Why Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day

I believe breakfast to be the most important meal of the day, especially when it comes to your hormone health.

Your body’s preferred source of energy is glucose. Sugar, from carbohydrates, breaksdown into glucose and efficiently fuels the majority of the cells in your body. If your cells aren’t able to utilise glucose efficiently, there’s usually an underlying reason due to metabolic damage that needs to be addressed, rather than glucose being the problem. 

 
 

The reason this is important to understand is because of your liver's role in fuelling your body overnight, when you’re fasting and no glucose or other sources of fuel such as minerals, vitamins, fatty acids and proteins, are coming into your body. 


Over the course of the day, as you eat your food, your body utilises all of the different nutrients for different body functions. Glucose is used for fuel, and excess glucose is stored in the liver and skeletal muscle as glycogen. 

Then, as you sleep, your body utilises your liver glycogen for fuel because you are in a fasted state. This is because sleep uses almost as much energy as when you are awake. Your body is busy repairing, restoring, recovering, and processing toxins. This all requires energy. 

A healthy liver can release glycogen for around 8 hours. This is dependent on overall health and lifestyle, and whether there are any factors depleting your liver stores such as stress, nutrient deficiencies, hormone imbalances, and even medications. 

 
 

When your liver glycogen stores run low, your body starts to call in stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, to make fuel. Cortisol and adrenaline breakdown your body tissue, tissue from your muscles, your organs and your fat, to make glucose which then fuels your body.


This is your body fuelling from stress. If you wake up with no appetite in the morning, and don’t feel hungry until a few hours after rising, there is a high chance your body has been fuelling from stress hormones since the early hours. 


Furthermore, if you’re someone that wakes up during the night to go to the toilet, or toss and turn, and maybe you even struggle to get back to sleep, then this is a sign that your body has raised that stress response. This is because cortisol is not just a stress hormone, it is also responsible for waking us up in the mornings. 


Let’s do a quick health assessment to get an insight into whether your daily routine is supporting your health. The more you tick, the more likely it is that your daily habits are not serving you:


Health Assessment:

  • Waking up groggy

  • No morning appetite

  • Energy dips 

  • Exhaustion

  • Regular mood swings

  • Heightened emotions

  • Sleep disturbances

  • Headaches

  • Bloating

  • Digestive upsets

  • Irregular period

  • Low libido

  • PMS and PMDD

  • Water retention

  • Cold extremities

  • Weight fluctuations

  • Skin issues 


Has this given you some insight into how well your routine is serving you? 

It all comes down to blood sugar regulation. Daily habits such as food choices, eating schedule, work environment, home life and relationships, movement, and sleep all have a dramatic impact on blood sugar regulation. 


Eating a breakfast focused on protein, quality carbs and healthy fats within 30 minutes of waking can help mitigate your body’s reliability on stress hormones in the morning, which can help regulate your appetite, mood, digestion, and energy throughout the day. 


Over a few weeks I find that sleep quality improves, morning appetite returns, and emotions are more stable. 


After a few months, PMS and PMDD symptoms improve, regular periods return, libido is heightened and skin issues can clear. 


This all comes down to consistency. 


Introducing breakfast on waking is just the starting point, but it’s a fundamental tool that creates space for new habits to form as it reduces our reliance on stress hormones. 


See my article on Looking After Your Hormone On A Hectic Schedule for specific foods to eat to support your blood sugar and reduce your stress hormones. 


Even if you start with a small snack within 30 minutes of waking, like a boiled egg and carrot sticks or some yogurt and fruit, and overtime increase your portion to a main meal within an hour of waking. 

Abby Foreman