The benefits of breakfast

What are the benefits of eating breakfast? Why should I have it?

The importance of breakfast is in its title, it’s breaking the overnight fast!

The body uses fuels which are readily available in the blood stream. After eight to 12 hours without any food, while the body is resting, it then becomes ready for a re-fill of easily accessible energy, namely blood glucose, before you are up and about requiring energy for training or day to day activity. Put it this way, if you head out to start a day of driving and the fuel light is on you aren’t going to get very far!

Within 30 minutes of waking up the body is like a sponge in anticipation of absorbing energy from food, so there is fuel available in the blood. If this opportunity is passed, the body is forced to break down body stores which is a slow and inefficient process to gain energy and will most likely come from muscle mass, especially when training at high intensity.

The body’s response to this is to shift into ‘conservation mode’ where it holds on to what energy it has rather than putting it to use. If this happens at training it will mean you might not have the energy available to lift heavier weights or run faster times. When the body feels it has been starved of adequate energy, and when you do start to eat later in the day it can lead to consuming larger meals and irregular snacking so it can store energy for next time it is starved which can lead to weight gain.

Some people might not eat to start the day because they aren’t hungry when they get up. It might be best to view the meal as a function to aid training performance and outcomes rather than food for pleasure. A small, low fibre, high carbohydrate meal will be adequate to get the body using fuel more effectively before training; this might include a banana, toast with jam or a small yoghurt.

Follow training or just start the day with a bigger breakfast of a bowl of cereal and low fat milk, a low fat milk and yoghurt smoothie with fresh fruit or toast with a protein source like egg or low fat cheese.