For many, breakfast implies an early morning meal. If you don’t eat your first meal until closer to noon, you’ll likely call it lunch. But in actuality, breakfast means “to break the fasting period of the prior night.” By definition, breakfast is the first meal you eat after your longest rest and whether that meal is at 6 am or 2 pm doesn’t matter.
Reprogram Your Breakfast Mindset
You’ve likely heard loved ones, teachers, commercials, and countless other sources preach the importance of starting each day with a healthy breakfast. From an early age, you learn that breakfast happens in the morning, and the reason it’s crucial that breakfast be founded on nutrition is said to be something similar to the following:
- Start your metabolism
- Maintain a healthy blood sugar level
- Feed your muscles with protein
- Take control of your gut health with supplements like GreenBAC
- Fend off weight gain
- Fuel your brain
The above bullets make valid points, so it’s no surprise that a small business blog took the time to list some of the “Best Breakfast Slogans” and that the first ten listed center on nutrition:
- A healthy breakfast
- Only with nutrition
- The goodness of nutrients
- Breakfast made better
- A healthy start to the day
- Eat better
- Stay fit
- Feel fit and energetic
- Ditch the junk
- For a stronger body
Those slogans make it clear that breakfast is best when it’s intentionally focused on health. The issue is not a lack of communication on the importance of a nutritionally-based breakfast; the issue is that breakfast is often considered only a morning meal. Why is thinking of breakfast exclusively as a morning meal a problem, you ask? If you’re programmed to believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that programming also insists that breakfast only occurs in the morning, you may subconsciously permit yourself to throw starting your body on a healthy foot out the door if your first meal post-sleep happens after the morning hours.
Your Mind, Body, & Gut Crave a Nutritious Awakening
Shift your thinking away from breakfast as the morning meal and to the true definition of breakfast as whatever meal comes after your longest fasting period (i.e., sleep). When this shift occurs, you realize that starting your day with a balanced and nutritionally-purposeful meal is important, regardless of where the sun sits in the sky when you eat that first post-sleep meal.
Your mind, body, and gut depend on you to keep them as healthy as possible. The first food and drink you put in your mouth after sleep sets the tone for your body and your day. You’re the boss of your body, so take charge and decide that you’ll be less concerned about the timeframe of your first meal and more concerned about whether or not the first things you consume each day are setting your body and mind up for success.
Author: Evelyn Lindell
Certified Health & Wellness Coach