Breakfast is for champions

Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day?

Life can so often get in the way of eating breakfast. Excuses include, sleeping in, running late, tending to the kids or perhaps it is even the dreaded hair-wash day – everyone is guilty of breakfast skipping at some point in their lives.

After a night of sleeping and no eating your body and brain crave the fuel that food provides. Apart from providing energy for the day ahead, breakfast foods are good sources of important nutrients such as calcium, iron and B vitamins as well as protein and fibre.

Nutritionists believe that skipping breakfast causes the body to tap energy reserves, resulting in fatigue and the temptation to reach for unhealthy snacks – never a good thing. Agreed?

When we skip breakfast, our body conserves energy which, in turn, slows metabolism and means that we burn fewer calories.

But if eating breakfast is good for the waistline – count me in.

Some say that eating breakfast is not only essential for fuelling up for the day but crucial for maintaining a healthy weight. And consuming the majority of your calories at the beginning of the day just makes sense, as it gives you more time to burn them off. Or does it?

The question has been researched into the ground by universities around the world. Some researchers found that eating breakfast didn’t change the participants’ metabolic rate or the number of calories they consumed later in the day.

Others reviewed a wide array of studies on the effect of eating breakfast on weight loss and concluded that many of the studies were biased and unreliable because of the widespread feeling that breakfast must be good for us.

Some advocate that skipping breakfast could actually be beneficial – and let’s face it, fasting is becoming a hot trend at the moment, based on the premise that when you’re fasting, the body burns fat instead of spending time processing food.

Fashion and fads aside, the weight of opinion seems to be that breakfast is vital for our bodies to function efficiently and research – more research – shows what a positive impact eating breakfast can make on your day.