We believe everyone has the right to love their food and feel proud of how they choose to eat. Join the coaches at Confident Eaters as they share their insights and advice to ditch diet culture and step into your power. They've guided thousands of people out of emotional eating, compulsive overeating, and stressful relationships with food. With science based tools and inspiration, what awaits you? Body confidence, food freedom, and joyful ease with eating.
The Breakfast Question
===
Georgie: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the next episode of the Confident Eaters podcast. As always, I am your host, Georgie Fear, and I am here with Christina Jodoin. Hey, Christina, how's it going?
Christina: Going great over here. Thanks, Georgie.
Georgie: Christina just got married a couple of weeks ago, and I was just oohing and aahing over her pictures on Facebook, and it's,
Christina: yass.
Georgie: Oh, I love weddings. So happy.
Christina: Yes.
Georgie: So today we have a great topic. We're going to cover it pretty quickly, I think, because it's not super complex, but the idea is why eat breakfast if you've not been a breakfast person, Christina, I think this is one that we hear a lot, right? People identify themselves as I'm not a breakfast person.
how often do you hear that?
Christina: Oh, tons of times. So often
Georgie: not a breakfast person.
Christina: Yeah.
Georgie: And I think even if you're not somebody who wakes up dreaming of waffles and eggs, there are still some really good reasons why you may want to eat something in the morning. And if your excuses have been that it takes too much time, [00:01:00] that you don't love breakfast foods, that you're just not hungry first thing in the morning, or that you don't want to eat breakfast because it will help you save calories, we are going to address all that and more on today's episode. Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.
wHy do people cut out breakfast? I think a lot of people start eating breakfast as kids, you know, even if it's just mom encouraging that bowl of cereal before you get on the school bus,
Christina: Mhmm
Georgie: in my experience, some people have stopped eating breakfast because they found that they just weren't hungry and that they're hustling in the morning.
I mean, unfortunately, not many of us have hours of leisure time [00:02:00] in the morning to drink our coffee and read something and make breakfast. So if you have to get up and hustle, and especially if you have to put on nice clothes and look professional. It's easy to sort of jettison breakfast if you're not that hungry for it.
Is that what you tend to find? That people are skipping breakfast just for a time issue or is there more to it?
Christina: Definitely. that is a big reason I hear a lot of people. I work with a lot of moms or busy career people and yeah, I think the most common thing is they're cutting out breakfast because they're too busy.
They start their day. They're getting up early or they're taking care of little ones. And it just feels like too much effort to sit and eat themselves. So they put it off and think, well, I'm just going to wait until lunch. No big deal. Another reason I hear is that they're just not hungry in the mornings, which you mentioned already, but they wait until later to eat or all the way until lunch, like maybe they eat an early lunch or they just push it off. at which point they are ravenous and like super hungry for lunch. Also, if they work out early in the morning, just doesn't feel [00:03:00] great to eat before a workout and they don't want to Work out on a full stomach.
And then finally, I hear people talking about intermittent fasting, which we have a whole episode on. So check that one out, but they have this idea that skipping breakfast will help them save on calories throughout the day. Intermittent fasting has gained so much popularity recently and they justify it with, oh, I'm not really a breakfast person anyways, or I'm just fine without it, but we tend to see that that's not the case down the road.
Georgie: Yeah. yeah, I think that's a great overview of a lot of the rationale it resonates with me what you said about people just not wanting to take time for themselves or not being able to take time for themselves because mornings can be so hectic if you're trying to deal with kids and a family and
Christina: yeah.
Georgie: So often, one person falls by the wayside, often mom.
Christina: Yeah, definitely.
Georgie: Not to stereotype, but it is something that we see more frequently in women. So I was thinking, it's not going to be the same answer for every [00:04:00] person. If the question is. Is it a problem if I skip breakfast? I do think there are some people where if they hate breakfast, hate it, and they've tried, and they've read all these, articles that say breakfast is an important meal, and they just hate it.
There are some people where I'm not going to spend time really pushing them to eat breakfast. But then there's other people where I am actually going to die on that hill where I am going to try and get them to eat breakfast. So I think like we can talk about professionally who we feel it's most important to get a substantial meal in within an hour or two of waking up and then who it may not be all that big of a priority for So for people where it's not a problem if they skip breakfast, I would say if somebody is happy with their weight, happy with their activity level, and they are not eating breakfast out of convenience and I have, one client right now and two meals a day seems to work great for her.
Her goal is to just [00:05:00] maintain her weight. She doesn't want to gain or lose. And She exercises first thing in the morning, and she says that she feels fine, and she's good for her workouts. So, for her, I don't have a whole lot of ground to stand on to say, Look, this could improve if you add in breakfast.
Christina: Right.
Georgie: So for her, We don't really focus much. I don't give her too much pushback on not eating breakfast. However, I also have a couple of clients who wake up and exercise without eating anything beforehand and they're struggling with their food intake later in the day.
