Breakfast Like a King, Lunch Like a Breakfast, Dinner Like a Pauper

Everything you eat and drink in the morning has an impact on our activeness, alertness, and concentration throughout the day. The morning meal is regarded by dieticians as the most important one for your health and proper functioning of your body, which is why you should not be skipping it. Breakfast helps you maintain stable insulin levels an at the same time reduces the risk of diabetes and obesity. What's more, it provides you with energy for the day, which improves brain functioning and general well-being.

When should you eat breakfast?

When you eat breakfast matters. You should eat it within an hour of waking up because then, the level of glucose in your body is really low and you need to boost it by eating a balanced, wholesome meal. Also, in the morning your stomach secretes more gastric juice. If you tend not to have your breakfast, you put yourself at risk of inflammation, gastric mucosal damage, and stomach ulcers. Many people on a weight loss diet believe that if they skip breakfast, they will lose weight. They couldn't be more wrong! During lunch or dinner, your body will quickly make up for the calorie deficit related to not having had breakfast. People who do not eat breakfast tend to snack on unhealthy foods to dull hunger pangs. Consequently, instead of losing weight, they gain it! When you eat your breakfast, you ramp up your metabolism, which, in turn, supports healthy weight maintenance.

How many calories should your eat for breakfast?

Calorific value of breakfast is related to the frequency of eating per day. In the optimal nutrition model, it is recommended that you eat five meals a day including breakfast that should provide more or less ¼ of the body's daily calorie intake. With three meals a day, breakfast should satisfy about 30% of the daily calorie needs. It follows therefore that a person whose daily calorie intake is 2 000 kcal, may eat 500 kcal for breakfast. Whereas, for people with lower daily calorie needs (e.g. 1 500 kcal), the caloric value of breakfast should be about 375 kcal.

Why Lunch should be lighter?

Considering the daily working routine or regime, most of us will be consuming the lunch while at the office or at work or on the go. As discussed earlier, a heavy breakfast will already replenish our overnight low glucose level and also provide us with the much needed calories and nutrients. A luch should be considered as a mere top-up. We should eat only that much so that the stomach does not feel empty and we do not run low on the glucose and calorie levels. Too heavy breakfast can bog you down as after a heavy meal, most of our blood gets concentrated around the GI region and our limbs and extremities like the brain gets devoid of blood as therefore we tend to feel sleepy and tired post a heavy lunch which may not be a good idea during work.

Dinner should be the least

It is advocated to have a very light dinner for few very specific reasons. After dinner, we do not carry out much activities. Hence the body does not require much energy and calories. This is not the only reason. Eating too much before sleeping can cause Reflux Disorder which can lead to GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease).