85: How Breakfast Effects Weight Loss

0:00 Because I'm really bad sometimes I don't eat breakfast. And I know they say it's the most important meal of the day. And I guess for a long time, I kind of thought, Oh, that's, you know, the cereal companies and people are probably pushing that. Is there really anything to that? If you want to lose weight, though, what we've come to find out is that you're listening to the smarter Healthy Living podcast where we firmly believe that getting healthy should never feel like torture, where your host, Jarrod and Anita Roussel were college sweethearts, and health professionals who help you redefine what getting healthy looks like using a whole food plant based lifestyle. It's time to hear from the experts and learn the best tips and tricks that helped others get beyond the overwhelm, to create a vibrant life they love. If you're sick and tired of being sick, and tired, you're in the right place. So pull up a virtual chair, grab your matcha latte, and let's get started.

0:54 Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? You know what that question could really raise some hairs because people have opinions about breakfast. I mean, we really do. Have your friend notice that like people have opinions saying sorry, I'm just laughing because people have opinions about everything. But we do too. So I'm not pointing any fingers. They do too. It seems like there are heightened opinions about breakfast. What you ate for breakfast, which by the way, what do you eat for breakfast. most mornings, I have my favorite oatmeal. And but it's not a cooked oatmeal. It's raw and I put cacau below Moringa powder, put some matcha that's something I started about a month or so ago to get the the goodness because I wasn't getting my matcha lattes everyday like you do. And so then I do that, and then put some water in it and then you just kind of mash it and it makes its own almost like an oat milk for the oatmeal. Milk for the meal.

1:50 That's exactly what you're doing. You're taking it you're mashing it in the bowl, just with the back of a spear or the back of a fork and you mash the water into it and it creates oat milk right in your bowl. If you're buying oat milk for your oatmeal. Don't do that. save yourself some money. save yourself some. Yeah, it's just it tastes so much better too. But the PhD resist dose is the blueberries. Blueberries now will because of the cow being pretty bitter. I'll put a little bit of maple syrup in it just a sweet net. Same exact way every day. You don't get tired of it. No, you don't. When I even wondered about that myself.

2:34 I'm thinking. I've been doing this for months now. But I just love it. Are you gonna branch? Do you see yourself branch it out at any point anytime soon? Well, I do sometimes whenever whenever you cook, whenever I'm not having to leave the house. If I cook a meal. Well, not just oatmeal, but like if you do the tofu, scrambled eggs, you'd love those. Those are so good. You know, I really think I mean, it can be really simple. It takes a scramble so you can do and this isn't even what we're talking about today. It's just that breakfast is so fun, right? So you can if you like it, I mean there's so many different things you can do plant based is no exception. I mean, down to the fact that you can even make different types of sausage flavors in your meals. I mean, there's tons of ways you can do it. I'm not talking about the fake sausage you buy in the store. I'm talking about the whole food way. But anyway, so yeah, tofu scramble. I think one of the keys to that is I have this Hollandaise sauce that I put over it that I make, it takes all of one minute and my new triplet sauces are key. I mean, they're really key to everything. And so a lot of times for tofu scramble people just sprinkle cumin on there.

3:41 But I love the Hollandaise sauce, he knew I had to put that in the kickback, which is coming out very soon, by the way. But I digress. So we're getting back to breakfast. So what do I eat for breakfast? What do you eat for breakfast? I'm really bad. Sometimes I don't eat breakfast. And I know they say it's the most important meal of the day. And I guess for a long time I kind of thought Oh, that's you know, the cereal companies and people are probably pushing that. Is there really anything to that? If you want to lose weight, though, what we've come to find out is that that it really is important that you eat breakfast. And honestly, not only is it important, it's important that you eat more at breakfast than at your other two meals. So what studies have shown is that people, let's just talk about this one study this one study that we saw, and actually most of the other studies have lined up with this that we've seen.

4:34 Well there have been a lot of studies and they've tweaked and tested different things. But this one particular study was looking at if people fasted until noon, versus a breakfast. Now what they found is that when people ate breakfast, they actually ate about 500 calories more on average during the day, all day long. So the total calories for that day when they ate breakfast was 500 more calories than they would have consumed. They'd skipped breakfast all together, at least not anything before. 11 or 12. Right? Correct. Okay, so then you would look at that a few months down the road that surely because this, this ended up being something like 22,000 more calories, I think it was over the course of three months, that these people would have gained a lot of extra weight. But they didn't.

