Breakfast

Breakfast

A Meal You Don't Want to Miss

The day is young and you can be, too--if you eat breakfast. Scientific studies show that a good morning meal can help protect your heart and keep you trim.

Let's start by talking about your losing battle--that seemingly never-ending quest to be thin--and how breakfast can make you a winner.

Breakfast appears to act as a wake-up call for your body's metabolism, stimulating it to burn more calories. A study conducted by Wayne Callaway, M.D., associate professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., found that breakfast eaters had metabolic rates 3 to 4 percent above average, while breakfast skippers had sluggish rates, 4 to 5 percent below average. That means that in the course of a year, breakfast skippers will "conserve" 10 to 15 pounds of body fat, explains Dr. Callaway.

Eating breakfast can also help you to control your hunger, and when you do get hungry, to choose the right low-fat foods. A study at Vanderbilt University in Nashville led by David Schlundt, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychology, found that breakfast eaters chose fewer high-fat foods and more healthy high-carbohydrate foods and more successfully fought off their cravings for late-day, unhealthy snacks than did non­breakfast eaters.

Shifts in brain chemistry throughout the day make us more likely to crave fats as the hour gets later, explains Dr. Callaway. Most of us wake up craving carbohydrates rather than fats. "It's as if we are biologically programmed to eat a healthy breakfast," he says.

A healthy, high-carbohydrate, low-fat breakfast will address more than your midlife battle of the bulge. It can also address another weighty matter--circulatory disease, the national epidemic of clogged arteries that leads to millions of disabling and deadly heart attacks and strokes.

One cause of circulatory disease is blood clots, sticky plugs that block arteries. The clots are formed from platelets, the tiny disk-shaped parts of blood that are responsible for normal clotting (like when you cut yourself) but can go into overdrive and become more like Krazy Glue than Scotch tape.

Researchers at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's looked at the effect of breakfast on platelets. They found that morning levels of the factor that makes platelets sticky were much higher in people who didn't eat breakfast. Scientists already know that most heart attacks and strokes occur in the morning. Does that mean that skipping breakfast can make your heart skip a lot more than a beat?

"It is definitely prudent and important to have breakfast every morning," says George Fodor, M.D., a professor of clinical epidemiology at Memorial University who led the study.

Breakfast might also help your heart by lowering cholesterol. Researchers at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia looked at the breakfast habits of 12,000 people and found that those who ate cereal--any cereal--for breakfast had the lowest cholesterol levels. Guess who had the highest? The folks who didn't eat breakfast.

"We've known that one of the worst things you can do for proper nutrient intake is skip breakfast. But now we have new evidence that people who eat a breakfast including cereal have lower cholesterol," says John Stanton, Ph.D., the study's author and director of the Food, Nutrition and Health Research Institute at St. Joseph's.

Breakfast may also help protect you from developing gallstones, says James E. Everhart, M.D., a researcher with the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. People who skip breakfast are essentially undergoing a short-term fast, and fasting has been shown to increase the risk of gallbladder disease.

Rise and Dine

Okay, you're convinced--eating breakfast can tone your body, inside and out. But maybe breakfast feels like a blind date with Count Chocula. Maybe you just can't get used to the idea of a hearty meal so early in the day. Or maybe you like breakfast--the eggs and bacon variety that turns your arteries into a cholesterol junkyard. Well, here are some easy, healthy ways to say good morning to yourself.

Just do it. You can get your body used to eating a healthy breakfast even if you've never eaten it in your life, says John Foreyt, Ph.D., director of the Nutrition Research Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week even if you have no appetite," he says. Within a week or so it will start to feel like an old habit.

Don't nibble at night. Snacking at night will make you less hungry in the morning, says Robert Klesges, Ph.D., professor of psychology and preventive medicine at Memphis State University. And that, he says, starts a vicious circle: You have no appetite for breakfast, which makes you hungrier in the evening, which makes you snack more at night.

Make cereal a habit. No matter what you eat for breakfast, make part of the meal cereal, says Dr. Stanton. Choose a brand that's low in fat and high in fiber and add some fresh sliced fruit for extra flavor and nutrients.

Eat cakes for breakfast. Pancakes, that is. "Pancakes are high in energy-boosting carbohydrates and low in fat if you make them without a lot of oil," says Dr. Schlundt.

You can make enough for a week and freeze a single layer on a foil-lined tray. Then stack them and wrap them tightly with wax paper or plastic wrap. On a hectic weekday morning, just stick two in a toaster oven; that's all it takes for a great breakfast.

Be a smooth operator. Smoothies are delicious, nutrition-packed breakfast drinks that only take a minute or so to make. Take one cut-up piece of fruit, one cup of nonfat yogurt (any flavor), a quarter-cup of orange juice and a few ice cubes. Whip it all up in a blender and pour it into a glass--or even into your car mug.

Don't bring home the bacon. "Nobody needs to eat meat at breakfast," says Dr. Schlundt. "Eat bread, cereal, juice or fruit, plus skim milk or low-fat yogurt," he suggests. "With these foods, it's really easy to feel full in the morning, and their carbohydrates are a great source of energy."