Breakfast:

IS IT REALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY?

by Shannon Dahlum

For most of your life you’ve probably been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Recently, you’ve likely been hearing the opposite; a longer overnight fasting window is more beneficial, so pushing your first meal off until lunch is the way to go.  Which is it? Should you eat it or skip it?

Many sources site cereal creators Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and fellow 7th Day Adventist James Caleb Jackson with coining the phrase, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”  They used it as a marketing slogan to sell their cereal in the 19th century. In 2019, the Kellogg company earned $1.4 billion in profit from their cereal and convenience foods. Clearly their marketing scheme hit the mark, and the idea has stuck. In this country, cereal tops the chart of highest selling breakfast food and, while bacon comes in second (with only half the amount of sales as cereal), the next four spots go to cereal bars, grocery store doughnuts, bakery doughnuts, and hot cereal.  We see frozen breakfast sandwiches and sausage next on the list, then more pre-made baked goods, frozen waffles, bagels, toaster pastries, muffins, etc.  It’s clear that of those who do eat breakfast, high sugar convenience food is the preferred choice of the majority. 

In fitness and wellness circles, intermittent fasting has been the recent trend.  The most common approach is to hold off until lunch to have the first meal of the day to increase the daily fasting window.  The idea is that by going longer between meals, you’ll keep blood sugar levels stable for a longer period of time, which gives your system a break from consistently elevated insulin.  Spending more time during the day with stable blood sugar and low insulin allows your body to utilize it’s own fat stores for fuel and helps your body maintain healthy insulin sensitivity, which prevents the cascade of blood sugar dysregulation that can lead to weight gain and type two diabetes.  This makes sense in theory, but it doesn’t work quite this simply for everyone.

Cortisol, which you likely know as one of your body’s stress hormones, is also an important blood sugar regulating hormone. Its highest in the morning, which is what wakes you from sleep and gets you moving, then drops steadily throughout the day.  Cortisol is also vital for helping your body maintain blood sugar balance. If blood sugar takes a nose dive, or even just gets a little bit low, cortisol is released which triggers the liver to release some of its stored sugar into the blood stream. This means that even in the absence of food, the presence of stress can raise blood sugar and insulin.  For some people, going too long between meals can trigger a stress response that causes an elevation of blood sugar. The act of fasting itself can actually increase blood sugar!

Fasting helps regulate blood sugar for some, and for others it can make matters worse. This is why there’s so much conflicting advice out there. Women seem to be especially sensitive to cortisol and insulin and don’t tend to experience the benefits of regular fasting that many men do.  Additionally, the higher your overall stress burden already is, the less likely it is that you’re able to tolerate the added stress of skipping meals.

A simple way you can determine how skipping breakfast affects you is to test your blood sugar. Using an inexpensive blood glucose monitor, which you can pick up at the pharmacy, test your blood sugar when you first wake up in the morning, before any coffee. A healthy fasted blood sugar is 99mg/dl or less. If your level is higher than that when you first wake up, it can indicate that you already have some blood sugar dysregulation going on. Test it again every hour until lunch. Does it consistently rise or does it stay stable? If it remains stable or decreases slightly, morning intermittent fasting is likely an approach that works for you. If it continues to climb, however, and then gets lower about 30-60 minutes after lunch, this can indicate that extending your overnight fast is an added stress on your system that is hurting rather than benefitting you. Your tolerance for fasting will also likely fluctuate based on the other stressors you have going on at the time. If you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, have a looming deadline at work that you’re worried about, are drinking caffeine (which spikes cortisol), and started the day with an intense workout, the added stress of skipping breakfast is probably not going to be beneficial.

What if you don’t even have an appetite in the morning? If you’re skipping breakfast simply because you can’t stomach the thought of eating, this can be an indication that your body is in a state of stress. Chronically elevated cortisol triggers the break down of your own resources (muscle tissue, specifically) for fuel, which diminishes the need for food and dampens appetite.  If this is the case for you, try eating at least a little bit of protein within an hour of waking to rev your metabolic engine and encourage a healthy hormonal balance. Start with a protein shake or a mug of bone broth if you can’t eat solid food.  Regularly getting in at least some protein every morning will give your body the signal that it isn’t starving and your metabolism will slowly kick back into gear. When you feel that appetite start to come back, that’s a good thing! Remember that the enemy of healthy hormonal balance, metabolic function, and weight isn’t food, it’s stress. 

Many of the benefits attributed to skipping breakfast could actually be due to the fact that it keeps people from eating those high sugar, carbohydrate rich breakfast foods that consumers are buying like crazy. Instead of jumping right to intermittent fasting to try and manage blood sugar, start with a breakfast that’s rich in protein and healthy fats.  This will prevent the morning spike in blood sugar that leads to a roller coaster of highs a lows all day. If you aren’t big on eggs or sausage (from healthy pastured pigs raised at a local farm, of course), don’t limit yourself to breakfast food. Think of your first meal of the day as simply that; meal one. There’s no reason you can’t enjoy leftover steak and salad from last night’s dinner as your first meal of the day.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to nutrition is that not everything works the same for everyone. Rather than listening to what the latest article or study says is best, listen to your own body. Track your blood sugar. Be mindful of all the ways your body may be experiencing stress. If you have a healthy hormonal balance and no health complaints, then keep doing whatever you’re doing! If you don’t feel healthy and balanced, then take notice not of what you need to cut out, but of what you need to include more of in order to nurture healthier functioning.