Why is breakfast important?
You know I care about you, don’t you?
Do you think about whether you should eat breakfast or not?
If not, we’ll talk about the consequences of that.
If you do, what do you normally have?
If you want to soar with the eagles all day you might want to start with some really good fuel.
First, why eating breakfast is important. Just look at the word “break” and “fast”.
Unless you eat in your sleep your body hasn’t had any fuel since you went to sleep.
Some interesting statistics on our breakfast habits.
- Skipping breakfast can mess up your body’s rhythm of fasting and eating.
- Eating a healthy breakfast can help you burn calories during the whole day.
- You will also get the energy you need to get things done.
- It will help you with concentrating on the swarm of tasks you have each day.
- Many studies (here’s one) show that eating breakfast leads to good health, including better concentration and memory.
- It lowers your “bad” cholesterol levels and your chances of getting diabetes, heart disease, and being overweight.
All great reasons for you to eat a good breakfast every day.
Let’s talk about your children.
You want your children to be healthy and happy, don’t you?
Guess what?
If you don’t eat a good breakfast, chances are your kids won’t either.
- A healthy breakfast will help them to remain focused in school, and they will be less tired and much less prone to irritability.
- It will also decrease their chances of being overweight
- The reason is that most children don’t get the vitamins and minerals they need from just lunch and dinner.
- Their growing bodies need the best fuel we can give them.
- Studies have shown how eating breakfast can have all sorts of positive impacts on your kids, from being less likely to be overweight, more physically active, and doing better in school.
Okay, so now you’ve stopped asking why is breakfast important.
But what should you eat?
Let me tell you a little story!
Let me start by telling you a story about my typical breakfast many years ago.
It would start by getting up 20 minutes late, and a quick cup of coffee with two sugars and milk, followed by two cigarettes and a quicker shower.
If there were any donuts around, I might have one of those as I ran out of the house.
On really virtuous days I might eat a banana.
As a result, I was lethargic most of the morning and couldn’t seem to concentrate.
I would eat unhealthy snacks and drink copious amounts of coffee to get me through to lunchtime.
My blood pressure was through the roof and I was probably pre-diabetic. (though I was afraid to find out)
The words of my doctor were: “If you don’t make some changes to your lifestyle, you’ll be on high blood pressure medicine within a year”!
Suffice it to say that I’m in better shape at 57 than I was at 47!
Gonna make some assumptions, OK?
You get up for work about 90 minutes before you have to leave the house.
You could start with simple things that you can easily do daily.
Basically, developing new habits.
You can try having fresh fruit when you wake up. Start with a banana!
(Any fruit will do, but just look how happy he is)
Try to work your way up to about 3 – 4 portions of fruit every morning
Like the Hobbits, we’re going to call this your first breakfast.
After your first breakfast go about your morning routine but make a note for when you get home to do this:
- Get an empty jar, (about 400ml) get some organic rolled oats, some organic apple sauce and some milk. I use oat milk but use whatever you prefer.
- Also, get some Greek-style yogurt but that’s for later.
Once you have them make this easy, quick recipe:
Overnight Oats and Apple Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (36gm) rolled oats (Not instant oats)
- 1/2 cup (118ml) milk of choice (I use oat milk but any milk will taste yummy)
- 1/2 cup (118ml) applesauce (If you use our flavoured applesauce skip the next ingredient)
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or apple pie spice (optional, depending on applesauce)
Directions
- Place all the ingredients into a jar, screw the lid on and give it a shake, and place it in the fridge overnight.
- In the morning remove the lid and place it in the microwave for 60 to 90 seconds or until it is the temperature that you prefer.
That will be your 2nd breakfast once you’ve developed the habit of your first breakfast.
You can then start to jazz that up as you go along by adding chia seeds, ground flax seeds, berries, peanut butter, bananas, etc. Stick in a shot of maple syrup to really boost the taste. (If you add all of these, you’ll need a bigger jar)
In less than 4 minutes and 37 seconds, you will have an extremely tasty and ridiculously healthy breakfast that is simple to maintain.
Ready for a HUGE health boost?
After you finish your overnight oats have a generous portion of plain yogurt. Add some seeds, more fruit, maple syrup, or honey.
The probiotics in the yogurt will give you some good gut bacteria.
The fibre you have eaten in your overnight oats provides you with prebiotics.
Okay, you may be thinking that probiotics give you a healthier gut but why prebiotics?
It is the prebiotics that the probiotics feed on to stay healthy and grow and look after you.
Without the prebiotics, well it doesn’t bear thinking about!
To learn more about this check out this post.
Now that you know why breakfast is important and you’ve committed to your breakfast journey you will be amazed at how great you feel.
