Why Skipping Breakfast Sabotages Your Health | Dr. Mark Hyman

Now, low calorie breakfasts also increase cravings for carbs and sugar throughout the day, which is not what you want to be doing. Why? Well, it has to do with our circadian rhythms, which primes our body to be more efficient at digesting, absorbing and metabolizing food early in the day because we haven't eaten all night. So we're just ready to go. We need to get food to fuel the tank for the day. It's like putting gas in the beginning of a car trip rather than at the end of the trip. Right. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy and another edition of Health Bites. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. You've probably heard the old adage that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But what does that really mean? Is there truth to it, or is it more about the specific nutrition you need to kickstart your day? Well, maybe you've heard about time restricted eating or intermittent fasting where you skip breakfast altogether. Is that better than eating breakfast? In this episode, I'm gonna answer your burning questions about breakfast. Should you eat it or should you skip it? What's the ideal time to break your overnight fast? And most importantly, when do you break your fast? And most importantly, when you do break your fast, how can you fuel your body to ensure the best possible start to your day? We're gonna explore what the latest research says about the best and the worst foods to start your day with, I'm going to provide simple actionable tips to help you incorporate these insights in your daily routine. And we're going to also discuss the role of breakfast in maintaining a healthy weight, in preventing belly fat accumulation, that and lowering your risk of chronic disease. Now, if you've ever wondered about the true impact of breakfast on your health, you're in the right place. So stay tuned as we set the record straight on the breakfast debate and empower you with the knowledge to make informed decisions around your health. Let's dive in and uncover the truth about the nutrition you need to start your day right. I'm going to cut right to the chase. Yes, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast is the first chance you get to fuel your body, to energize your brain, and to get your protein in for the day. Yep, protein, not what we typically eat for breakfast in America, which is sugar or dessert for breakfast. But contrary to what you may have been told about breakfast, it doesn't have to happen right when you first wake up. You can wait a bit to prolong your overnight fast, which should be about 12 to 14 hours, and hence the term break fast or breakfast. In fact, I don't eat breakfast until usually two or three hours after I wake up, after I do my morning meditation and get my workout in for the day. So, if my last meal the previous day was 7:00, I wouldn't break my fast until the next mid-morning around 9:00 or 10:00 the next day. So, it's less about when you break the fast and more about what you eat for breakfast. But you can eat breakfast too late, right? And then it's called lunch. But you do want to make sure you're eating something mid-morning to early afternoon, 11 to 1 at the latest, especially if you're sleep late, you can have a longer fast. But most people shouldn't do more than a 12 to 14 hour fast overnight long term, maybe 16 hours if you're really going for it. But it depends on you. And we've done podcasts on intermittent fasting, so we'll link to those in the show notes. The research shows that skipping breakfast is a bad idea. Skipping breakfast, according to the research, is associated with increased risk of lots of things like type 2 diabetes, obesity, and weight gain. In fact, in a systematic review and a meta-analysis of 45 observational studies, researchers reported a 31% higher risk of excess belly fat by not eating breakfast, a 48% greater risk of being overweight, and a 44% greater risk of becoming obese over time in those who are breakfast skippers. That's pretty significant. So what could be causing the increased risk for metabolic disorders? Well, there's a good chance this could be due to increased late-night eating, right? When we skip meals, we miss out on eating good stuff that's satiating like protein, healthy fats and fiber. If we're not getting this in, we're more likely to feel hungry at night and our ability to make healthy choices also isn't so great late at night when our defenses are down. We're more likely to reach for a sleeve of Oreos or a bag of chips than an apple. Another study found a causal link between skipping breakfast and increased risk for ADHD, which is a big problem. also an increased risk for major depressive disorder and reduced cognitive performance and increased frailty. So that's a lot of things that happen when you skip breakfast. You don't want that. Now, why would that happen? Well, what you eat for breakfast sets the tone for the rest of the day. It's really an opportunity to get in the essential nutrients you need to help you better reach your daily protein goals, which most people probably aren't, to