Breakfast

I very rarely eat breakfast. I might if I am in a hotel but then it has tended to be a Full English just because it feels like a treat. But I never really feel hungry first thing so I spend the morning drinking a few cups of (terrible, instant) coffee and eat my first meal at around 1pm. But breakfast is meant to be the most important meal of the day so I’ve been trying something new for the last four weeks.

The Most Important Meal?

The perceived wisdom (I’m basing this on various articles but two examples are WebMD and the BBC) is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Eating breakfast kick-starts your metabolism and improves your energy levels and ability to focus. It can help lower levels of bad LDL cholesterol, and lower the chances of getting diabetes, heart disease, and being overweight (presumably as long as you are not eating a Full English every day that is).

Eating breakfast is meant to help the body’s rhythm of fasting and eating, restore blood sugar levels and generally kick-start you for the day. When you sleep your body uses energy stores for growth and repair so breakfast helps replenish protein and calcium used throughout the night. Not eating breakfast can essentially starve your body and may lead to over-eating later in the day.

The flip-side of this is that the sugar content of cereal (the most popular breakfast) is not good and the food industry’s involvement in research around the benefits of breakfast might not be producing impartial reports into the benefits.

According to the BBC article, there really isn’t enough evidence to provide any link between eating or not eating breakfast and obesity. Similarly, there is back-and-forth about the benefits of not eating breakfast and essentially fasting.

But one interesting bit of information for me was that people who skip breakfast and eat supper late in the evening are not getting any of the benefits of fasting but they also have a higher risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Our body’s blood sugar control is better in the morning so eating a larger breakfast (or lunch) and a smaller evening meal is beneficial.

So I decided to try eating breakfast and, whilst not the focus of this post, I will probably also try to swap my lighter lunches (usually soup) with my heavier suppers.

What To Have

I knew I didn’t want to have cereal for breakfast but I didn’t know what else I might want or should have. If I’m abroad on holiday then I do enjoy breakfasts of meats, cheeses, eggs, and fruit but, at least whilst I’m dieting, I’m trying to cut out cheese and my meat intake is down significantly too. Things like scrambled eggs on toast are definitely an option but I have pretty much cut bread out of my diet too. I also want something quick and easy so there is no excuse not to have it.

Recently I heard about overnight oats and so I decided to start with them because they seemed easy to prepare and you can have them hot or cold and mix them with a whole range of “extras”.

Overnight oats are what the name suggests… rolled oats soaked in dairy or non-dairy milk, or even water, overnight. You can also mix in things like chia seeds, which are high in fibre, or yoghurt, both of which which will give it all a smoother, creamer texture. And then, in the morning you can add toppings like nuts, seeds, fruit or something like nut butter.

First Impressions

After doing some searching on the web for ideas I found one I was pretty sure I’d like, raspberries and peanut butter, albeit a combination I never thought I would try.

The night before I mixed the oats, frozen raspberries, skimmed milk, and a pinch of salt and left it covered in the fridge. A couple of hours later I peered at it and really wasn’t sure that any of this was a good idea! It looked pretty unappetising. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The next morning it looked a lot better. The raspberries had thawed and largely broken down and been absorbed into the now softened, creamy-looking oats. I stirred in a teaspoon of smooth almond butter and a drizzle of honey and gave it all a good stir.

Still not sure about whether I should heat it up or not, with some trepidation, I took an initial mouthful. And it was really delicious. Millions of people were not wrong!

After eating I felt completely full and, even for someone used to large portion sizes, it felt like I’d eaten a lot. By lunchtime I wasn’t particularly hungry and yet I’d had a morning run (part of my Couch to 5K plan) and been pretty active and definitely more than I would have been on a normal workday (my first breakfast was on Good Friday, a Bank Holiday here in the UK).

First impressions were very positive.

One-Off Or A Real Change?

Four weeks later and I am happy to report that I have had overnight oats every morning and I am still enjoying eating them for breakfast. I feel that I am more productive at work, have more energy, can focus better and crave less food at lunchtimes. Breakfast seems to work for me in the usually expected ways.

Additionally, some days I like to go for a lunchtime run. Because I have eaten breakfast I can do this and have lunch after it. Were I not eating breakfast and giving myself some energy I’m not sure that I’d enjoy, or be able to, run at lunchtime.

But what about my diet? Breakfast is not replacing another meal in any meaningful way. It is not stopping me from snacking (largely because I have pretty much stopped snacking anyway). So it is just extra calories which must be affecting my weight-loss, right? Well no, it seems not to be. I’m not calorie counting, just watching what I eat, so I’ve not worried about trying to offset the extra intake and the results have been fine. I’m still loosing weight at the same sort of rate I was before I started having breakfast and I feel better for it so it seems like a positive change and one I am going to keep doing.