Christina: Mhmm
Georgie: They're snacking, they're grazing, they're eating second portions after lunch and or dinner, or they just can't stop going back to the kitchen for snacks between dinner and bedtime. For these
Christina: Yeah
Georgie: people, it is much more important. To add in that breakfast to start your circadian rhythm with some substantial food in the morning, and it can go a long way toward helping with weight loss. So for people who want to lose weight, I would sort of put one tick in the column for [00:06:00] probably more important to eat breakfast. A couple other types of clients that I think it's really important to consider, including a breakfast in their day, would be competitive athletes, people who aren't just exercising for recreation, but they want to maximize the adaptations that they make to their sport. And also that they want to continually progress and they want to be able to recover from their training so they can tolerate more training. For competitive athletes, absolutely, breakfast is going to be an essential part of your training plan. The last segment of people that I think should really, really take to heart the idea of including breakfast would be people who have hyperadrenal conditions. If you are struggling with hypothalamic amenorrhea or polycystic ovarian syndrome, it's really important to include breakfast. I don't want to get too far into the mechanisms, but know that skipping breakfast can exacerbate The symptoms that you experience and including breakfast could really help with fertility and with normalizing your [00:07:00] hormone levels. Anything to add to that, Christina?
Christina: I don't think so. I like what you said about your one client because there certainly are people where it's like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Georgie: Right.
Christina: They're doing great. They're thriving. They don't feel like their workouts are suffering, but I have some clients who will try to push breakfast and they experience things like headaches or their blood sugar drops and they're feeling faint or like they have a difficult time concentrating at work, and these are some other reasons to maybe consider that it would be helpful to add that back in. And yeah, if it's not affecting you negatively, great, but the other thing that you mentioned is Oh, I don't need breakfast, but then there's a lot of late night snacking. There's a lot of overeating at dinner definitely the most common thing I hear
Georgie: And people don't connect that to breakfast, do they?
Christina: Right, Right. And it's like, well, maybe that's why you're not hungry in the mornings because there's so much eating happening in the latter part of the day.
[00:08:00] And that's a really common one that I hear. From people. So what I want to ask you is if it seems beneficial for someone to start eating breakfast, how do you think they could go about that? If they are like, I just don't have an appetite in the morning. I'm not hungry.
Georgie: Yeah. So a lot of times when people who have historically not been breakfast eaters are deciding like, well, Georgie has a lot of points here. You know, Christina's made some really good evidence based recommendations that I should try to get some food in, in the morning. We start to talk about like, what would you enjoy? Because some people are like, you know, I've always really liked eggs.
I've always really liked a bagel. I've always really liked X. So whatever it is, that's a great thing to start with, you know, start with some food that you like. If you don't have an appetite. You're going to have an even harder time trying to get a food in if it's one that you don't find appetizing. So
Christina: mhmm
Georgie: go with something that does appeal to your taste buds. Also, you can have something that's pretty small and pretty light because you're [00:09:00] going to adjust to it. And so often people are just starting with half a banana is a really common one. I have a number of clients that are out there listening to this that are like, Oh, she's talking about my half banana.
Yeah. There's a lot of you out there eating a half banana before you work out in the morning. Cause if you don't have an appetite, most people can get a fair amount of fruit in, you know, half a piece of fruit and it's not a huge amount of calories. So people who are worried about the calories often don't put up too much resistance, but what it does, if you can get some carbohydrates in and prioritize getting some carbohydrates and over the other macronutrients is that it really has the most impact on decreasing the glucocorticoid hormones that are higher.
In the morning. So if your stress hormones are running at a a higher level in the morning, and you continue the fast, they stay elevated, they don't come down. And if you exercise, you're dealing with even more of a spike in your adrenal hormones and so long term having higher exposure to these stress hormones can cause a lot of problems. One for body [00:10:00] composition. These hormones lead to decreases in lean mass and increases in fat mass. So exactly the opposite of where you want to be storing energy. So this is why exercising in the fasted state for 99 percent of people out there is going to be counterproductive to their goals.
So, start with carbohydrates, start with something small, and if you don't like any food that you associate with breakfast, it's perfectly fine to eat a food that you think of as a lunch or dinner food, you know, there's no definition of breakfast foods that you have to stick to.
Christina: Yeah, there are no rules with breakfast.
Georgie: Exactly. Since most people don't have a ton of time to cook something fancy in the morning, let's just fire off some easy, fast breakfast ideas that people might try. This is gonna be like a quiz show. You ready? You're gonna give one, I'm gonna give one, we're gonna see who runs out.
Christina: Okay, I'm ready.
Georgie: Toast with peanut butter.
Christina: Smoothie.
Georgie: Scrambled eggs and toast.
Christina: Yogurt cup.
Georgie: Instant oatmeal with milk.
Christina: Overnight oats.
Georgie: Chia pudding.
Christina: Hard boiled eggs.
Georgie: An omelette. HAHA
Bagel and cream cheese. [00:11:00] I also realized that my, omelette idea, might be pushing the boundaries on easy and fast. You can make pancakes or waffles and then freeze them during the week it's easy and fast because you just pop it in the microwave.
Christina: Yes. I've also had clients do pre made egg muffins where they just like whip up a bunch of eggs and then put them in little muffin tins, bake them, and they've got them for the week.
