By Tessa van Hoorn
Staff Writer
Here are some points websites and scholars seem to agree on:
- If you skip breakfast to lose weight, you’re doing it wrong! By skipping breakfast, you are much more likely to eat unhealthy snacks or eat a lot more during lunch (and eating a lot at once is definitely worse than eating little more frequently). Also, when you are hungry your body is more likely to store fat (and with that I mean the cancer evoking, between your organs kind of fat). Not good…
- When skipping breakfast you will not be able to focus as much, your body just needs some energy to start up. It’s the same with cars: when you start driving faster (= getting up and actually being productive) you will use more fuel than when you keep cruising (= stay in sleepy mode). So if you want to be more effective during the day so you can sleep longer and remember more information: choose breakfast!
To solve the problem of “no time for breakfast”, you can of course go and buy some expensive Bakker Bart or A Domani sandwich (and if you are unlucky Bakker Bart will have sold their whole breakfast to your friends in Chemistry class). Instead, you can also prepare a healthy smoothie or sandwich to take to class, or bring all the stuff you need for your yoghurt/milk cereal breakfast in boxes and bottles. Not every teacher will be happy when seeing you chew on your crunchy muesli though, so getting up 10 min earlier to eat your pre-made breakfast is also a good solution. And yes, you can make sandwiches the night before and put them in the fridge. However, making them in the morning all fresh might take you about 3 minutes longer. If you are an experienced biker and the rain is not pouring down, you can also eat on the bike. So, no more excuses!
Now that we have established that breakfast is possible and desirable, it might be nice to know what is good to eat, and what you should avoid. Things like bread, nuts and fruit are always good. You will digest them more slowly (which is good because you will stay energetic for longer), contain a lot of energy and nutrients and have all nice fibres to get your intestines going.
You might want to cut down on very sugary sweet alternatives for breakfast. They will give you an instant energy boost, but will bring you to a low just as quickly. Which is why it is a good investment to buy biological things to put on your bread; because they contain less processed and artificial ingredients (especially sweeteners), it will keep you energetic for longer.
To get you started:
- It can’t get simpler than this: Grab an apple, wrap 1 to 2 ounces of Cheddar in plastic, and toss ¼ cup of fiber- and protein-rich walnuts into a resealable plastic bag. From: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/healthy-meals/breakfast-to-go-10000001047596/
- Bake an omelette at night, with any ingredients you like (omelette is versatile like that), keep in in the fridge, and put it on some bread in the morning. (I always like some chives, bacon and tomatoes. You can also think of paprika powder for example, or curry powder)
- Make your own power-bars for when you really just rolled out of bed from this website:
