Breakfast - whats the big deal?

[archergirl]

So what is the big deal with eating breakfast? I know that it's supposedly the most important meal of the day, but I don't know why? Anyone know?

[donleyk]

Because your brain needs fuel to function? And it's hard to concentrate when your tummy's growling.

[archergirl]

I guess so! thanks :)

[MrsReber]

If I don't eat breakfast, I tend to overeat at lunch. Also, if you don't give your body enough food consistently, I believe it slows down your metabolism.

[archergirl]

Hmm.. I don't want my metabolism to slow down. Do you think yoghurt would be enough, or should I try have a bigger breakfast?

[MrsReber]

I usually eat 1 serving of dry cereal for breakfast. Then, around 10:00, I'll have a piece of fruit or grapes. I don't think yogurt is bad. Depends on what kind, how much, etc. But it is good to have a little something in the morning.

[RideYourBike]

Actually, breakfast should be one of your larger meals. I know that I don't perform well mentally or physically when I try going without breakfast. I prefer a combination of simple sugars (for long-term aerobic endurance) and protein, such as:

Strawberry Shake (1/2 cup plain yogurt, 1 cup strawberries, 1/4 cup strawberry/raspberry juice, maple syrup or artificial sweetener; dump in blender)

Peanut Butter Sandwich on whole wheat and OJ or milk

plain yogurt with real granola and fresh fruit

scrambled eggs and fruit

In fact, breakfast is the only meal where I *drink* calories.

You do *not* want to bonk when you're thirty miles out in the middle of nowhere! It hurts bad. :p

Check out this link:
http://www.indiadiets.com/Health_flash/News%20details/skipping_breakfast.htm

[CompassRose]

Consider that in fact, at breakfast, you've been fasting for longer than you generally do at any other time of day. Granted you aren't doing anything, just lying there -- but even then, your bod's still ticking along, burning up all immediately available glucose stores.

A lot of people will wake up, whether or not they're low-carbing at all, in a state of mild ketosis. It's pretty much de rigeur for those of us who are crazy and Boring-Dieting in a rigorous way to get in most of our carbs in the morning (when they will be used as fuel for thinking and daily activities) and taper carbs and calories into the night. By that reasoning, breakfast should not only be one of your larger meals, but should also contain the most complex carbs.

Doing things the other way round, which a lot of people do (skip breakfast, eat a virtuous salad for lunch, then have a huge dinner because by then you're starving, and some snax afterwards for the same reason, is really sort of bass-ackwards if you think about it. You've just left your poor ol' bod to run on empty all day long, and now you're stuffing it just as your activity drops.

(There's a John Berardi article (http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/leaneating_1.htm) which references a study about this very thing.)
In a study by Demling et al (2000), the researchers demonstrated that food choice and timing could be more important than total calorie intake. Before the study began, overweight police officers, eating about 2100 to 2300kcal per day, tipped the scales at 216lbs with 56lbs of fat mass (25% fat) and 158lbs of lean mass. They were eating about 74g protein, 380g carbs, and 56g fat. Since this is clearly a hypocaloric diet, they should've been losing weight. But they weren't.

Unfortunately for these poor guys, they were eating only 10% of their calories at breakfast and a whopping 50% of their calories right before bed. In addition, 50% of their carb intake was sugar! After diet counseling, these guys still ate the same diet in terms of macronutrients, but they ate 70% of their calories during the active parts of their day and 80% of their carb intake was complex and low on the GI scale. At the end of twelve weeks these guys lost 3lbs of weight and 5lbs of fat while gaining 2lbs of lean mass. And this was without changing exercise habits! While these changes weren't huge, it's clear that food choices and timing make a difference.

[greatcook]

Everyone is different, but I think it is important to have protein at breakfast, which includes yogurts, eggs, cheese... but I try to avoid the bacon and sausage!:)

[DocAgocs]

Breakfast is important because it's the first meal you've eaten, on average, in about 10-12 hours. Figure that you eat dinner around 6:00PM, let's say, and that you're done eating at 7:00, and you don't snack (yeah, right) in front of the idiot box all night, then wake up at 6:00-7:00 AM, that's a long stretch without any calories. Especially compared to lunch, which is a mere five hours or so after breakfast, and dinner, which is another 5-6 hours after that.

If you go long stretches of time without eating, your brain figures you're in a "lean" time, and that you need fat for survival, so it's response is twofold:
1) Slow down metabolism to burn as little energy as possible.
2) More efficiently store fats in your diet as body fat, and convert other excess calories into fat.

Really, our brekkie should be the biggest meal of the day, and dinner/supper the smallest, but like most things we have it all backward here in the USA!

I also think that breakfast should be high in protein. I've "studied" this with willing patients... "Gee, Doc, I eat a great breakfast, but by 10:00 I'm STARVING..." When I find out what they eat, it's a big ol' glass of OJ (sugar with orange food coloring), a big bowl of cereal (refined carbohydrates, even if it's a "healthy" product), maybe some sort of monstrosity "coffee" drink (if it ain't espresso, it ain't coffee) from wherever, or maybe a big bagel with jam (next stop, Sugar City) or some donuts. Insulin spike, followed by insulin crash = one tired puppy in a few hours. Do it all over at lunch = one tired puppy around 3:00. Do it all over at dinner = falling asleep in front of the idiot box at 8:00. Do it over and over again for decades = "Syndrome X" with adult onset Type 2 Diabetes.

