Breakfast for fat loss?

Yes, it’s true!! Breaking your fast in the morning is very important for overall health and critical for fat loss goals. As you sleep through the night, you do a lot of healing and repair. You use up your fuel and need to replenish.

Your brain runs on blood sugars. As you may already know, you either use your blood sugars for energy or convert and store them as fat. As you wake in the morning, you have low blood sugar. Your brain is looking for energy so it can run!! If you do not provide your body with fuel, your body will do what it does best….survive.

You will go through a process called gluconeogenesis (create blood sugar). Your body will look for a “glucose” source. This source is your MUSCLE!! Your body will break down muscle and create glucose in your liver for your brain. Isn’t that amazing!! But the loss of muscle is not good for metabolism.

If you feel that eating in the morning makes you feel nauseous  consider that you have hormonal imbalances going on. You may have experienced this long ago…perhaps around puberty. Or maybe when you got really busy and started skipping breakfast in order to make it to school or work on time.  You see, we all had breakfast when we were small children. Now we have to figure out why some people simply stopped nourishing their bodies in the morning. Why they ignored those hunger cues and eventually fell into the chronic state of survival mode.

We also see it today as adults. Have you ever been so busy where you don’t even realize you skipped lunch? You sit down and finally relax and you’re starving!! You may have been in “stress mode” which can actually suppress the appetite. Another thing that influences our appetite is hormone regulation. You may have noticed how pregnant women feel nauseous at certain times and can’t eat simply because of hormone shifts.

There are many things that influence hormones, such as eating too many sweets, processed grains, not enough protein or nutrient rich foods. You may also have genetic factors that influence your hormone levels. Just remember how your insulin and cortisol rhythms throughout the day influence hormones. Women can sometimes have serious cravings during certain times of their menstrual cycle. Men and women sometimes don’t eat or over eat when stressed.  Poor sleep habits have also been linked to poor eating and lifestyle habits.

Breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day because of it’s huge influence on our hormones, metabolism and energy levels. If you are one of those people who suffer from hormone related imbalances, have belly fat, lipid imbalances, etc, I would highly recommend you focus on your eating patterns. Start with something small in the morning and go from there. You will become very aware of your energy level throughout the day as well as your hunger cues.

A good food plan can help you normalize your insulin and blood sugar levels, decrease cravings, reduce belly fat and improve energy. The side effect is fat loss.!! You can’t beat that, right? Contact me for more information on in-office consultations or if you are not local, you can take advantage of my online consultation packages. You’re worth it. Break the cycle and eat your breakfast!!