balance your hormones, your blood sugar, your mood, your energy, your focus, cognition, all that depends on your breakfast. Now, have you ever heard the saying eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper? Well, research shows that there's actually truth behind this and that it's better to skip dinner than breakfast. So have a bigger breakfast, a lighter dinner. An interesting study showed that men who initially consumed low calorie breakfast and a high calorie dinner experienced a significant boost in diet induced thermogenesis when they switched to eating the same high calorie dinner for breakfast. In other words, if you eat a low calorie breakfast versus a high calorie dinner, the high calorie dinner is going to actually stimulate your metabolism. So if you had a low calorie breakfast or not breakfast at all, you're going to have a slower metabolism, which isn't good. Specifically, their diet induced thermogenesis, which means the heat and the calories that are burned just by the process of metabolizing your food was two and a half times higher when the high calorie meal was consumed in the morning compared to the evening. So you basically burnt two and a half times more energy when you had breakfast compared to eating the same meal at dinner. Now, low calorie breakfast also increased cravings for carbs and sugar throughout the day, which is not what you want to be doing. And it means that diet-induced thermogenesis is higher in the morning than the evening. Why? Well, it has to do with our circadian rhythms, which primes our body to be more efficient at digesting, absorbing, and metabolizing food early in the day because we haven't eaten all night, so we're just ready to go. We need to get food. to fuel the tank for the day. It's like putting gas in the beginning of a car trip rather than at the end of the trip, right? Your insulin sensitivity is higher, your melatonin also reduces insulin release, you know, these spikes of insulin which cause belly fat. And it could be really a good strategy for weight loss when you eat the majority of your calories earlier in the day. What should you eat for breakfast to get the best start to the day? Protein, protein, protein, protein. Let me say it again, protein. And you can add fat in there too. But protein and fat are basically the foods you should be eating for breakfast. Why? Well, high protein breakfast leads to making you feel full. It controls your appetite. It makes overeating less likely at your next meal. It helps balance your blood sugar. It keeps your insulin levels low. It cuts your cravings and it reduces snacking. And there is something magical called the thermogenic effect of protein, which means you actually burn more calories when you consume protein. So about 30% of the calories get use it actually just metabolizing the protein. Now, one study compared the effects of savory breakfast eggs, cheese and sausage with 30 or 39 grams of protein that's matched for fat, for fiber versus a low protein sweet breakfast of Eggo mini pancakes with three grams of protein, with pancake syrup and butter or no breakfast in 34 healthy women aged 18 to 55. Now, what did that study show? Well, it showed an increased port of satiety or feeling full for the protein versus the low protein and the no breakfast. I mean, obviously protein, you're not going to feel hungry. Post meal glucose and insulin levels were significantly lower in the savory breakfast group than in sweet breakfast. Also makes sense. You don't have sugar for breakfast, you're not going to spike your sugar and insulin, right? Insulin levels in the low protein group, the pancake group, peaked after 30 minutes of eating, followed by a sharp decline 30 to 90 minutes after eating. And that's going to cause this roller coaster of blood sugar and insulin. then your energy intake at lunch, people who studied how much they ate at lunch, was significantly less in the highest protein group. So the more protein you eat for breakfast, the less likely you are to overeat at lunch or to eat too much. Now, the total energy intake for the day, for the whole day, if you ate protein for breakfast, was the lowest in the high protein group and the highest in the low protein group. In other words, you have low protein for breakfast, you're gonna eat more food throughout the day and more calories. and gain weight. And if you eat high protein for breakfast, you're gonna feel full and not eat over overeat calories during the day and you're gonna be good. And this really suggests that high sugar breakfasts are just gonna make you increase your total calorie intake through the day. And that's why eating protein for breakfast versus grains has been shown to help with weight loss. So it's really, really important. I think people don't understand that the protein is such a key factor in helping with metabolism and weight. And you cannot control your calories by counting them. You, if you're off 100 calories a day, it's like a 14 pound weight gain in a year. So nobody can measure exactly to 100 calories. So your body naturally regulates all of its metabolic functions through hormones and our