Remember those sweet primary school times? You wake up in the morning, and your mother is already waiting for you downstairs with the fresh breakfast. You had your breakfast, and you are good to go and conquer the walls of your school.
With the flow of time, nothing changes, except you conquer the walls of your colleague, institute, office, or looking far away into the future – retirement home.
Today we will see why breakfast is important. More importantly: why GOOD breakfast is essential.
Eat good – stay healthy
For a good portion of time, I’d say around 8-9 months after I moved to a new country as an expat, my daily breakfast was: 2 bars of snickers and 0.3L of orange/ pineapple/pomegranate juice. Being not that wealthy and living in a shared flat (with at least eight other people), I didn’t have good access to the kitchen most of the times, so getting a fast flow of energy (sugars) in the morning was possible by having snickers and a juice. My lunch was pretty good (all employees had their meals covered by the company), and my dinner was late at night, when the kitchen was free, and usually consisted of fried rice with mixed eggs. During that period, not to lie, I added around 10kg of weight (mostly fat of course).
Looking back, eating like that was a huge mistake, since getting low-quality body mass, high sugar intake and no proper nutrition for almost one year is a disaster.
Soon after, when I managed to get a decent amount of savings, a notable salary increase, and a new flat, I got access to the gift of humanity – nutritious breakfast. I could eat oatmeals with fresh fruits and yogurt. When I had more time, I could even eat a small bowl of fresh vegetable salad along with redfish toasts. Important to mention that after a couple of months of good breakfast, I noticed a change. One of the most notable ones – energy levels and skin quality.
Additionally, I noticed that my weight gain was pretty healthy at that moment, staying at 82-84KG (as of today I am 80KG, with much lower fat levels than previously, much higher endurance). Due to the lousy breakfast before, my calcium levels were low. Therefore I always felt pain in my shoulders, knees, and wrists, which caused me a lot of inconveniences once I started to hit the gym.
According to the statistics, people with regular breakfast intake, have their metabolism levels at 3-4% higher than average. On the other hand, those who don’t have any breakfast intake, have their metabolism levels at 5-6% slower than average, that means that people refusing to take breakfast, add at least 3-6KG each year. The reason for that is straightforward: your body, lacking enough nutrition during the morning times, gathers extra during the lunch time or dinner time, to preserve the fat. Moreover, people having breakfast with high calories level burn all of the calories during the day, so there is no need to worry about extra weight. You also normalize your food intake, since your body will have no deficit of nutrition through the day.
What about the brain activity and mood?
In my example, I noticed that with a good breakfast, my productivity levels increased dramatically (no jokes). My job requires concentration and “out-of-the-box” thinking, so I saw I no longer have difficulties in solving complex tasks once my brain has enough nutritious.
American scientists confirmed that people having breakfast create road accidents fewer times than those who leave their home in the morning on an empty stomach. Imagine, driving in the morning with your stomach “urging” for food, that distracts a lot!
Believe it or not, normalized breakfast intake can also increase your mood. Well, I’d say that any food can boost your mood, especially in the morning when you have an empty stomach and can’t concentrate on anything.
For the past half a year, my breakfast is like a morning ritual. Having a cup of hot mint tea with my oatmeal and fruits gives me time to concentrate on the tasks I need to accomplish during the day, clear my mind, and get ready for whatever can happen.
I strongly urge everyone not to skip morning food intakes as after a couple of weeks you will notice a positive effect of keeping your body fed. Try always to have something good to prepare your breakfast with, and don’t follow the road of “It’s better to sleep a little longer than having a breakfast” as I did before this way, you will only harm yourself and your precious body!