Georgie: Yeah, I love those smashed between two halves of a toasted English muffin.
Christina: MMM.
Georgie: Now, you've got like a hot breakfast sandwich, which I love.
Christina: Sounds really good.
Georgie: Yes. Eating breakfast from a restaurant is also not necessarily the worst thing you can do. I had some clients who really enjoyed the egg white delight McMuffin, I believe it was called, but I'm not sure McDonald's even makes them anymore, unfortunately. Starbucks has got quite a few options. They have those sous vided egg bites, which I think are really good. They have
Christina: Yes.
Georgie: A variety of breakfast sandwiches, most of which I have tasted and enjoyed, and my heart will always belong to the spinach and feta egg white wrap [00:12:00] at Starbucks because I just love it.
So whenever I'm on a road trip or staying at a hotel and I don't love the a la carte breakfast that's offered, I can find a Starbucks.
Christina: Yeah. I love the egg white wraps too. I worked at Starbucks for years and that was my go to.
Georgie: Oh nice!
Christina: I loved Chick fil A, if you're in the States, has... Egg white grill and other egg sandwiches as well that are pretty good.
Georgie: Cool. All right, lots of options the, the world of grab and go breakfasts from like fast food places is so much better than like the Foam pancakes that I remember from McDonald's as a kid. Yeah. So, fun fact, since you said that you worked at Starbucks, my first job was at Dunkin Donuts. I loved it.
Christina: No way!
Georgie: Yeah, and I just, I'm gonna give you a second to picture me in my little ball cap at 15, behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts.
Christina: Love it. Your smiling face handing me an iced coffee. Just what I would love in the morning.
Georgie: I was making those culottes like nobody else.
Christina: That's so funny.
Georgie: I know, right? Okay. So last [00:13:00] thing that we can probably help people with. What to expect? Let's say you haven't been a breakfast eater, but you're like, okay, I'm going to start including it. I'm ready to try some of these ideas that Georgie and Christina threw out there. I want to let you know what to expect because If your expectations are overly positive, the eating breakfast is going to result in instantly dropping 20 pounds, running a four minute mile and being able to slam dunk. It's not going to happen,
Christina: sorry,
Georgie: sorry, so sorry, but there are some good things that start to happen really, really soon. Some of the good things that happen when you start eating breakfast is that you may feel like you have more energy throughout the day. You also may feel like you're not as distractible throughout the morning, that you're able to pay more attention to your work and that you even have more cognitive ability because cognitive ability goes down when your blood glucose is lower.
And after an overnight fast, your blood glucose is on the lower end of its normal maintained range. You might also find that the breakfast doesn't [00:14:00] necessarily feel 100 percent comfortable in your stomach because your stomach's not used to having food in it at that time. It doesn't mean that you're just born to not be a breakfast person.
It just means that you aren't used to it. So start with something that's small, like a yogurt or a piece of fruit, and let your body get used to it. It won't take more than a few days, usually, for people to find that they're getting noticeably more comfortable with having food. Also, if you find that breakfast doesn't sit so well before your morning workout, the second best time that you can eat would be immediately after your workout.
So after your workout, rather than taking an hour to change your clothes, shower, and commute to the office before you eat, try to eat something even at the... Locker room in the gym, a cliff bar, a sandwich, you know, PB& J knows no bounds. It's always, it's always the time of day for PB& J.
Christina: That's right.
Georgie: So give yourself some time to adjust to eating some breakfast foods. And then the last thing I would say to expect is to anticipate that you're going to have a Decreased drive for food, especially in the [00:15:00] last third of the day. This isn't my crystal ball speaking. This is something that's backed up from research. We know that when people eat a more significant portion of their calories early in the day, they have a decreased calorie intake in the last third of the day.
So you may find fewer evening snacks and less overall food intake. Anything else that you would throw in there that people should know if they're trying to consider maybe whether they might become a breakfast person?
Christina: I would say, like anything, we encourage our clients to give yourself the opportunity to experiment with it.
Treat it like an experiment. Give yourself a few days or even a couple of weeks. And. You might not love it at first, you might not feel hungry, but I have seen clients get hungry for breakfast after trying this experiment. And
Georgie: Mhmm
Christina: yeah, I think you covered everything else, so.
Georgie: Great. Yeah, another way that is the jump start to a morning appetite would be to have dinner quite early the night [00:16:00] before and not eat after dinner.
So if you stop eating around 5pm the night before, odds are breakfast will seem a lot more appealing to you the following morning because you'll be hungry for it.
Christina: Imagine that.
Georgie: Imagine that. So if you want to jumpstart your road to being a breakfast person, try an earlier dinner and not eating anything between dinner and bedtime. ,
Christina: Love it.
Georgie: All rIght. So that's our show for today. If there's a topic that you would like covered, big or small, drop a line to Georgie@confidenteaters.Com. We've also got some interesting stuff on the website for you to check out. We are enrolling for our breaking up with binge eating program. And so we're going to kick that off on Wednesday, November 15th, 2023. If you want to know more swing by the website. I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, Christina.
Christina: Thanks Georgie.