transmitters, your microbiome and lots of factors that are regulated by the quality and the type of calories you eat. So when you eat protein for breakfast, it has a very different set of messages to your body than if you eat sugar for breakfast. And that's why you don't overeat and you will eat less calories. There was a study in, in, In China, it was 156 obese Chinese adolescents. It was a randomized controlled trial. They were told to eat either breakfast of eggs or steamed bread for three months. Now, energy intake was significantly less for lunch in the egg breakfast group, meaning they ate less food at lunch. So this was correlated with weight loss and lower levels of the hunger hormones and higher levels of the feel full hormones. after three hours. So basically your hormones are set by what you're eating and when you eat the right foods, you naturally regulate your hormones, particularly hormones that regulate appetite or peptides like PYY and ghrelin and all these other important regulatory factors for your appetite, which are built in and they're hard to control with willpower. When they looked at what happened, they also saw they had dramatically higher weight loss in the egg breakfast than in the steamed bread breakfast, about 3.9% versus about two point 2%. That's like a, you know, I don't know, 20 fold difference. That's huge, right? The PYY, which is the appetite suppressing hormone, increased by 66% in those who ate eggs versus just 18% in the bread group. Now GLP-1, which is, you know, Zempick, which is your body naturally makes it, those levels were lower and more stable in those who ate eggs, whereas in the bread group, the GLP-1 level surged and then dropped. So you got these spikes and then dropped, so you're gonna be hungry. So front loading your day with protein really helps you better reach your protein goals and It sets you up for optimizing your metabolism. It makes you eat less during the day. It supplies your body with great amino acids for making hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters for muscle. It helps with muscle protein synthesis, which is really key. And I think I'm just gonna sort of point this out. When you eat breakfast, it's the most important meal because you're eating on a fasted state. And, you know, fasting is good. Overnight fast is great, but it's key what you eat when you refeed. And the refeeding with protein. has unique properties that increases stem cells, activates all these longevity pathways, and is an incredible way to build muscle. So make sure you have protein for breakfast. I think you probably got the point by now. Now, protein also has a lot of other stuff. It has essential amino acids and micronutrients. It helps your hormones, metabolism. And so how much protein should you eat? Well, I would have 30 to 40 grams of protein for breakfast, and then you probably need another 30, 40 grams in each meal. Now, that's a palm size portion. So have a savory breakfast instead of a sweet one. Have eggs, have Greek yogurt with nuts and fat in there. Not low fat, that's worse. Cottage cheese, but don't have the weird ones with gums. Make a tofu scramble with veggies, tempeh, I love tempeh, or protein shake, that's my go to. It's easy, it's quick, delicious, I use goat whey. You can have dinner leftovers for breakfast, some people will do that. There's no rule that says you can't have chicken or steak for breakfast. Some people do, some people don't, some people have steak and eggs, right? So what else do you need to eat for breakfast? well, healthy fats, they're really important because they help you promote satiety or feeling full, they slow your digestion, they increase a couple of peptides, digestive molecules and hormones and regulatory molecules that actually regulate your appetite like CCK and peptide YY or PYY, it balances your blood sugar and it fuels your brain and it doesn't spike insulin. So what could you eat? Well, half an avocado with your four eggs or two eggs, with the yolks, no yolk free eggs please. Make sure you have pasture raised eggs if you can. Cook them in olive oil. You can just cook at a lower temperature, an extra virgin olive oil, otherwise it gets oxidized if you cook too high temperature. Lots of other fats are great for breakfast, almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, pecans, seeds like pumpkin chia flax seeds, you can throw those in your smoothies too. Nut butters, you can have coconut oil, lots of fiber, really important. You can have frozen berries or high in fiber, for example, I put that in my smoothie. When you do that, that fiber also helps, right? Fiber helps to support you feeling full. Why? Because it actually increases GLP-1, right? Increases the very hormone that is the hormone that we think of as ozempic or it's a peptide hormone. We call it so is insulin, by the way. It's a peptide hormone. And this supports you in terms of digestion, stabilizing your blood sugar and helps your gut be healthy. Now, what could you eat? Well, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, kiwi, citrus fruit, grapefruit, oranges, chia seeds, flax seeds, spinach, leafy