I Don’t Care How Hard it is, You Need to Eat Breakfast

I know our grandparents🧓🏻 used to say “breakfast is the most important meal of the day", and it seems that has gone out of fashion with the rise in intermittent fasting. But personally, I still believe we need to prioritize a healthy breakfast🍳.

☝️Your breakfast is the first meal of the day that you break your fast (from not eating while you’ve been sleeping the whole night). It really sets your mood, energy, and blood sugar barometers for the rest of the day!

And I know what you’re thinking👀. “But, Allison, I just don’t have an appetite in the morning. I don’t want to eat breakfast.” And my response to that is - I know, but you need to start trying.

🚨Not having an appetite in the morning is a sign of metabolic and nervous system dysregulation. We wake up in the morning slightly hypoglycaemic, or low-ish blood sugar. Our body has enough reserves for a short period of time upon waking before it will alert the adrenals that we don’t have any more glucose in our blood stream. Your body will then pump out stress hormones like cortisol to break down parts of your body to move more glucose into your blood stream.

Once in awhile, this is okay and even healthy. But chronically every day will stress out the adrenals and cause nervous system dysregulation❌. This can lead to issues with energy, mood, cognition, fertility, and your menstrual cycle.

➡️ So start with something small. Even if it’s just peanut butter on toast or a hard boiled egg (carbs optional but protein🥩 is essential). Slowly your body will learn to accept food in the morning and your blood sugar and nervous system will become more balanced⚖️.

If you are struggling with energy levels, craving sweets all day, morning anxiety, or a mid-afternoon energy crash🥱 - you need to start paying more attention to your breakfast. Are you eating 20-30g of protein? Do you have some fiber and healthy fats? Is it super sweet or carb heavy? Carbs are absolutely necessary in moderation, but too much first thing in the morning will skyrocket your blood sugar only for it to tank an hour or two later causing fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and cravings.

So aim for a protein-rich, SAVOURY breakfast to start your blood sugar on the right track for the rest of the day. And I know this may mean you need to get a little bit more creative in the kitchen. When we think of breakfast foods we often think of sweets and carbs - cereal, bagels, oatmeal, donuts, fruit. Which are all completely fine parts of a healthy breakfast, but they need to be combined with enough protein to keep that glucose spike in range. We want fat, fiber, AND protein to help stabilize our glucose.

🙋🏻‍♀️ But what if you want to do some intermittent fasting? Totally fine. I think there are some great benefits to intermittent fasting. But intermittent fasting does not mean skipping breakfast. 12-14 hours is a great amount of fasting time for most women. This could look like finishing eating at 7 or 8pm and eating breakfast around 9 or 10am. The part where we’re getting intermittent fasting wrong is delaying our breakfast when we really should be just eating dinner earlier and refraining from snacking before bed.

Can coffee be your breakfast?☕️ Absolutely not. Coffee on an empty stomach is just shouting at the adrenals to pump out their stress hormones, while coffee with breakfast talks gently to your adrenals. Coffee is a part of breakfast, not your whole breakfast.

✨Some breakfast ideas:✨

• Greek yogurt with fruit, chia seeds, and walnuts.

• Smoothie with fruit and protein powder (I personally add greek yogurt to mine for creaminess and extra protein).

• Oatmeal with nuts and seeds and a spoonful of almond butter.

• 3 egg omelete.

• Turkey bacon and sautéed veggies.

• Breakfast sausage and an egg.

• Protein pancakes (regular pancake mix with protein powder).

• Protein oatmeal muffins.

• Breakfast wrap with cheese and turkey slices.

• Egg muffin frittatas.

• Sweet or savoury cottage cheese bowl.

• Smoked salmon on toast.

Peace & Periods,

Allison

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