I. Attention Step/ Introduction
A. How many of you eat breakfast everything morning without fail? According to the USDA, courtesy of statisticbrain.com, “ 44% of Americans eat breakfast. 21% of those consist of fast food meals” (par.1).
B. Breakfast is commonly referred to as the most important meal of the day. Yet more than half of our nations population does not include this meal in their daily routine. Half of those who do fail to include healthy substantial ingredients. You would be surprised at the changes your body will experience from eating a good hearty breakfast.
C. Many of us despise eating anything in the morning. Myself included. However, I can personally attest to the beneficial effects of breakfast seeing as how I’ve been doing this for close to 6 years now.
D. Today, I’m going to cover why we all need to include breakfast into our daily meal routine, how to include it/ some good healthy choices to incorporate, and the possible outcomes/effects of not eating breakfast regularly.
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II. Need
A. So what we all need to do is eat something in the morning.
B. According to a study from the Harvard School of Public Health, “[those] who regularly skipped breafast had a 27 % higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease” (par.1).
C. In the Harvard School of Public Health article, “Skipping Breakfast May Increase Coronary Heart Disease Risk”, Leah Cahill, postdoctoral research fellow in HSPH’s Department of Nutrition, informs us that, “Skipping breakfast may lead to one or more risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, which may in turn lead to a heart attack over time” (par. 4).
D. The earlier we start to eat health-conscience foods as part of a balanced breakfast, the more likely we are to be rewarded with longer, healthier lives. Its a simple habit to engrain in our routines now, while most of us are still relatively young, that will benefit us exponentially in our future years.
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III. Satisfaction Step
A. So the solution is pretty simple. Eat a good, wholesome, healthy breakfast every morning without fail.
B. Some things to consider when going about a breakfast routine are:
1. eat within 60 minutes of waking up.
2. even if you wait a while to eat breakfast, you’re still doing your body a favor.
3. include foods like raspberries, oatmeal, yogurt, peanut butter, eggs, bananas, whole wheat breads, honey, low fat milk.
4. if you’re goal is to gain more mass, include more carbs. Vice versa, if your goal is to lose weight, then eat less carbs.
5. include both protein and carbs in your breakfast of choice. also consider some fresh fruits or berries.
C. In a study presented at the 2007 Experimental Biology meeting, researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center compared weight loss in women who ate either two eggs or a bagel for breakfast. The two breakfast meals were identical in calories and volume."Compared to the bagel eaters, overweight women who ate two eggs for breakfast five times a week for eight weeks as part of a low-fat, reduced-calorie diet, lost 65% more weight, reduced waist circumference by 83%, reported higher energy levels, and had no significant difference in their … blood cholesterol or triglyceride levels," reports researcher Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, PhD (par. 11).
D. My personal experience with eating a healthy breakfast religiously has been very enjoyable. Aside from forcing myself to eat in the mornings (which does get easier over time), my dietary changes as a whole have been extremely effective. I have maintained a 30-31 inch waist size for some time now, my stomach/abdominals have leaned out substantially, and I definitely feel much more energetic through out the entire day.
E. Now, I know that many people would still choose to argue the opposite of everything that I’ve discussed. Aside from all the facts and evidence of the contrary, the only thing I have to say in response to those opponents would be: There are plenty of reasons to opt out of breakfast every morning. To avoid even so much as a glance at your kitchen. But there is no evidence that eating a healthy breakfast will cause any adverse effect. So what is there to lose?
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IV. Visualization Step
A. So let us visualize for a moment. Picture yourself eating a good, healthy, balanced breakfast every morning. Imagine the foods you would like to incorporate. Now fast forward to 6 months from now and visualize yourself with a slimmer waist, a slimmer midsection, higher energy levels, and an overall heightened level of health. What do you think? How do you feel?
B. Now imagine yourself skipping breakfast every morning, essentially starving yourself for anywhere between 15-20 hours straight, and engorging yourself with fatty, unhealthy foods come lunch and dinner time. Think of the foods you would eat. Now fast forward again to 6 months from now and picture what you might look like. Which image do you prefer of yourself?
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V. Action Step
A. So let’s recap for a minute on what we discussed. We covered:
1. Why it is important to eat breakfast
2. How to incorporate healthy foods into a well balanced morning meal
3. And lastly, some of the effects that may come to pass as a result of skipping the most important meal of the day.
B. Your challenge, individually, is to start eating a healthy breakfast starting tomorrow morning. Regardless of whether you think it is beneficial or not. You may think is unfeasible. Takes too much time that you don’t have, etc. Ditch the excuses, because everyone has one and just try it out.
C. I eat breakfast every morning, regardless of how I feel. And its something I will continue to do indefinitely.
D. And if you find yourself still having doubts or skeptical thoughts of any kind, then I want you to ponder this quote and apply it to starting a breakfast routine. From his article entitled “ Why Bother?” health and food author Michael Pollan claims that, “Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will” (par. 18).
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