Thursday, October 16, 2008

Why Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal of the Day

I’m sure you’ve all heard people say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Some of you may agree while others may disagree. It hasn't stopped millions of Americans, and people around the world, from skipping breakfast or opting for only a drink of coffee.


The truth of the matter is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and you will have a much more healthy diet if you include breakfast in your daily life.

Meaning of the Word Breakfast
Breakfast is rightly called "break fast". When you sleep, you are not eating for 6 to 9 hours at least, and more if you haven’t eaten since dinner the night before. Therefore, breakfast is the first time you’ll be eating anything for an extended period of time. Some nutrients, like proteins, cannot be stored in the body and are therefore not present, so the body needs you to replenish the “low” levels of such nutrients. Breakfast is like the match that lights the fire. It truly is a very important source of energy for your body in the morning.

Eating breakfast when you wake up helps you avoid some illnesses and disease. For example, your sugar levels are probably out of whack from not eating for many hours, so having breakfast levels out the amount of sugars in your body, helping to prevent diabetes. Eating a healthy breakfast also helps you to provide food to your stomach so that you don’t overeat at lunch because you are so hungry. Overeating leads to obesity, which comes with a whole host of problems, including heart problems.

Get a Good Start
Healthy breakfast foods, like eggs, fruit, or bran cereal are also a good source of many of the vitamins and minerals a person needs during the day. If you don’t eat these things in the morning, it will be hard to make up for that loss later. Remember that without the proper amounts of nutrients, you body will not function correctly. When you eat a healthy breakfast, it also makes you choose healthier foods during the rest of the day, so that you continue to get the proper nutrients needed for your body.

Setting aside 15 minutes in the morning to eat breakfast every day can truly make a great different in your diet. In the best case, your breakfast will include foods from at least three different food groups. For example, you can have whole grain toast (bread food group) with peanut butter (protein food group) and a banana (fruit food group). Top that off with a glass of milk to drink, and you’ve even hit a fourth food group. Breakfast does not have to include a heavy pancakes and sausage meal every day to be healthy, and even grabbing a single piece of fruit or a muffin is better than skipping the meal completely.

So remember, breakfast is important for your good health! :-)

1 comment:

Britt Malka said...

Well written!

Also, when your body is in need of protein, and you don't feed it, it will actually be eating your own muscles. Less muscle mass -> more fat.

So breakfast is very important for your health.