7 benefits of eating breakfast

• Posted on December 8, 2015January 4, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

In a day, it is recommended for an individual to eat three meals; breakfast, lunch and supper. This ensures that we supply our body with its fuel, food. Among these three meals, breakfast is considered the most important. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because the energy stores of the body needs refill after embarking on an involuntary fasting during the night. Starting the day on low energy can make us to easily lose concentration, lethargic, irritable etc. Breakfast also provides us the energy to sustain us till lunch reducing the number of times we will go for snacks. Additionally, eating breakfast will help not to make an individual desperately hungry to eat just anything, consequently helping the individual to make the right food choices during the day.

Unfortunately, people miss out on the benefits derived from breakfast due to reasons such as not having an appetite for breakfast, not having enough time, not having food around, not knowing what to eat, forgetting to eat breakfast, to save cost and wanting to lose weight. If you experience any of these barriers, below are tips to help you overcome them.

1. Develop an appetite for breakfast by starting with light bite such as a finger of banana each morning. Overtime, your appetite for breakfast will increase.

2. Prepare and/or pack your breakfast the previous night, if your mornings are usually busy and you do not have time for preparing or eating breakfast in the morning. The prepared or packed breakfast can thus be eaten at home or at the workplace.

3. Stock your stores at home and at the office with easy to grab foods such (fruits, nuts) or a box of cereals, respectively. This way, you are assured of having food available  in the morning.

4. Include any food; fruits, vegetable, cereals, grains, other starchy food, milk, meat, egg etc. as well as eat any dish for breakfast. The key thing is to eat something in the morning and not to eat specialised food or dishes in the morning. So choose the breakfast that works for you but make sure you do not eat more than you have to eat. A simple way to know this is that you should feel hungry after 4 or 5 hours of eating a meal. If you do not feel hungry after hours of eating, it could mean you over ate or are your food consumption is above your energy usage.

5. Go for cheaper breakfast options as you can include any food or eat any dish for breakfast. Additionally, spending a part of the lunch budget on breakfast will ensure that one does not overeat during lunch time.

6. Put breakfast on your to-do list or as a reminder, if you are one who forgets to eat breakfast. This way, you have something to remind you to eat.

7. Eating breakfast as mentioned above helps us to make healthier food and eating choices in the day. This thus makes it important for one seeking to lose weight.

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About contributor

Irene Danquah, ANutr holds a BSc Biochemistry from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana and an MSc Public Health Nutrition from the University of Southampton, UK. Irene is member of the UK Association for Nutrition (AfN) and the Ghana Nutrition Association. She is on the UK Voluntary Register of Nutritionists (UKVRN) as an Associate Nutritionist. Irene is the author of the book, Become A Healthier You. Like the World Bank, Irene also believes “Nutrition is an investment issue and improved nutrition is one of the major drivers of economic growth – World Bank, 2006”.