It seems backward - eat to stay thin. There are some great reasons why you need to eat breakfast to stay thin. Weight gain doesn't necessarily come from the act of eating itself, it just comes from eating the wrong kinds of food and your habits of when and how you eat them. Eating a big, healthy breakfast actually contributes to weight loss because you are eating healthy and you are eating at a good time of day. Eating breakfast is by far one of the best habits you can adopt and here's why you need to eat breakfast to stay thin.
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1. You Are Eating at a Time when You Need the Most Fuel
One of the best reasons why you need to eat breakfast to stay thin is that it gets your day started off right. There are good times to eat during the day and bad times - not at certain hours, but at certain hunger points. There's the old saying, eat to live, don't live to eat. If you eat when you're hungry and have run out of energy, that's a great time to eat and refuel. If you eat just out of boredom, anxiety, or any other emotion, then that's not a good time, because your body doesn't really need it.
Your body needs fuel first thing in the morning because it went all night without any. In the morning is when the day gets started and you have to be alert and think straight, so skimping on refueling will leave you groggy and lacking energy at a time that could otherwise be highly productive.
2. You Will Be Less Likely to Binge Later on
In the morning, you start exerting energy right away as you get out of bed, get ready, and start the day. Whenever you exert energy, your body will sooner or later need to replenish with fuel (calories). If you eat breakfast, your body will have a source of fuel to reach from while it exerts energy.
If you skip breakfast, your body will feel so depleted that when you finally do eat, it will need so much fuel that you may lose self-control and overeat or feed your body food that isn't the healthiest for it. It's best to feed your body when it is not too depleted and you aren't overly famished so that you can make a good decision about what you're putting into it.
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3. It Starts You off Embracing Food
Many people think the best way to lose weight is to stop eating altogether or eat as little as possible. This couldn't be further from the truth. When you stop eating, your body goes into starvation mode and actually tries to hold on to every ounce and calorie it can get. It hangs on to fat rather than lets it go.
The best way to burn off fat (not including exercise), is to eat mini meals throughout the day. Eating 5-6 small meals helps keep your metabolism active and your body from feeling deprived. Eating in the morning reminds you of this truth, that food is good and healthy for you and it doesn't do your body any good to starve itself. Make breakfast the first of several small meals you eat throughout the day.
4. You Allow Yourself to Enjoy Good Food
Breakfast food is some of the best. Breakfast food is often people's favorite type of food. It's important to make sure your breakfast is healthy, but the foods you can choose from are usually delicious. Eggs, whole grain pancakes and waffles, turkey bacon, oatmeal, grits, fruit, omelets, cereal. People love breakfast because it's not bland in the slightest.
It's easy to associate weight loss with eating the blandest of foods - carrots, lettuce, brown rice--but breakfast lets you feel like you're indulging (even if it is healthy). You can add condiments like peanut butter, syrup, jam, cinnamon, and still have the bulk of your meal be healthy. No one feels deprived at breakfast time, and psychologically, you don't feel like you're on a diet. Diets are discouraging, and breakfast reminds you that you can still eat delicious food and live a healthy lifestyle.
5. You Are Less Likely to Go to Bed on a Full Stomach
Going to bed on a full stomach can cause you to gain weight long-term. Because you're not burning off as many calories when you eat later in the day, those calories get digested and go into storage since they won't be used anytime soon. By eating breakfast, you start your day off full. If you then eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day, you continue to feel full and don't feel the need to binge on a huge dinner. By starting off eating, eating through the day, and then having a light dinner, your body is able to use the calories you ate all day as energy, and you naturally burn off those calories as you move throughout the day (all while having tons of energy since you have fuel in your system).
If you skip breakfast and eat most of your food later in the day or at night, you lack energy all day and once you do eat, your body doesn't get a chance to burn off any of the calories in the morning and during the day since you waited later to eat.
Embrace breakfast. It gives you energy first thing in the morning and starts your day off right. You can eat delicious food and not feel starved. It helps you stay alert and energetic, and you make better food choices later in the day because you're able to think straight. Breakfast helps to dispel the myth that not eating will keep you thin. Staying thin is dependent on how healthy the food is that you do eat. If you refuse to feed your body, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. So eat up, enjoy your breakfast, and watch yourself become more energetic and productive than ever.
