If you ever tried to lose weight and follow any decent nutritional plan, you would notice one thing in common – they all want you to eat breakfast. In case you are wondering, we too recommend eating breakfast in all of our nutritional plans. But what if you are just not a breakfast person?
Imagine you wake up on a Tuesday morning and it’s WAY TO EARLY… It’s dark and cold outside and the last thing you want to do is to stroll in this nastiness to work. Take a look at the clock… Oh no, you slept in! Ugh, now you barely have time to put on your make up, never mind that breakfast thing!
If you aren’t a fan of breakfast, you are really missing out! The thing is that your metabolism (the rate with which your body uses calories for energy) is constantly adjusting to your dietary habits. Eat too little or infrequently and it automatically slows down, to ensure that you have energy until the next meal. Now imagine this, if your last meal is at 9pm, and you wake up at 7am it means that you haven’t eaten for 10 hours. You don’t require a lot of energy during sleep, so that’s OK, but by the time you wake up, you have probably already used most of them. If you skip breakfast, and eat at around 10am or even noon, that’s already 13-15 hours of running on steam!
Eating in the morning not only boosts your metabolism, it also increases your energy levels for an entire day, makes you more alert and productive and even reduces the risk of coronary heart disease . So that’s great, but at least 50% of our clients have told us that they don’t like eating first thing in the morning. Some of them actually reported being nauseous of just thinking of food that early in the day. If you belong to the Breakfast Skippers’ Club, there is a solution! See, your body has the ability to speed up its metabolism if it recognizes that the meals become more frequent. It starts burning more calories, knowing that the next meal is just 2-3 hours away. You burn more calories, feel better and become healthier overall!
We realize that recommending you to eat, when you just told us that you don’t like eating first thing in the morning, perhaps isn’t the answer you were looking for. But we are not talking about fabulous breakfasts that require a lot of preparation. If eating in the morning is an issue, you should start with eating something small at first, until your body starts craving food in the morning. It may take a couple of weeks for you to adjust, but it’s well worth in the end. So if you are not a breakfast eater, below is a 4 week progression that you can use to boost your metabolism, teach your body that breakfast is awesome and never miss out on it again!
Week 1
Wake up and drink 1 glass of water. Slice up a quarter of an English cucumber or a tomato and have it before you go to work. You can also have a protein shake blended with berries and almond milk.
Week 2
Wake up and drink 1 glass of water. Cut up the cucumber and tomato, throw it in a bowl, drizzle olive oil on top and salt and pepper to taste. It takes less than 5 minutes, but you can also prepare it the night before. Have another glass of water before you leave to work.
Week 3
Wake up and drink 1 glass of water. It’s time to make your breakfast a little more yummy. Add some Greek yogurt or cottage cheese to your salad. If you are lactose intolerant, try adding some canned tuna. Have another glass of water (or two) before you go to work.
Week 4
At this point, you should already be used to making and eating breakfast. The best thing to have in the morning is some lean protein with carbohydrates and vegetables. Think of an egg white omelet with spinach and mushrooms and some sweet potato, or oatmeal mixed with almond milk and a scoop of protein powder.
Give it a try and enjoying losing inches from the waistline and feeling great all day long!
About the Author: Ana Plenter
