Maybe
it is. Is it the most important meal
of the day? I’d say not. I think that any time we eat is important in some
sense. There is research that shows that people who eat breakfast weigh less.
That is not to say that breakfast will make you lose weight—perhaps eating
breakfast is a behavior that people who weigh less tend to do. It is also not
clear that breakfast “jumpstarts” your metabolism, as many believe. It does
take energy to digest your food, but a lot less energy than is actually in the
food. I have not found any studies that show that people who eat breakfast have
faster metabolisms. I definitely encourage my patients to eat breakfast. The
main reason is that it gives us energy to start the day. And you can eat such
yummy foods for breakfast…such as oatmeal.
On that
note, here are my favorite ways to eat oatmeal. Please post additional oatmeal suggestions
in the comments below!
- ½ cup oats + 1 cup water, cook on stove top. Pour into bowl. Add 1 Tbsp natural peanut butter (that is peanut butter that has only peanuts OR peanuts and salt as the ingredients.) Stir the peanut butter in.
- ½ cup oats + 1 cup water, cook on stove top. Pour oatmeal into bowl. Add to pot ¼ cup of applesauce; when warmed, pour over oats. Add ¼ cup cottage cheese.
- ½ cup oats + 1 cup water, cook on stove top. Pour into bowl. Add ½ cup yogurt. (Greek yogurt will provide more protein and regular yogurt will provide more calcium)
- Put ½ cup oats, 1 cup soy milk, ¼ cup water, and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon into a container. Leave in refrigerator overnight. (You can also use regular milk. I happen to not prefer the flavor of regular milk.) This is best eaten on the NYC subway, especially on the uptown A train.
- Other options are to combine a few of the toppings listed in the different recipes here onto one bowl of oatmeal. It will probably also taste delish!