Losing Weight Step #1: Eat Breakfast
Thinking about eating breakfast in the morning makes my stomach churn. My father and I share in the fact that we both cannot eat first thing in the morning after we wake up. We need to be up for a few hours before taking a first nibble.
When it comes to maintaining a healthly weight, this is working against me.
According to the American Heart Association, “People who eat breakfast are significantly less likely to be obese and diabetic than those who usually don’t, researchers reported…Just the habit of filling your belly in the morning might help people control their hunger throughout the day so they might be less likely to overeat in the morning or at lunch” [via American Heart Association]
Reading that makes perfect sense. Giving your body food throughout the day should curb strong hunger pains that can lead to binging. For me, with skipping breakfast I usually do eat a larger lunch and lunches generally have more calories than a bowl of cereal in the morning.
Since I’ve lived most of my life not eating breakfast due to an upset tummy, it will be difficult to start eating cereal in the morning. I think the best thing for me to do is to start small and work my way up to a full bowl of cereal. If my tummy hurts, I will live through it. The discomfort will go away. I think the goal of being a healthier person is worth a little bit of discomfort.
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Comments
Not only is eating good, protein laden breakfast a necessity for weight loss but having snacks (healthy ones) throughout the day is key. I embarked on a very structured exercise and weight loss program paid for by my employer and the biggest challenge for me was getting used to the fact that you NEED to eat 5 times a day to avoid hunger and cravings. I’m down nearly 30 pounds in 6 1/2 weeks following my dieticians advice so I know it works. Don’t forget the exercise either. I work out 5-6 times per week, rigorously.
I was never a breakfast eater either but after having diabetes when I was pregnant with my son I followed a low carb diet which included 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks. This is where I learned portion control as well.
Susheela - I’ve never heard of miso soup, so I looked it up. For those interested, here’s the wiki article: miso soup. Sounds interesting.
Fellowes - 30 pounds in 6.5 weeks is pretty awesome. Congrats! That’s also awesome your employer is paying for the program you are on.
Sheri - I’m thinking the 3 meals and the small snacks during the day might work for me. It’s hard to diet when there are three of us in the household so I have to work it in somehow.
[...] previous post about the benefits of eating breakfast basically convinced me I should live with the discomfort my stomach feels after eating early in the [...]
Yes, I’ve been an on-again, off-again breakfast eater.
It is possible that eating breakfast can also help you quit smoking as well as lose weight. I looked up “quit smoking and breakfast” and found this:
http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/forums/how-to-not-gain-weight-when-you-quit-smoking-the-nicotine-vt166.html
Not sure what site that is, but it said what I had heard before about smoking and blood glucose levels.
A multigrain bar or an egg on toast would make a good “starter breakfast”, or cereal with milk. (Have you read about “Milk your diet”? http://www.2424milk.com/ )
Anyway, I’m just babbling. But I do agree breakfast is important and I try to eat it every day.
Tricia,
Eating breakfast is a good idea, but cereal could end up working against you. I’m also working on controlling my weight, and I’ve found that a good deal of my overeating comes from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). This condition occurs sometimes in people who eat higher carbohydrate diets, as I used to do. Eating protein and cutting back on refined carbohydrates (cereals are LOADED with them) has really helped me to get a handle on my hunger. You might try keeping hard-boiled eggs in your refrigerator for a quick breakfast.
I’m in the middle of researching this right now (reading sugarbusters! and other books about it), and I’ll be posting more about it at my blog.
Daisy
I can’t manage to eat something before I get out the door, either, so I take a yogurt to work every day and make sure i eat it by 10 am.
I have found that eating a banana (loaded with fiber) tends to “coat” my stomach. I typically follow this with a snack of yogurt (sprinkled with fiber one or fresh fruit) as a great “10-amish” snack. Eating a banana shortly after waking up does the trick for me!
Eating regular meals at regular times is key. I eat five meals a day, around the same time each day. And you don’t have to have cereal for breakfast: oatmeal is great on a newly-awake tummy. Make sure that you also get some protein and fat (most cereals don’t have enough of either) - I get this by mixing peanut butter into my oatmeal.
Starting a breakfast routine is a great idea. But, be careful with cereal. 98% of cereal is sugar-filled junk food that won’t start your day off right. I suggest oatmeal - made from scatch (easy to do in the microwave), not the sugary stuff in a packet. Or there are a couple of good cereals, such as Kashi Go Lean which has lots of protein and fiber.
Tricia -
You don’t have to eat right when you get up - that would make me sick to my stomach as well. I can’t eat for an hour anyways because of a medication I take so it’s usually an hour or two before I eat my breakfast which turns out to be 8 or 9am.
Good luck on your journey!
[...] Losing Weight Step #1: Eat Breakfast. I am not a breakfast eater by nature. If anything can make or break my quest to live a healthy [...]
I have the same problem where it’s always been difficult for me to eat something in the morning.
When I decided to start trying to eat breakfast, I found that some miso soup did the trick. For some reason it goes down better for me than cereal — You may want to give it a try