Eat Breakfast To Lose Weight

One of the most important aspects to losing weight and keeping it off is increasing your metabolism. Put simply, metabolism is the process by which your body converts food (and other substances in your body) into energy. How fast your body burns this food depends on a few factors including: your age, how active you are, how much you weigh, and how much muscle you have on your body compared to how much fat. Muscle needs energy on pretty much a constant basis; while fat does not, it is basically a stored energy store. Sort of like that can of soup in the back of your cupboard that you never eat, but you know it's there in case you get really hungry. Except for the fact that having too much soup won't make you look bigger or make you unhealthy. With this in mind, it stands to reason that the more muscle you have, compared to how much fat, the more energy you will burn on a consistent basis.

After your busy day and you go to sleep, your body goes into a mini-hibernation mode. Your body processes slow down including your metabolism. When you wake up, your metabolism level remains at the sleeping level until you eat something and energize your body. It is therefore, quite easy to see why eating breakfast is so important. If you last eat at 9pm then go so sleep and wake up without breakfast, you may not eat anything until noon the next day. That would be 15 hours between meals, which is not good for losing weight. Breakfast literally means "break the fast", so do yourself a favor and do not forgo this crucial meal.

Several studies have shown that a daily breakfast featuring high-fiber, whole grain cereals or breads can aid in losing weight. In fact, the February 2006 issue of Harvard Men's Health Watch detailed a study reporting that those who missed breakfast were at a 4 times greater risk for obesity than those subjects who ate breakfast everyday. Eating breakfast can immediately raise your metabolism right away. In my personal experience, if your goal is to lose weight, one of the best things you can do is eat a good breakfast within an hour of waking up.

Of course, most of us are "too busy" for breakfast, but a good healthy breakfast can be one of the simplest meals of the day to prepare and eat. Personally, I eat a great deal of Nature's Path cereals. They feature a wide variety of whole grain cold and hot cereals as well as cereal bars. Their Optimum line in particular features a wide variety of mixed whole grains such as whole wheat, whole milled, and oats along with healthy organic dried berries. They are very low in fat and very high in fiber. Some of their cereals have 10g of fiber per serving which will serve to keep you full and snack free for hours, keep your energy up all morning, as well as giving you a very healthy start to your day. Any similar brand of cereals will do of course, but just be careful to read the ingredients listed since some cereal brands add some unhealthy ingredients such as partially hydrogenated corn syrup.

Keep breakfast in mind when thinking about your weight loss goals and how you intend to meet them. It is crucial to a healthy lifestyle and while we all are busy, eating breakfast will do more to keep you productive than the extra 10 or 15 minutes you think you be saving by skipping it.