The danger in skipping your breakfast
Tricia was not used to having breakfast before leaving for work, because she
does not usually have the appetite to eat that early. Added to it was the need
to leave home early to beat the usually nasty city traffic and make it early
to work. But she was shocked at her recent discovery experts regard breakfast
as the most important meal.
According to a Lagos-based nutritionist, Mr. Uche Ogbonna, breakfast does not
only provide us the energy to start our day, it also plays an extremely crucial
role in fat loss. Ogbonna said, “Many people who seek to shed some weight
often make the mistake of skipping breakfast, not knowing that skipping breakfast
exposes the body to many illnesses.”
Another nutritionist, Mrs. Evans Amaku, also observed that healthy people who
skip breakfasts in order to cut down on calories often end up eating more later
in the day. “There tends to be higher level of cholesterol and lower level
of insulin in the body when you skip breakfast, “ Amaku said. She noted
that women in particular, who eat breakfast, tend to consume less calories than
those who skip it. And by consuming more calories, cholesterol can clog up in
the arteries and increase the risk of heart diseases. Heart attack or stroke
can occur when an artery gets clogged up, she noted. Worse still, people who
skip breakfast more often consume more of carbohydrates than those who don't,
thus secreting more sugar and less insulin in their bloodstreams.
Lower insulin levels are directly related to diabetes. Insulin is a hormone
that helps us to store excess glucose. If our body becomes insensitive to insulin,
excess glucose will not be stored and that could result in diabetes. When we
wake up in the morning, the stress hormones in our body (cortisol) are very
high. One function of cortisol is to convert proteins to glucose. Excess glucose
gets converted to fat. Prolonged period of skipping breakfast will result in
a lot of our body muscles breaking down and getting converted to fats. Result?
You devolve into a lump of fat!
So, if you don't want to be fat, don't skip breakfast.