Monday to Friday has snooze buttons across the city being given their daily workout as office dwellers try in vein to put off the inevitable crawl out of bed & rush into work. Snooze three, four (five!?) times, stumble out of bed, realisation of increasingly short period of time to make transformation from bed hair to corporate glam, end up running out of apartment with dodgy makeup and still half asleep. Sound familiar? There are not a lot of people who will readily raise their hands and admit to being a morning person (especially not before they’ve hooked themselves up to their Starbucks IV), most of us fall into the ‘i’m-just-not-a-morning-person’ category.

While there are not a lot of things that will help that initial struggle that is crawling out from under the warmth of your doona, there are some ways to have a more positive and production once you have woken up. Including breakfast in your morning routine is one way.

Creating any sort of change is about knowing what you want to achieve and creating a plan to succeed in achieving your best personal outcome. If you don’t make time for breakfast as part of your daily routine, identify the reasons for this. What are your excuses? Combat your excuses with proactive choice & a workable plan going forward.

I’m just not hungry in the morning. Ok sure, so you’re probably not really ravished and craving a steak when your first open your eyes but your body does need some sustenance. You find yourself snacking mid morning, right? Beat the snack by giving your body what it wants before you hear tummy rumbles - start small: a pot of yogurt, handful of muesli or a piece of fruit.

I don’t have time. Make time. It only takes 10 – 15 minutes to prepare and eat a bowl of cereal or some toast. You don’t need to prepare a cooked breakfast each day (and your best not to!). Whether you commit to hitting snooze only once (instead of twice!) and getting up a little earlier, or taking a piece of fruit to eat while you commute or keeping a stash of breakfast food in your desk at work.

I’m trying to lose weight, I don’t need to add another meal to my day. Losing and maintaining weight is about calorie consumption (energy in vs energy out), not necessarily how many meals you have. You should adjust your daily eating plan to include breakfast. Whether you make the allowance through decreasing the portion size of another meal or through minimising snacking throughout the day. Eating breakfast will give your body increased energy and therefore cut down on your need to snack.

Making the move
Any decision you make to create a change in your daily habits requires some amount of planning in order to have a smooth transition and adding breakfast to your diet is no exception. Here are some very simple ways for you to become a breakfast person:

Identify your reason for not being a breakfast person & work out how you can combat this.

Add breakfast foods to your shopping list and keep a stash of quick & nutritious breakfast foods in your house or if you prefer, work.

Keep it interesting: breakfast doesn’t have to be boring. Like any other meal you can mix things up and cater to your liking. If you have a sweet tooth, add some strawberries to your cereal or a small spoonful of honey to your porridge? Savouries more your thing? Try a small portion of baked beans on toasted brown bread.

What’s in it for me?
To put in simply: It’s good for you. It has been proven that people who eat breakfast and thus get a lot of their calorie intake at breakfast time tend to have a lower BMI and gain less weight than those who don’t eat breakfast, preferring to eat more later in the day.

Food is your bodies fuel so it makes perfect sense to up the intake earlier in the day – you wouldn’t go for an 8 hour drive without first putting petrol in your car so why start an eight hour work day with your body running on empty? Traditionally, most of us enjoy our largest meal at the end of the day, so it can be difficult to retrain your mind & body in this respect. Small steps will get your diet to where you need to be and you’ll discover what portion sizes work best for your body. For example, it would be quite difficult to go from nothing in the morning and a big meal at night to a huge breakfast and small dinner. Try introducing a small breakfast and gradually decreasing your calorie and nutrient intake at dinner time to maintain balance.

So start your day right, 15 minutes additional sleep may feel good at the time but in the long run the time is best spent loading your body with the nutrients it requires for the day. Your body needs fuel and energy to get you through the day and while that caffeine burst you get from your coffee will get you through the morning, it’s not lasting energy. That’s not to say you shouldn’t enjoy your daily latte, but it should be in addition to breakfast, not as a replacement. Make the choice & start tomorrow, one day at a time, towards a healthier body!