Sleep is essential for the body to heal and repair itself, which is why it is so important to re-fuel within an hour of waking. And by that I mean eating, not having a coffee or a cup of tea to give yourself the energy to crowbar yourself out of the door and into the car or onto the train.
Otherwise, you are stepping onto the energy rollercoaster which will end up in energy highs and low resulting in poor food choices and increase the temptation to reach out for those foods that will give you what I call negative-equity nutrition: food that uses up more nutrients to digest and process than it provides.
Think sugar-coated cereals, muffins, croissants, sandwiches, biscuits etc those pick me ups that we so happily forget about after our day is done and we’re tucked up at home watching Glee, possibly cracking open the chocolate and quaffing some wine.
Apparently, eating breakfast can also dictate the sex of your child. Recent research published by the University of Missouri, found that eating breakfast and eating a high fat diet at conception might increase your chances of having a baby boy; female births on the other hand are related to low fat diets at conception with long periods of fasting.
Scientists analysed the genes in placentas of pregnant mice fed on high fat or high carbohydrate/low calorie diets. The results were extrapolated and appear to give credence to the old wives tale of ‘bacon for boys’. Considering that the world’s male population has been declining, albeit slowly, over the past few decades, could it be linked to the increase in people eating ‘low-fat’ foods and dieting?
So what can we do in this time-strapped time to ensure that we can create that great breakfast habit that eludes so many?
1) Prepare the night before
- Lay the table the night before and put out all the necessary ingredients for a good breakfast.
- Make a smoothie and store it in the fridge, preferably in a screw top bottle
- Make Birchers muesli: soak a few days worth of muesli in advance, top with yoghurt and fresh fruit in the morning.
2) Be sneaky
- Habits can be good or bad, depends on how you look at it. Good habits are somehow harder to instill than bad.
- Move the time of your alarm clock forward by 22 minutes so you get out of bed earlier than required. Always move it an odd number of minutes such as 17 or 22, if you make it divisible by 5, for some reason its always easy to remember how much longer you really have.
3) Eat breakfast upon waking
- Make breakfast the first thing you do in the morning, after switching the kettle on. Once you start on your getting ready routine it is hard to create time for breakfast.
- Once you’ve eaten breakfast you know how much time you have left to get ready.
4) Train your stomach and brain
- Breakfast kick-starts the metabolism and will support your body’s quest in nutrient replenishment.
- If you are a member of the “can’t eat, won’t eat” morning club, train your stomach to leave it by drinking a glass of hot water and fresh lemon first thing and then slowly sipping a smoothie, or eating a small piece of fruit such a melon, or even a fruit salad.
5) Weekend specials
- Train yourself with creating weekend breakfast specials – treat it in the same way you would do an evening meal; make it a family event, breakfast in bed for a loved one or a treat for you, yourself and I.
At the end of the day, you only have one body and it deserves to be treated well, doesn’t it? Think about breakfast as the foot rub of your eating regime, something that would give you a huge benefit if you had it everyday.
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