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The ultimate breakfast may cause you to lose weight

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February 8, 2010
	Dr. Gary Huber : Head Medical Ego

Is your New Year’s resolution list intact or have you already chucked it? January quickly retreated into February so how’s that weight loss resolution going? I wish to impart a very simple idea to you that will reap huge rewards. Eat a high protein breakfast every day. There you go, thanks for tuning in. See you in March.

I told you it was simple. 

Oh, you want to know the “WHY”? Well aren’t you the inquisitive one? A high protein breakfast holds the promise of weight loss, the reduction of bodily inflammation, the improvement of lean body mass, and the reduction of cravings and mid morning energy drop. The WHY does involve a smidge of physiology so let’s get to it. 

A Demanding Brain
As you sleep you are using food in the gut to fuel brain function but after 3 or 4 hours of sleep the food runs out. The body begins to breakdown your hard earned muscle to turn it into sugar through a process called gluconeogenesis. It needs this sugar to continue to feed the brain because the brain is, pound for pound, the most active tissue in all of the body. 

The brain only represents 2% of the body’s weight yet receives 20% of the heart blood flow. It needs more oxygen and more calories than any other tissue. In your zest to feed this monster brain you lose muscle and as you awaken the process continues. If you skip breakfast, one of your first and worst decisions of the day, then you will continue to lose muscle all morning long until such time that you actually eat something and “break the fast.” It is only then that muscle breakdown stops. 

A Roadmap to Weight Gain
One of the best ways to GAIN weight is to skip breakfast, lose muscle, get ravenously hungry, and eventually attack anything edible. Your meal selections will tend to spiral downward as hunger rises. This poor choice will often be of a high carbohydrate variety, which will spike your blood sugar and begin the trail towards insulin resistance. After that high carb food spike begins to drop you will feel the inevitable 3pm slump and rescue yourself with either a cookie or a Starbucks or both. Sound familiar to anyone? 

The other road often traveled involves getting up to a bowl of cereal, toast, toaster pastry, bagel or other high glycemic sugar loaded entrée. This is better than eating nothing, but not by much. Now you have given your body a big sugar load that gets you up and running but after an hour or two will lead to the inevitable mid morning crash. The sugar spikes and then falls like a stone. The insulin that is stimulated by this sugar spike tells your body to “stop buring fat.” Well that’s a signal no one wants to hear.  So what is a smarter option? Glad you asked.

Protein to the Rescue
A high protein breakfast offers a remedy on every level.  It will halt muscle breakdown as fresh calories enter the gut. It will provide amino acids for the rebuilding of muscle tissue, which is important for keeping our bodies lean.

Protein is thermogenic, meaning that the very act of digesting and assimilating this protein breakfast causes you to burn calories. In fact about 25 to 30% of the calories you just ate will be needed to digest that protein. 

Protein is a low glycemic food which does not cause a spike in insulin. No insulin signal to halt your ability to burn fat. Yeah! Being a low glycemic (low sugar) food, in fact a no sugar food, it will take a long time to digest and therefore provide you with calories over a longer more gradual delivery time frame. Translation: no crash. 

If you aren’t scoring this at home, those are all +’s , meaning there is no downside. And even if you wanted to add some carb to that breakfast, which I do recommend, then the glycemic load of that carb would be reduced by the presence of protein. 

This stuff is so simple and so basic to good health. 

When you cease to spike the insulin in the morning by avoiding the high carb foods, you greatly reduce your chances for becoming diabetic. News flash – type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing problems in this country right along with obesity and cancer. 

News flash #2 – diabetes, obesity and cancer are all related. They are all spokes in the same wheel. If you are obese then your risk for cancer goes up more than 60% and it is nearly impossible to get obese without some degree of insulin resistance or pre-diabetes. 

Insulin’s First Strike
Ever heard of an insulin set point? Sorry, Serena and Venus won’t be able to help you with this set point. 

When you first awaken in the morning your insulin is fairly low but your first meal of the day determines what your insulin output will be for the rest of the day. Yes it will rise and fall with the food choices you make but if that first meal is high carb or sugary (news flash #3, bagels and cereal are sugary) then your total insulin output for the day will run on the high side. The higher your insulin, the less fat you will burn that day. 

Read this again and let it sink in deep.

Tomorrow we will hit on what a good breakfast looks like. What food choices offer the best protein and how much if any carb should you eat. For now, just make sure you are eating breakfast and try to get some protein with it.

Time to tell Tony, Count Chocula, Tucan Sam, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop to hit the road.

Related:
The ultimate breakfast – notes from the kitchen

This post is proudly submitted for the Weight Loss & Healthy Diet category of our 12 Weeks of Wellness