The Most Important Meal of the Day

For years I have been telling my clients how important a good breakfast is to their diet. I was faced with this stark reality yesterday. I hit the ground running 45 minutes late. I had little time to dress and brush my teeth let alone shovel down a healthy and hardy breakfast. I had never been so happy that I was the most recent recipient of a drive-thru Starbucks in my neighborhood. Double tall soy late and oh what the heck throw in a blueberry muffin. Six hundred calories later and a borderline sugar shock coma I was buzzing around my work. What harm had I done? It was a minor set back in my 30 days of no sugar, caffeine, wheat flour, eggs...oh heck you name it, I'm not eating it. I was dead wrong. I had mentally set myself up for a very bad day. I will not bore you with spelling out my entire day of eating, but lets just say if I were going to go into a diabetic coma, yesterday would have been the day.

I decided to look into why breakfast can set us up for a healthy energetic, wide eyed and bushy tailed day, or it can send us into an out of control ravenous eating rampage.

Eating breakfast will jump start your metabolism and get your body burning calories. Many people have mentioned to me that they aren't hungry in the morning or they are hungry all day if they eat breakfast. If you find yourself still full from the previous day; you may be eating too late and too much. If you find yourself hungry more often, high five yourself for getting your metabolism humming.

A healthy breakfast is key to healthy food choices the rest of the day. Sugar is a tasty and scary thing. You think having a sweet treat wont destroy your diet. However, once you introduce sugar into your system, your body begins to crave it. It changes your brain chemistry and your cravings can be likened to a heroine addicts cravings. Sugar also raises your blood glucose levels, drives up insulin levels and creates a fat storing machine instead of a fat burning machine. If your goal is fat loss, sugar should be the last thing on your food log. Complex carbohydrates found in whole grains and protein is a fantastic food choice for breakfast.

Examples of healthy breakfasts:
Egg and Whole Grain Toast
Oatmeal with Pecans
High Fiber Cold Cereal with any Milk you prefer
Toast with a TB of Peanut Butter
Egg White Omelet with all the Veggie Add-Ins
Brown Rice and Chicken
Fish and Veggies
-Breakfast does not have to be traditional American breakfast foods.

*Starbucks is not liable for me choosing a Blueberry Muffin for Breakfast. Please note they carry other healthy options.