Who ever thought simply eating breakfast was an important part of any diet?

In America, we spend tons of money, time and effort trying to lose weight and we usually fail.  Why is that?  Well, I’m not going to try and tell you that it’s because we skip breakfast.  The truth is, eating breakfast won’t eliminate the problems caused by overeating, unhealthy snacking, fast food and a lack of exercise.

The diet breakfast can however, help you burn more calories and energize you to take on any kind of day.  Scientific and medical research has shown over and over in recent years that skipping breakfast is detrimental to your dieting efforts.

When?

You should eat breakfast as soon as you can in the morning.  The sooner the better.  This means not only before you go to work, but if possible, before you even get ready in the morning.

Eating as early as possible will give you the greatest advantage.

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Why?

There are a couple of reasons that we know of that eating breakfast will help you to lose weight.  There may be more.  For starters, eating breakfast kick starts your metabolism.  Eating takes in calories, but it also burns calories.  Your body is doing a lot of work processing solid foods.  By starting it off first thing in the morning with a meal, your metabolism will burn at a higher rate all day.

Eating more meals throughout the day is better than eating one or two big meals.  When a person skips breakfast, they tend to eat much more at lunch and dinner.  Cutting down to only meal a day exacerbates this problem even more.

It’s also possible, but not quite proven yet, that eating breakfast reduces the amount of grehlin your stomach produces.  Grehlin is a hormone that tells the body to store fat.  The less you eat, the more of this hormone is produced.  When your stomach produces grehlin, it’s telling the body to store up fat to prevent starvation.  This was extremely important for cavemen thousands of years ago, but it just makes us fat.

What is beyond argument at this point is that the people with the biggest weight problems also very much tend to be the people who only bother to eat one or maybe two meals per day.

For years now, we’ve blamed genetics on our weight problems, and it’s likely that genetics do indeed play a huge part, but it could be simply that some people’s bodies produce far more grehlin than others.  This being the case, for those who are genetically pre-disposed to be heavy, simply eating breakfast first thing in the morning could make a huge difference in the battle of the bulge.

What?

So, if eating in itself will kick start your metabolism, help to reduce overeating and stop your stomach from producing grehlin, does it really matter what you eat?

Well, sure it does.  The benefits you’ve read about here are not dependent on what you eat but clearly, eating healthier is better than eating unhealthy foods.  Fruits are great in the morning, and it’s also a wonderful time to take in much of your daily allotment of dairy products.  Meats are fine, but it’s best to avoid high-fat meats, not only for losing weight, but for avoiding a day full of acid reflux.

With the diet breakfast eating anything at all will help, no matter what you choose to eat.  But don’t use that as an excuse to have ten strips of bacon for breakfast.  Having breakfast has its benefits, but clearing out your arteries isn’t one of them if you don’t eat healthy foods.