I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Yet so many people skip breakfast. Some say they cannot eat anything so early in the day, some say they are simply not hungry. Others simply do not make the time. But especially for us who are trying to lose weight, having breakfast is super important.

Some people skip breakfast in an effort to lose weight, but the practice is more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss. Skipping breakfast is strongly linked to the development of obesity. Studies show that overweight and obese children, adolescents, and adults are less likely to break the fast each morning than their thinner counterparts.

According to research, skipping meals, especially breakfast, can actually make weight control more difficult. Breakfast skippers tend to eat more food than usual at the next meal or nibble on high-calorie snacks to stave off hunger. Several studies suggest that people tend to accumulate more body fat when they eat fewer, larger meals than when they eat the same number of calories in smaller, more frequent meals. (Source)

Me? I always have breakfast. Sometimes it morphs into lunch when I sleep in on the weekend but I always eat within a couple of hours after getting up. I am always hungry in the morning, and not eating breakfast actually makes me nauseous.

When I started working at my current job in January, for the first six months I hardly ever ate breakfast at home. I have to be at the office at 8am and eating breakfast at home meant getting up even earlier than I already had to get up anyway. I simply preferred an extra 20 minutes of sleep to eating at home. I would usually stop at the bakery on my way to work and buy something for breakfast. This was almost always be a bread roll with ham or pepperoni or a pretzel with butter, and often I also got a danish as well. Not only was this breakfast very rich in calories and carbs, it was also very low in anything else.

Ever since I started my healthier lifestyle last month, I have been having breakfast at home almost every single day. When I don’t, I simply take the ingredients for my breakfast with me to work and make it there. I haven’t had anything from the bakery for breakfast in weeks and not only does this save me money, it is much healthier too.

I have been eating pretty much the same thing every day. Oatmeal. I love oatmeal, especially the way I make it. It is tasty, healthy and not too high in calories. I do usually still get hungry again between 10 and 11am, but in my experience, that happens regardless of what I eat. I simply try to have a healthy snack with me every day (some yogurt and/or fruit or a cereal bar) which will tide me over until my lunch break at 12pm.

Oatmeal à la Karen

• 60g rolled oats
• 120ml of water
• 1 small banana
• 10g of peanut butter
• cinnamon

Add your oats and the water into a small bowl. If you want to use less or more oats, use a 1:2 oats-water ratio. Microwave for 30-60 seconds. Meanwhile use a fork to mash the banana. When the oats are done, add the mashed banana and mix thoroughly. Add a heaping teaspoon (10g) of peanut butter and liberally sprinkle cinnamon over your oatmeal.

I love the flavor of the banana and peanut butter combined with cinnamon. Seriously to die for. And the banana adds plenty of sweetness to the oatmeal so you don’t have to add sugar at all. With 100g of banana this breakfast is about 360 calories.

What do you like to eat for breakfast?