Does busy life get in the way and you have a tendency to run out the door without eating breakfast?

Or you grab something quick, like a cereal bar or croissant with your morning coffee?

Maybe you are just not hungry in the morning and you see no point wasting time on breakfast?

Or you heard that "time-restricted eating" is all the rage these days and that skipping a meal is an easy way to help you lose those extra kgs and be more healthy?

If you recognise yourself in any of the above, it is good you found this post (especially if you have diabetes, pre-diabetes or are trying to lose weight).

Here is some information to help you make an informed choice about your morning routine 👇:

Skipping breakfast:

➡ delays lipolysis and increases lipogenesis. In plain English, skipping breakfast makes us store fat instead of using it up.

➡ makes our blood sugar spike higher after the other meals that day than it would if we had not skipped breakfast!

➡ makes us want to eat more the rest of the day.

➡ is associated with a significantly higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people who eat breakfast every day (according to a 2019 meta analysis, 22% more likely if we skip breakfast occasionally and up to 55% more likely if we skip breakfast 4 or 5 times per week - that's huge!),

➡ s associated with a higher chance of developing  cardiovascular disease than people who eat breakfast every day (21% more likely according to another 2019 meta analysis)

Why is that?

In the early hours of the morning our cortisol (a stress hormone) naturally rises. This signals to the liver to get some glucose out of its reserves and dump it in our blood - a clever thing to do to give us energy for the day.

Having breakfast shuts off this cortisol spike. It sends the message that all is good, energy is available, no need to "stress".

Skipping breakfast does the opposite.

The body perceives this prolonged fast as a "stress" situation. Cortisol remains high, the body enters into a kind of "survival mode" so:

➡ it will try to spend as little energy as possible and stock as much as possible.

➡ the liver continues dumping glucose into our blood so we run a higher blood sugar than if we had started the day with a protein rich breakfast.

➡ we become more resistant to insulin so it is harder to get that sugar out of the blood and into our cells. Studies have shown that this effect persists the rest of the day!

If we are already somewhat resistant to insulin (as many of us are without knowing it) this is not good news.

So, now you know.

I know life is not perfect and sometimes we will not have time or energy. But perfection is not the point. Establish your baseline and try to come back to that. Start small and build up.

If you are not hungry in the mornings, stay tuned. In an upcoming post we will talk about why that may be and what to do about it. 

If you want ideas of what to have for breakfast, check out the recipe blog