So, I think some good (free range, man they taste 100 times better than regular eggs, and their fat profiles are totally different) eggs, maybe a bit of good quality meat of some sort, or at least something like a couple eggs, a bit of meat and some NO-SUGAR, SLOW COOKED REAL OATMEAL or something like that. Most of my patients try out a protein shake recipe I give them and they can't believe the difference throughout the day.

So, yeah, breakfast is important! :D

[Sarah428]

Originally posted by DocAgocs
Most of my patients try out a protein shake recipe I give them and they can't believe the difference throughout the day.

So, yeah, breakfast is important! :D
So where's this protein shake recipe?;)

[Valerie226]

Most of the overweight, unfit people I know have this eating pattern:
skip breakfast, maybe black coffee or diet coke.
teensy lunch ( dieting, you know)
But starting about 4 pm, look out! virtuous all day, and now I am HUNGRY. big dinner, snacking all evening til bedtime because you just feel so hungry!. 90% of calories packed into a couple hours & then off to bed. It is a pattern that japanese sumo wrestlers use to gain weight and become gigantic. It is also hard to exercise when you are starving all day. It makes no sense, like trying to drive the car when the gas tank is empty!

I still don't like huge breakfasts but I feel so much better when I split my calories out thru the day into 3 meals and snacks. if you don't eat 90% of the calories in the evening, you will likely wake up hungry and thinking breakfast sounds good too.

[DocAgocs]

The shakes use a lot of ingredients that are only available from doctors, so it's kind of irrelevant for this discussion, but...


Shake recipe:
-2 scoops of Standard Process SP Complete shake mix (or one scoop of SP Complete and one scoop of Biotics Rice Protein Concentrate)
- 1 banana
- 1/2 cup fruit (I like blueberries)
- water to desired consistency
- 2 tablespoons freshly ground flaxseeds

Optional Ingredients:
- 1 scoop of Standard Process Cyrofood Powder (essentially a powdered whle food multivitamin)
- 1 scoop of Standard Process Calcifood Powder for bone health
- 1 tablespoon flaxseed oil

The SP Complete product is completely made from whole foods and, among all the whole food vitamin complexes it also contains 10 grams of protein (20%RDA). Biotics' product is pretty hypoallergenic and contains 27 grams of protein. It's also dirt cheap at $21 for 24ounces. The SP stuff is a better product, but $60 for 28 ounces.

[mbrogier]

Does that actually TASTE good? I'm thinking grainy, suck on a vitamin taste.

What do you use when you're allergic to bananas? I don't want to break out in hives every morning even though I know you have a supplement for that, too. ;)

Right now I'm drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast because my doctor wants me to have the calories and vitamins in the morning. I still have a pocket of fluid in my abdomen from my gallbladder removal (it was removed because I was days away from it exploding and me getting pancreaitis.) I'm not very hungry with all that junk leaking in me.

How many shakes does a can of the supplement make?

[CompassRose]

The banana would be, I presume, the carb. You can actually make quite a good Meal Replacement Shake (which is technically what this is) by combining protein powder and rolled oats (yes, raw). Buzz very thoroughly in the blender, and you get quite a nice sort of meal in a glass (at least if you like thick -- it is a bit grainy but personally I don't mind it). Add nutmeg and an extra shot of vanilla, and it is even somewhat reminiscent of oatmeal cookie dough. The flaxseeds would help to keep the oats in suspension (otherwise you tend to get an extra helping of thick oaty stuff at the bottom).

The flaxseed oil, though -- oo. If you don't like flaxseed oil, there's just no disguising that flavour. Good for you, but oo.

[cucina]

I used to just have a bowl of cereal, but I think I may be becoming lactose intolerant. I began to feel nauseous in the mornings...not what you're thinking. Anyways I am looking for other easy alternatives. I have tried breakfast bars, the honey bunches of oats ones are good, but that is not enough. Any other ideas for breakfast on the run?

[DocAgocs]

MBrogier, if you're allergic to a banana I would stay away from the SP Complete. It's lovingly called the Dirt Shake by us doctors, and the banana goes a long way to covering up the taste. Not grainy at all. The Rice Protein Concentrate is a bit grainy, but not bad. Pure Encapsulations makes a protein shake that is flavored, and they have very high quality synthetic products, so for a patient in your situation I'd lean them that direction.

If you had one shake every morning the way I explained, this stuff would last you a good month and half at least.

[Meganator]

I used to just have a bowl of cereal, but I think I may be becoming lactose intolerant. I began to feel nauseous in the mornings...not what you're thinking. Anyways I am looking for other easy alternatives. I have tried breakfast bars, the honey bunches of oats ones are good, but that is not enough. Any other ideas for breakfast on the run?

For "on the run", how about cereal or granola without the milk? You could add a few nuts and/or dried fruit. Or a smoothie made with yogurt/milk/buttermilk, frozen fruit, ground flaxseed...

[CompassRose]

Originally posted by DocAgocs
MBrogier, if you're allergic to a banana I would stay away from the SP Complete. It's lovingly called the Dirt Shake by us doctors....
Ah! I must tell A. about this. He will probably rush right off and order some. That would fit right into his charmingly schizophrenic philosophy of food: if it's good for him, the more like sand it tastes, the better. :)