A Boon for Breakfast Eaters

My Lost Summer: the blog I started in order to promote My Lost Summer: a memoir. Six months into keeping this blog, I realized how boring it was with every post having to do with my book. Since July 2006, this blog has simply been a collection of unrelated essays. Well, related in that they have something to do with me, and I do try to keep them at least tangentially related to My Lost Summer: a memoir. However, nothing has particularly moved me to write lately—and I write best when I am passionate or at least moved my something. So, until somebody pisses me off or does something surprisingly kind, enjoy this article that was run in my column last year (having to do with health & fitness).

Be healthy!

The first—and easiest—step you should take towards becoming more healthy is so, so simple; it’s eating breakfast. Breakfast eaters get myriad benefits including
*a revved up metabolism started early so that it burns the maximum number of calories to fuel your activities
*fewer total calories consumed throughout the day
*an increased leptin output.

What’s leptin? Leptin is a hormone that suppresses appetite. Eating a significant meal early in the day ensures our bodies’ leptin production, says Meg Jordan, Ph.D., R.N.—as reported to First, September 2003. The book Fit Not Fat at 40-Plus: The Shape-Up Plan That Balances Your Hormones, Boosts Your Metabolism, and Fights Female Fat in Your Forties-And Beyond has more of Dr. Jordan’s thoughts on leptin’s influence on appetite.

Since leptin suppresses appetite, it follows that those of us who eat breakfast would take in fewer calories throughout the day. In fact, researchers at the University of Texas, El Paso, studied the food diaries of 586 men and women and determined that the more food people ate in the morning, the fewer calories they consumed in an entire day. So eat up early—though what we eat for breakfast may affect what we eat later on.

That’s right. Your first step to losing weight—eating breakfast—is not as simple as just popping any convenience food into your mouth. Eating refined carbohydrates like sugary cereals, toasted white bread, waffles, or bagels, will likely begin an overeating cycle. Instead, opt for complex carbs, proteins, and fats. Whole wheat toast with peanut butter and a banana, say, or a bowl of high-fiber cereal with low-fat milk and blueberries. Both options are quick to get you out the door and on your way to starting your day.

Feeding yourself a healthy breakfast of complex carbs, proteins and fats should prevent your feeding the vending machine any money before lunch, making you thinner and your change purse fatter.