Know the benefits of eating breakfast but unable to eat? Here are 7 tips.

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.

Photo (above) credit: tvnz.co.nz

Get more tips from the book, Become A Healthier You.

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". 

Read more »

Five hours to noon

………. It’s 7:00am at my resisdence

I switched on the TV to watch Michael on Sativ Two Morning show. During the newspaper review, the host had to repeat one question three times before getting Michael's attention. Strangely enough, after the first commercial break, when the content of the mug in front of Michael became empty, he also became more attentive. (Research shows concentration levels are low in the mornings when food has not been eaten).

…………… It’s 8:00am at Trape Trust
Mimi walks into the office only to be greeted with unplanned work from her superior. Looking at the workload, which needed to be done before noon, Mimi wonders when she can grab breakfast. She was unable to have breakfast before coming to the office as she had no appetite for it. "I hope I have enough energy to finish this work by noon", Mimi whispers to herself (Studies show energy levels are low in the morning when breakfast has not been eaten).

……………. It’s 10:00am Wichgreen
Lix has just woken up, and he has an assignment to turn  in 2 hours. He is fortunate to have woken at 10:00am as he slept at a quarter to 6:00am after having an all-night meeting with Game of Thrones. He quickly showers and put on his laptop to finish his 4000 word-assignment of which 500 words have been typed. As he typed, he wonders if Philip was able to make to his 9:00am lecture as he was part of the Game of Thrones all-night meeting. His sister calls out to him to come get his breakfast and his response, "Chale I have to turn this assignment in before noon and besides I am checking my weight". (Research shows people who skip breakfast tend to eat unhealthily, leading to weight gain).

…………. It’s 12:00noon at ESL
Kweku is seen chatting heartily with his friends at the cafeteria. Few hours back, this was not the situation. There was no smile on his face and any question asked by his colleagues got him irritated. In his quest to save money for the future, Kweku has decided to eat once a day. For Kweku, Lunch can compesate for all the three main meals of the day. (Studies show when people have low energy levels, they tend to be lethargic and can easily be irritated.).

Which of the above scenarios best describes you? Is an early morning assignment, loss of appetite, waking up late, weight management or/and saving money among others preventing you from eating breakfast, which is the most important meal of the day? Read more about the benefits of breakfast here.

This week on the Olime Health page www.facebook.com/olimehealth, we will be giving you tips to enable us eat breakfast regardless of the "obstacles". Do not be surprised to find fruits and vegetables in these tips as in this month, we are looking at fruits and vegetables. If you missed out on any of  our posts on fruits and vegetables, you can read from here.

Till then, have a lovely week and may all you hope for in this week come to pass.

Cheers!

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Read more »