Every day the alarm goes off and the morning preparations begin. If your house is anything like mine, the snooze button gets hit one too many times, maybe you are running late after your morning workout,  the kids aren’t cooperating, or you are trying to finish up some household chores before heading out for the day. When you are crunched for time, it’s easy to just skip breakfast altogether or just load up on coffee for the ride in to work. Maybe you grabbed a bagel or pastry to satisfy you until you get to the office. But do you ask yourself if you are really hungry? Do you choose foods that will support your body and give you plenty of sustained energy?

Breaking the Fast

If you think about it, your first meal of the day is breaking the ‘fast’ – a period of time without food intake (while you were sleeping). If you aren’t hungry, don’t break your fast – your body is efficiently using stored energy. If  you eat anyways, it will actually slow down your metabolism, not stimulate it. But when you are hungry, what you eat and drink for your first meal of the day has been shown to have some profound effects on our health, well-being, and cognitive performance.

1. Balanced Energy Levels

Your first meal gives your body needed fuel and nutrients for your body to make sure your metabolism is balanced throughout the day. A good balanced breakfast (carbohydrates, protein and fat) will give you all the energy you need to take you through to your next meal. Think of carbohydrates as the kindling on a fire, while proteins and fats maintain a long steady burn. Many studies have shown that a breakfast higher in protein and fat leads to higher balanced energy throughout the day and less need for snacking.

2. Blood Sugar Levels

If you are hungry and you skip breakfast, you are putting your body into a stressful state because it is not getting the needed energy source and nutrients. Your body may need to produce cortisol and maybe even adrenaline too (your stress hormones) so that your blood sugar levels are kept within an optimal range to keep the body functioning. You will soon get hungry again as your blood sugar drops. At this point, you are more likely to then reach for refined carbohydrates/sugary snacks for a quick energy surge to compensate. This starts you on the blood sugar roller coaster leading to cravings and bad choices for the rest of the day.

In a study it was revealed that people who not only ate breakfast, but made it their largest meal, lost almost 18 pounds over a three-month period. The other people, who took part in the study, eating the same calories during the day but most of these for their evening meal, lost only around seven pounds. This study was published in Obesity.

3. Brain Function

Your brain runs on glucose so a drop in blood sugar can affect your cognitive function, whether it’s from skipping a meal or a ‘spike and drop’ of blood sugar from eating carbohydrate heavy meals. Studies have proven that children who eat breakfast do better at school as they are better able to concentrate and behave well. Breakfast helps to restore the levels of glucose which help with our brain function – it improves memory, concentration and mood and also lowers stress levels. When you skip meals or eat a carbohydrate heavy meal, it can cause irritability, fatigue, headache. A balanced first meal can help us avoid this.

Breakfast Ideas

So you know starting your day off right is important. What’s a busy person supposed to eat? You should have proteins, fat and carbohydrates as part of every meal. Protein helps to regulate blood sugar spikes and slows down the digestion of carbohydrates. Fats (from coconuts, nuts and seeds, grass-fed butter or ghee, and other animal sourced fats) are the building blocks for all the cells in our body and needed to make all our hormones. It may require a little pre-planning but there are many quick and easy options. And your body will thank you for it! Leftovers from last night’s dinner is always a good option, or you can try one of the choices below:

Egg cups. Make a batch and heat them up in the toaster for when you are “on the go”. Check out these egg cup recipes here.

Coconut (or Greek) yogurt parfait. It’s easy to make the night before or on-demand. Get the recipe  here.

Green protein smoothies.  Get your protein, fat and green vegetables all in one drink, like this one.

Hard boiled eggs with veggies or berries. Make a dozen over the weekend and they will be ready to go for an on-the-go breakfast or snack.