Power Packed Breakfast

Eating breakfast isn’t just for kids. Although you’ve probably stopped growing, your body is constantly renewing itself, replenishing your skin, hair and nails, replacing old tissues with new, breaking down and rebuilding bone and generally keeping your body in the best shape possible.

How does your body do it? With the nutrients food delivers. Breakfast is especially important because after a long night’s sleep, the body is low on energy, protein, vitamins and minerals.

One of the fastest ways to calm your hunger and sugar cravings is by eating protein.

When overweight or obese young women ate protein-rich breakfasts they not only felt fuller for longer, their brain messages responsible for food cravings were reduced.

This impact also seemed to be felt all day. The women on the high-protein breakfasts were not driven to snack on unhealthy foods in the evening, compared with the women in the study who skipped breakfast and those who ate less protein.

Breakfast-skipping is linked with being overweight

Studies indicate that people who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight or obese. One large study found that breakfast skippers were 4.5 times more likely to be heavy than those who ate breakfast.

Breakfast helps you balance out your protein

Protein is essential for developing and maintaining lean muscle, but if we’re not getting enough protein throughout the day, muscle maintenance is not at the maximal level. And when we finally get some protein at dinner, it’s largely wasted because the body can only use so much at one time. Use breakfast to pump up your protein. Include eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese and lean meats in your morning meal. Another benefit of protein in the morning is that it’s likely to keep you full longer, as another study found. Those who ate protein at breakfast said they felt satisfied longer than those who at the same amount of protein at other meals.

Breakfast is packed with the nutrients most of us don’t get enough of

Pastries and fatty breakfast meats don’t count, but if you stick to breakfast foods like whole-grain cereal and milk, fruit and yogurt or eggs and whole grain toast, you’re much more likely to meet your daily dose of necessary nutrition. Those who skip breakfast tend to have lower levels of calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc, vitamins A, E, B6, C and folate.

Eating breakfast benefits blood sugar and cholesterol levels

A small study found that when lean, healthy women skipped breakfast, their fasting blood sugar was higher, along with their cholesterol, upping their risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Skipping breakfast caused the women to eat more throughout the day than when they ate breakfast, too.

Skipping breakfast won’t save you calories

It may seem like eliminating a whole meal must lead to weight loss, but the opposite appears to be true. Many studies have found that those who skip breakfast tend to eat more during the day and are more likely to be overweight or obese .