The Most Important Meal of the Day

"I'm not hungry when I wake up."

"I don't have time." "I don't like breakfast."

Start your day off right by eating breakfast. If you skip it, you're less likely to be able to concentrate, work or study effectively. It can also cause you to feel irritable and you'll lack energy for your afternoon workout. Many reading this post are student-athletes. To perform well in the classroom and in athletics, eating breakfast is a simple way to get started.

What should you do if you don't have an appetite in the morning? Think about what you ate the night before. When did you eat and how much? This can curb your appetite for the morning. Try to eat a healthy, nutritious meal a few hours before you go to bed, preferably not past 8:00 pm. If you must eat later in the night, try to eat a small snack such as trail mix.

What if you don't have time for breakfast? Are you someone who trains in the morning? Someone who wakes up 10 minutes before class? You don't need to have a huge breakfast, just enough to satisfy your appetite. Try making a to-go breakfast the night before. Overnight oats provide both protein and carbs that will help fuel and nourish your body until the next meal and they're easy to eat on-the-go. Try boiling some eggs the night before or having instant oatmeal, yogurt, or KIND bars in your pantry, ready to grab.

I eat overnight oats every morning along with a few eggs, but I didn't always like breakfast foods. In high school, I'd wait until 1:00 pm before I ate my first meal of the day. Once I realized that I didn't have to eat breakfast foods at breakfast is when I started eating every morning. Instead, I'd make a sandwich or leftovers from the night before. A study performed by Daniela Jakubowicz and colleagues, took 193 obese individuals. Half of the individuals ate a 300 calorie piece of cake and 300 calories of wholesome food at breakfast, while half ate a 300 calorie low carb breakfast. At the end of the 32 week study, the cake eaters lost ~20 pounds more than the non-cake eaters. This was because those individuals had fewer craving throughout the day (1).

I've had people tell me that breakfast makes them feel sick or even hungrier. If breakfast is unsettling for the stomach, try a small meal such as a fruit or a KIND bar. If it makes you hungrier, don't be afraid to eat more calories at breakfast. You'll have all day to burn those calories off and it'll leave you satisfied until your next meal.

Cereal tends to be a very common breakfast food, and people often think that it's not a great way to start your day. Not all cereal is loaded in sugar and lacks nutrients. Here are the nutritional values of some commonly consumed cereals. Use this table to consider the healthier cereal options next time you go shopping (2).

Take a look at other breakfast recipes here!

Table 3.2 (2)

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Sources

1. Jakubowicz, D., Froy, O., Wainstein, J., & Boaz, M. (2012). Meal timing and composition influence ghrelin levels, appetite scores and weight loss maintenance in overweight and obese adults. Elsevier, (77), 323-331. doi:10.1016/j.steroids.2011.12.006

2. Clark, N. (2020). Protein: Building and Repairing Muscle. In Moore, D.J., Baur, M. & Mrozek, A.E (Eds.), Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook.