Often touted as the “most important meal of the day” breakfast is essential for breaking the overnight fast your body experiences while sleeping. It helps replenish your glucose levels for the day. Various clinical research has established that breakfast is a must for a healthy diet as it helps boost metabolic activity, improves your concentration levels, and helps you make better nutritional choices throughout the day.
A healthy breakfast is a vital part of a balanced diet and is full of essential nutrients such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and delivers a little over a quarter of the nutrition you need for the day, which helps in regulating your nutrition absorption levels for the next 24 hours. So if your body does not receive these essential nutrients as soon as you wake up, it will be less effective at synthesizing nutrition for the rest of your day.
A few nutritional surveys that were conducted back in 2018 concluded that nearly five in ten women were guilty of skipping their breakfast, citing reasons such as lack of appetite, insufficient time, or trying to lose weight.
The formula to getting a wholesome breakfast or a healthy breakfast for weight loss is to make a healthy diet plan combining the four essential food groups, which are:
- Whole Grains – such as ragi, jowar, and bajra
- Lean Protein – such as eggs, lentils, and nuts
- Low-fat Dairy – such as milk, yogurt, and paneer
- Fruits And Vegetables.
Let us understand more about why having a healthy breakfast is a must and the impact that it has on your body.
Benefits Of Consuming A Healthy Breakfast
Having a nutrient-rich breakfast first thing in the morning can have several important benefits for your health, such as:
- Boosts Cognitive Power: Various studies have shown that consuming healthy foods like rolled oats for breakfast is essential for boosting cognitive function. Since you will be consuming them first thing in the morning, nutrients such as Vitamin B12 and Omega-3 fatty acids will be better absorbed by your body, which helps in reducing oxidative stress and improving oxygen flow to the brain.
- Regulating Cardiovascular Health: Eating a healthy breakfast doesn’t just help you get started for the day, it also helps in lowering bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels, which reduce the oxidative stress exerted on your heart. A nutritional breakfast is also rich in fiber, which reduces the risk of overeating and developing diseases like type-2 diabetes while maintaining healthy blood pressure.
- Boosts Immune System: Consuming a nutritious breakfast can actually reduce your risk of falling sick. It helps in boosting the body’s production of gamma-interferon, which is a natural anti-viral designed to boost your immune system by stimulating the production of white blood cells. Skipping breakfast has been linked to a seventeen percent drop in the body’s gamma-interferon levels.
- Aids Weight Loss: Most people are under the misconception that having breakfast causes weight gain. Contrary to popular opinion, breakfast is actually helpful in reducing your weight. There is a reason why breakfast features in all healthy weight loss diet plans — it helps in improving your body’s insulin response and kickstarts the process of burning your body’s stored fat. Therefore it is best to have a high protein breakfast that helps keep you satiated for long instead of skipping it
- Reduces The Risk Of Metabolic Syndrome: Various studies have shown that the timely consumption of a healthy breakfast decreased the risk of developing abnormal metabolic outcomes and helped in lowering low-density lipoprotein levels, which were linked to eliminating metabolic syndrome disease
- Controls Blood Sugar: Eating a healthy breakfast is important for maintaining your blood sugar levels throughout the day. It helps in reducing insulin resistance, which prevents the risk of developing type-1 diabetes. It was observed that eating a filling breakfast also helped reduce insulin drops and spikes. This was beneficial in avoiding mood swings, depression, and anxiety.
Risks Of Skipping Breakfast
Skipping breakfast can have several negative effects on your body. Such as:
- Slows Metabolism: Since you already fast through the night while sleeping, skipping breakfast will prolong the fast even more, which reduces the body’s ability to burn calories. This leads to decreased metabolic function and increased storage of fat in the body.
- Triggers Hair Loss: Skipping out on your breakfast causes a drop in your body’s protein levels. This has a negative effect on ketamine, a protein that is essential for hair growth and maintenance, thereby leading to hair fall and/or stunted hair growth.
- Causes Migraines: Not eating your breakfast causes a drop in the body’s sugar levels, which leads to hypoglycemia, a condition characterized by migraines and elevated blood pressure levels. Instead use breakfast as a way to consume heart-healthy foods like oats, muesli, and quinoa at the start of the day itself.
Also, people who skip breakfast eventually tend to binge eat around noon with foods that gain weight. Therefore, it’s best never to skip the first meal of your day.