greens, kale, bell peppers. Also, you could put a lot of veggies in an omelette. An omelette's great for breakfast. Why? Because it has protein, it has healthy fats. When you throw veggies in there, you got the fiber. It's a triple header. What are examples of breakfast? Well, you can have omega-3 eggs or pasture-raised eggs sauteed with dark leafy greens and berries on the side. And now one egg has only six to seven grams of protein, so you need at least three to four eggs to reach your morning protein goal. You can also try two eggs and egg whites if you're worried about the saturated fat, but you really don't need to be if the rest of your diet is dialed in and you're not eating ultra processed food. Now, if you think eggs are boring, you can try the breakfast scramble, which is two or three eggs, pastured chicken or turkey sausage, spinach, tomatoes, feta goat cheese. You know, one of my favorite thing is make a frittata. I basically take all the leftover veggies in the fridge, onions, garlic, olive oil, stir fry them up, took out all the extra veggies, put them in there. Then I pour the eggs on, about six, seven eggs, and then I salt and pepper it. Maybe at the end, I'll throw a little bit of goat cheese on there, and I bake it in the oven. oven and it comes out fluffy and nice and amazing delicious. You can create mini egg bites, you know, basically take a whatever you put in a quiche and cut it up, cook it and then put in a muffin tin and put the eggs on it and it's like a little muffin egg, egg muffin, but without the mick. You can make them a Sunday, you can, you know, it's great to have in your fridge. It's great for meal prep. You can eat throughout the week. Also, tofu scrambles are yummy. I love those. You can chop some extra firm tofu, cook it in extra virgin olive with turmeric, greens, cherry tomatoes, makes look like actually scrambled eggs with the yellow from the turmeric plus it's super anti-inflammatory. Now, if you're on the go and you're busy, you can make chia seed pudding at night. You just put some chia seeds in a cup or bowl, pour some almond milk on it, and you can throw some berries, nuts in there, and it'll basically prepare itself overnight. It's low glycemic, it's high in protein, and you can make also a smoothie, but a high protein low glycemic smoothie. I use the frozen berries. I use unsweetened nut milk like macadamia milk. I do protein powder like goat whey, basically probably 30, 40 grams at least. Sometimes I do 50 if I'm working out. You can throw in some chia seeds or flax seeds. You know, you can, that's a great smoothie. You can also have hard-boiled eggs are easy to do. You can have, you can also have hard-boiled eggs and you can have them with sliced apples or berries, a handful of almonds, really simple, easy, portable, not, not something you have to worry about preparing. You can make it the night before. if you really wanna go for it, you can have last night's dinner for breakfast. So you can put whatever you had for dinner for breakfast, if it's protein and veggies. You can make a yogurt parfait bowl. I like sheep coconut or goat yogurt, unsweetened Greek yogurt that's plain, hopefully grass-fed. Put in berries, almonds, pecans, little drizzle of honey, that's fine. Or you can try plain unsweetened goat kefir. So there's a lot of options out there, right? if you need breakfast inspiration, I would check out my recipes that are featured weekly in my newsletter, Mark's Kitchen. So my favorite go-to recipes are kimchi wild rice breakfast bowl, cabbage pancakes with poached eggs, my 15 minute turmeric fried eggs, everything but the bagel egg bites, something sweet might be okay that doesn't spike your blood sugar like a high protein chocolate muffin. I have a recipe for that. Check out my brand new young forever cookbook. I'm going to link to it in the show notes for tons of inspiration and recipes. they'll be sure to make your mouth water. They certainly do mine. So thanks for joining me for another episode. I hope you now feel more equipped to plan your first meal of the day, whether it's at 8:00 AM or 11:00 AM, whatever works best for you. Starting your day with a high quality nutrition rich in protein, healthy fats and fiber is going to set you up for success. It's going to give you lots of energy. It's going to improve your focus. It'll help you lose weight, and it's just better for your overall health. Now remember, the choices you make for your first meal are going to have a profound impact on how you feel throughout the day. So by prioritizing nutrient dense foods, you're not only fueling your body, but you're also supporting your long term well being. So stay tuned for future episodes where we're going to continue to explore more ways to optimize your health and tackle various aspects of wellness. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to share it with your friends and family who might benefit with this information. Until next time, stay healthy, stay informed, keep making choices and support your best self. Take care and I'll see you in the next episode. If you loved that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here.