Regular food intake is essential for general health and wellness with voluminous scientific data emphasizing the role of the first meal of the day- breakfast, in relation to sound health and successful weight reduction. Without a tinge of doubt, breakfast is the most important meal of the day for several reasons and one of them has something to do with losing those extra or excess pounds.
The link between breakfast and weight loss is clearly supported and established by numerous studies and researches. According to reputable sources, breakfast and obesity are strongly linked. Skipping breakfast in order to lose weight does not result in weight loss. On the contrary, the habit of skipping breakfast is more likely to lead to weight gain. Research proves that when one skips meals, particularly breakfast, weight becomes more difficult to control or manage. Skipping breakfast means that you are literally putting your body into “starvation” mode while doing the opposite gradually releases the body from being inactive to becoming active. A good meal at the start of the day is an excellent metabolism booster. Hence, when a person is trying to lose weight, the best thing to do at the start of each day is to partake of a healthy morning meal that will enhance metabolism and increase the body’s ability to burn fat.
Those who skip breakfast usually tend to fend off hunger by bingeing at the next meal or snacking on foods that are usually high-calorie. Now, what this practice does to the body is that instead of helping the body shed pounds, it actually accumulates more of them. Current researches seem to point that people who eat smaller meals often tend to gain less body fat as opposed to those who consume fewer, heavier or chunkier meals. By having a sumptuous breakfast to jumpstart the day, hunger pangs are guaranteed to be reduced or lowered thus preventing overeating. Moreover, regularly eating breakfast lowers the body’s reaction to insulin which prevents weight gain and results in reduced fat accumulation. By breaking the fast, one’s risk of developing obesity is decreased.
Here are other reasons why one should never skip the morning meal:
- Leads to picking healthy food choices. If you begin the day with a nutritious meal, chances are you’ll end up eating more healthy servings of food that includes fruits and veggies and foods low in fat the whole day.
- Provides more energy. Starting each day with a nutritious breakfast leads to heightened alertness and physical activity which translates to greater efficiency. A healthy morning meal makes the body less lethargic and refuels it by restoring glycogen, which in turn supplies energy to the muscles. Kids, most especially should never skip breakfast because their growing bodies depend largely on regular food intake. Skipping meals could spell a lot of physical, mental, and behavioral problems for both adults and the little ones.
- Beats mid-morning binges. Having a sound breakfast will help stave off mid-morning hunger and thus prevent you from eating too many unhealthy, nutritionally-deficient and calorie-saturated foods during the rest of the day. By not breaking the fast, the body experiences intense hunger and diminished blood glucose which leads to making unhealthy or poor food cravings such as those high in fat and sugar.
- Boosts ability to think or focus. To always be at top mental performance, the body, especially the brain needs to be refueled or re-energized each morning. A study published in a leading health journal showed that eating breakfast improved subjects’ overall performance on memory tests. On another study, breakfast has been linked to better retention of new information among children.
- Increases leptin production. Leptin is an appetite suppressing hormone. It plays a crucial role in metabolism and wards off fat accumulation. Consuming a healthy serving of meal early in the morning ensures better production of leptin. Hence, breakfast takers as opposed to breakfast skippers tend to eat fewer calories throughout the day since this hormone is known to affect satiety level.
