Breakfast is a very important meal - it can either make or break your day, will give you energy to start your day and will prevent you from snacking, helping and maintaining body weight at normal levels. However at the same time, researches has shown that if you skip breakfast you will lose weight or that breakfast - whether you skip it or not - has no effect on your weight.
So Nicole Clancy decided to experiment, cutting out breakfast for 1 week and sharing her experience on the Prevention site. Here is what happened to her:
1. Constant feeling of hunger
My body was waiting for me to eat in the morning - I usually eat oatmeal with cinnamon and it felt annoying that I ignored it. My stomach was churning all the time, my head was aching and I was grumpy and impatient.
2. Weaknesses during morning exercise
I could move despite my empty stomach, but I could not run as fast or as far as I usually go. I felt like I was crawling, so I knew I could not finish the usual 90 minute run. I could only get 70 minutes and I admit I just walked (basically crawling) most of the time. Some days I only went for a brisk walk, but my stamina was so reduced that I just took a leisurely walk.
3. Bad mood
Without breakfast, my mind could not "wake up" and I could not be productive, organized and my memory did not help me. I forgot documents that I had to take with me to a meeting, I spent 20 minutes looking for a file and I passed twice a week the exit I go to the national to go home.
4. Exaggerations with lunch
My lunch is usually quite nutritious and includes a salad with lots of vegetables and plenty of protein from plant sources. But I was so tired and hungry by lunchtime that my good habits were disappearing. More cheese? Plenty of dressing? Yes please! I also ate a lot of snacks in the afternoon, such as nuts, crackers, cookies and chocolate. I overdid it with coffee, too. It was the only way I could meet my needs. Of course, eating so much in the afternoon meant that I was not hungry at dinner, so I might just have a snack later. I was not even in the mood to cook.
5. Poor quality sleep
My nights may be shrinking, however, eating later in the night meant that the time I went to bed was carried back, for at least 2 hours. Also, even when I was lying down I could not sleep easily, probably because of the excessive sugar and caffeine I had consumed.
6. No weight loss
The good news is, I didn't even gain weight. Of course, this is a miracle if I consider how much I ate in the afternoons. The fact that I did not eat much at night must have balanced the situation. And she may not have gained weight, but she did not lose weight and she felt very bad all day, so the answer to the question what do we do with breakfast is simple: we eat breakfast every day!
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