cause is concern over weight loss. Many people feel that eating a healthy breakfast will simply fill them with more calories that they don’t need and that skipping breakfast will cause them to lose weight. This actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Studies are widely crediting breakfast with powerful weight loss benefits, and science backs them up. It’s actually quite simple – when you don’t eat in the morning, your metabolic rate slows tremendously because your body has no source of fuel to burn for the day. This causes your blood sugar to consequently drop. Your body, of course, wants to correct for all of this, and to do so it is going to cause excess hunger to provide itself with fuel. It’s also going to crave sugary, fattening foods to help even out blood sugar levels. As a result it will be almost impossible to resist snacking on unhealthy foods throughout the day, and you’re going to eat much more than you need to at meals. Simply by eating breakfast you will speed up your metabolic rate, and according to concisive studies, people who eat a regular meal in the morning weigh an average of eight pounds less.
Other than weight loss, what else can breakfast do for you? Breakfast offers you the best chance of the day to get a good helping of whole grains with the right breakfast cereal. Getting a serving of whole grains every day can do many wonderful things for your body, but most importantly it will improve your cardiovascular health. Cardiovascular disease is dangerous and on the rise, and the only way to prevent it is to head it off early. Studies have shown that eating a breakfast based on whole grains and oats every morning can reduce your chance of dying of heart disease by as much as 20%. When looking for cereals, choose those with whole grains first in the ingredients list. While energy bars are popular and may seem like a good idea to save time, most of them really need to be avoided. Few actually contain significant amounts of fiber, and are loaded with calories. Breakfast will also energize you for the day. With a fuel source to burn and increased metabolic rate, your energy levels will be higher and more stable and you’ll feel much better.
There is truly no good excuse for missing breakfast. Ultimately, the benefits that can be gained by simply eating something healthy for you each morning simply override any excuses about time or weight loss. Breakfast can drastically improve your health, help you feel much better throughout your day, help to shed a few pounds, and help fight off a disease or two. There is no other way to get these kinds of results so easily, and breakfast can do even more for you by incorporating other healthy foods such as fruits into your morning. Breakfast gives you a chance to get daily servings of the foods you know you should be getting, so slow down a little bit and enjoy a little meal to get yourself ready to tackle your day.