5:23 They didn't. What actually happened? Do you remember? Well, I know that in a lot of these studies, and in my mind, I've got a lot of them mixed together. But that in all these studies, that when people have eaten breakfast, they've lost weight, and sometimes have lost more weight. And we'll talk about this at a later time, whenever the goals were this for the studies were to lose weight that when they ate a bigger breakfast, they would lose more weight than if they had skipped it. Or even just a little, just a little. It's very interesting. So one thing that sounds like where did all those calories, extra calories go? Where did that go? I mean, it's got to go somewhere, right? So maybe it has to do with metabolism, but they kind of put that to rest.

6:06 It really isn't. They're saying that it that may not be true, because we have this idea that if we fast, then our bodies are going to decrease the amount of energy that they use. So there's this energy conservation, but they've seen that that's not really true. So one of the main things that happened is the people that actually ate breakfast, what they found is they're just moving more probably they believe, because they felt better, they had more energy. And so it wasn't that they were going to work out or you know, hitting the gym, kind of structured exercise, nothing like that. They were just amazing, more on as regular, maybe do some light house work, different things like that. And so basically what was happening is a lot of those calories were just being used at because they were making more because they felt like it, some of them, but not all of them.

6:57 That's true. So they believe that it has to do with the timing of the day, where our bodies have certain rhythms built in. Apparently, that's what there's crying. It's called crona. Biology. Yes. Right. So that there is a circadian rhythm is 24 hour rhythm that our bodies have. And that when you eat a set number of calories in the morning versus the evening, that that has less of an impact on your overall weight. And actually, why should say less of an impact in gaining weight, but can have more of an impact in losing weight, if that is one of your goals. So let's talk let's break it down. So the main thing here, number one that you want to remember is Jared likes his oatmeal in the morning with a machete and Miranda in it now I'm just getting really and I eat the same breakfast just about every morning every day.

7:45 No, that's not the main takeaway. The main takeaway is that, if you want to lose weight, if that's a benefit you're looking for in life, and particularly if you want to adopt a plant based lifestyle, you don't want to omit breakfast, okay, there's a lot of other weight loss things that we can teach you and show you. And we do talk about that inside the membership. But this is one thing right now that you can do to make a change. Because even if eating breakfast causes you to eat 500 more calories that day, you're still going to according to research, end up losing more weight than the person who skips breakfast, because you're going to feel like moving more, and you're just going to be moving more.

8:28 And that means you're also going to feel better. Because for us, it's not just about, hey, you need to lose weight. I mean, that's never gonna be a reason that keeps you going long term. It's just not it doesn't. It hasn't worked for anybody that I've known of, you know, really what you got to get down to is your Why? Why do you want to do healthy plant base? And if one of the first things that pops to mind is to lose weight? Why do you want to lose weight? What does that do for you? And we've seen from these studies, that eating breakfast causes you to lose more weight, you're not starving yourself, but you're moving more, you're having better quality of life, because you just by nature feel better, you have the energy. And I've noticed that in days, whenever I've skipped breakfast for whatever reason that I just feel a little more sluggish.

9:16 And, and I'll feel that way until I hit lunchtime. Whereas if I eat breakfast, then I just I have the energy my body has the fuel that it needs. But it's also crona biology. I mean, talking about the extra calories, that it doesn't affect your weight. Why? Well I don't know that they really fully understand that. But they see the pattern over and over again, right? And even whenever they were saying that if people stayed awake during the night and slept during the day, I think because of maybe you do shift work. And you have to say Wait, let me just Well, I gotta throw this in here seriously, if you can help it, don't do it. If I could reverse and go back in time to when I was in my 20s when I worked night shift as a registered nurse. Let me tell you, I would do it in a heartbeat. I did it. And I liked doing it. Because I love the people I worked with at night, it was a little bit slower pace, it seemed a little less stressful.

10:11 At the time, it did pay better, which we needed. Were having that was great. But if I had known what it does to your body, I would have not done it is terrible for your health. So if there's any way you're working shift work. And even if it means a little less money, in the long run, your health is worth more. So do what you can to take care of your body and don't do shift work. Sorry, that was an aside. I had to throw that on there because I can't I wish somebody had told me. I do. Because I feel like I wouldn't have ended up in the situation I was in 10 years ago when I was so sick. We were in our late 20s. And it we just didn't think it really made a difference. And you know, yeah, so we didn't think about it, we just did it because it just seemed to work. For us.

10:52 It's back to my point though, when people would stay awake during the night and sleep during the day, they still found that eating at the same times of the day had that same effect, meaning eating that larger meal in the morning versus a smaller meal at night. So they're not skipping breakfast. So what the point of all that was is that it's still just in our biology. It's just the way we were designed and made. Absolutely. Well we have more to share. We have another weight loss tip for you and the next podcast episode be sure not to miss that. And also I'm going to share what my favorite breakfast food is in the next episode as well. So remember, I didn't share that. And that'll just be something we can start with next time. You can ask me the same question and until then, we are looking forward to hanging out with you again.

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