Is Breakfast Important?

There's many different opinions about the value of breakfast, but for kids everyone seems to agree that kids need to eat breakfast before school. Breakfast for school kids can actually increase their IQ. These are not my words, in 2013 a study was done with Chinese kindergartens and the study found that the students that ate breakfast had higher IQ's.

Will breakfast for adults do the same thing? I doubt that, but I do know that those adults who eat breakfast snack less throughout the day. So why is that important? Eating snacks especially in the morning starts a cycle of more snacking throughout the day which translates to over-eating. It is true that those adults who eat a high-protein breakfast (13gm of protein minimum ) are thinner and healthier.

So why is that, you might ask? What science says is that eating protein will start your metabolism burning calories and the earlier you start burning calories the more calories you'll burn that day. The same thing goes for exercise. Exercise will wake up your sleeping metabolism and start the process of burning calories. So the earlier in the day you exercise the more calories you'll burn that day.

Do you see where I'm going with this. I wrote last week about running and how running is one of the best ways to lose weight. Why is that, you might ask? O.K., running will quick start your metabolism and start you burning calories, but more important a high intensity workout like running will keep your metabolism burning calories longer than passive exercise. Hence, the morning run. For many years I thought that runners would run in the morning because it was cooler and morning exercise wakes you up and helps prepare you for the day ahead, who knew that runner would actually be burning more calories by running in the morning.

A brisk walk can do the same thing, it's just that running will accomplish the same thing in less time. I wrote in that post last week that beginner can still run, they just have to start slow. 10 minutes a day, to start. Walk for 2 minutes, then run for 20 seconds, then walk for 2 minutes, then run for 20 seconds and so on. If your out of breath at the end your going to fast. This is meant to condition your body for the next step. After a couple of weeks and you've increased the pace, you need to increase to 20 minutes a day. with 30 second intervals of running. Remember if your out of breath your running to fast. The next step would be to increase to 30 minutes a day and after you get use to that you would increase the time running and decrease the time walking. Check out the post on Running. If you forget I'll re-post two posts I wrote about running.

Breakfast is also important for running or any early morning exercise. You need fuel to work-out. A small amount of carbs before and protein after. If that sounds to difficult and time-consuming think about high-protein shakes. My wife makes a high-protein shake every morning. Actually she puts the drink together at night and puts it in the frig. In the morning she puts it together, puts it on the blender and in 2 minutes she's out the door with the drink in hand. People who are pressed for time in the morning have no excuse now. There's several different recipes for shakes but basically its Greek Yogurt and fruit with a protein powder added. You can find recipes on the internet.