Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Seriously, Eat Your Breakfast

We've all heard that we should eat our breakfast, that it's the most important meal of the day. That assertion is especially true for anyone wanting to lose or maintain weight, according to researchers at Imperial College London. According to their study, skipping breakfast actually causes us to crave higher-calorie foods later. Of course, these high-calorie foods are more likely to cause us to gain weight. Brain scans showed the "reward centers" of the brain lighting up in people who hadn't eaten breakfast when they were shown photos of high-calorie foods versus low-calorie foods.

Just because you should eat breakfast doesn't mean it has to be eggs, bacon, biscuits, gravy, and pancakes -- although I did just make myself hungry. Typically, I have fruit for breakfast. Today it was a banana and six strawberries. About 3 hours later, I'll have lunch. Three hours later, a snack. And finally, dinner 3-4 hours after that.

To read more about the breakfast study, click here.

And don't forget, a new The Biggest Loser is on tonight.
~~~

Today's progress:

Calorie intake: 1,624.75 (Still a bit on the high side, but I did actually get exercise today.)

Exercise: 45 minutes walking, 10 minutes biking, 5 minutes resistance band

Steps: 11,766 -- Woot!

5 comments:

Michelle Butler on September 22, 2009 at 10:38 AM said...

On thing that has often surprised me is that I do tend to eat less overall on any given day if I have a good breakfast. One week, I was just shocked that my lowest point/calorie day in the past 7 days was the one where I had "splurged" and had a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel for breakfast.

I tend to have cereal (oatmeal or a mix of three, cold, high-fiber cereals), fruit, milk and nuts for breakfast. If I have a week where I start to sleep too late and just have a fiber one bar for breakfast every day, I'll start eating more overall and not lose as much that week. It just really makes a difference.

There's a woman in my WW group who just hates eating breakfast. She does it at times and then falls back to her old habit bc it's hard and not fun for her to keep up. The leader was challenging her and asked what happened when she ate breakfast regularly. Her reply: "I might have lost a little more weight." He just started to laugh bc she said it so unassertively - as if it was this strange thing that we all weren't trying to accomplish.

Trish Milburn on September 22, 2009 at 11:01 AM said...

I wonder why some people don't like to eat breakfast. Hubby isn't a breakfast eater. I can't imagine not being hungry when I get up in the morning. But I love breakfast. In fact, sometimes we'll have traditional breakfast foods for dinner.

Annie Solomon on September 22, 2009 at 11:27 AM said...

I love breakfast. But can't say I eat less overall when I eat breakfast. Maybe because I usually eat breakfast. Coffee and toast with a sliver of cheese. I wonder what would happen if I went the cold cereal/oatmeal routine every day.

Michelle Butler on September 22, 2009 at 12:15 PM said...

Trish, one trick another WW leader recommended for non-breakfast eaters is to eat breakfast 40 - 60 minutes after you get up. You might not be hungry right when you get up, but you should be after you've been awake 40 - 60 minutes. You'll still get all the benefits of eating a good breakfast.

Michelle Butler on September 22, 2009 at 12:20 PM said...

Annie - you might want to experiment and see what happens if you change your breakfast for a week or so. Body by Glamour suggests that you have a breakfast with at least 8-10 grams of fiber and a mix of food groups. It has a whole bunch of suggestions of breakfasts that qualify.

Body by Glamour is something that Glamour Magazine does. There are snippets in its magazine and then an extensive, free area on its Web site. A former work colleague of mine loved it, and it can be helpful and very realistic.

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