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Breakfast and Weight Loss
If you're trying to lose weight, it seems to make sense --"the less you eat, the less you weigh..." And the lack of hunger some folks experience in the morning provides the opportunity to cut calories and thus cut the whole day's consumption. So, proud of yourself for being such a good person, you head for Starbucks, the breakfast of temporary-adrenaline-rush-addicts.
Although that coffee sure made you feel better, drinking a coffee breakfast ultimately robs you of energy. The jolt of adrenaline from caffeine increases your metabolism temporarily and gives you a feeling of increased energy, but at a costly expense to your blood glucose supply. On top of that, caffeine is a diuretic: your already dehydrated body suffers further from having the last drops of moisture being sucked ruthlessly from its shriveled cells. Not a nice way to treat your body.
When you wake up, your glucose supply (the sole supplier of energy to the brain) naturally low. If you go about your daily activities, your blood sugar will continue to decline and within a couple of hours you will crash.
What's going on inside you is a needless battle -- your body's fighting with itself.
Without fuel, it just gets worse. By lunchtime, you're ravenous...and you should be. Your body's chompin' at the bit for a little fuel and it's likely to cry out for more food than necessary. So you often eat more than you would if you'd just started the day with a light balanced breakfast (which would have made the morning much more productive and enjoyable anyway).
To make matters even worse, add sugar, or have a pastry or bagel with your coffee. A jolt of adrenaline from the high concentration of sugar gives you a temporary feeling of energy, a ‘sugar buzz’. Refined sugars enter the bloodstream very quickly and the body is tricked into thinking it's just had a large meal. Extra insulin is released, causing your blood sugar and energy level to drop lower than it was when you woke up just a few hours ago (and you feel like the day should be over by now.) So it’s off to Starbucks for another jolt.
As a result of buzzing and crashing all morning, your body's fuel burning rate drops. This metabolic rate always decreases overnight, so skipping a balanced breakfast can further reduce that already low rate by 4 to 5%. By the end of the year, the deficit can add up to 5 pounds of fat that would have been easily lost with a good balanced breakfast and a little planning every day.
You can still have your coffee, but give yourself some nourishment, too!
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