Why eat Breakfast

Ok, you have all heard this, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I agree with this with the caveat that it is one of the 2 most important meals of the day, the second being your post workout meal, but that is another topic, here we are going to talk breakfast. If you are serious about gaining muscle and losing fat, you need to eat the right kind of breakfast to set the stage for the rest of your day. Here is why breakfast is so important:

1. A proper high protein breakfast is the breakfast of champions. This helps to reboot your neurotransmitters for the day which will improve your energy levels, focus and concentration. A high protein breakfast energizes the neurotransmitters such as dopamine and acetylcholine which are essential for proper cortisol utilization which allows your body to mobilize fat for its energy needs.

2. Your body is likely in a catabolic state or close to it after fasting all night while sleeping. You want to get some quality protein into you within 30 min of waking up to knock you out of that potential catabolic state and back into anabolism.

3. The right breakfast is going to provide your body with the nutrition it needs for energy to get your day going but will not increase your insulin enough to blunt fat burning. After sleeping all night, when you wake up your body is now primarily using fat for energy. Maintaining the proper amount of carbs during breakfast (essentially zero) is key to keeping your body in this fat burning state. The longer we can keep the body using fat for fuel the more fat we are going to burn off obviously.

4. We all aren’t cycling or on testosterone 24/7 365 days/yr. So here is a tidbit for you while training natty. Most of your testosterone for the day is produced in the morning. That is when we have our biggest pulse. Optimal test production is dependent on getting enough quality fats and the best utilization of that test is dependent on getting your essential amino acids (EAA’s) i.e. protein.

What should I eat for breakfast…..PROTEIN

Probably stating the obvious here but the most important part of the perfect breakfast is protein. Red meat is ideal. Why you say, well, red meats have higher amounts of carnitine which is the amino acid that helps transport the fatty acids to your cells to be burned. To put it plain and simple, it helps you burn fat. Carnitine is also a testosterone sensitizing amino acid so it makes that morning pulse of your test more efficient. So you get a better bang for your buck during your morning pulse of test and it helps you burn fat, win-win scenario. I would also recommend if possible that you go the grass-fed route with your red meats. These are higher in CLA and omega-3’s which help with insulin sensitivity and overall body comp.

Macro breakdown

Now you are probably wondering how much you need to eat. Well, that will depend on how big you are (TDEE), either cutting or bulking, on or off cycle. Lot of variables there but for starters you need to be hitting a bare bones minimum 30g of protein. If I need to hit 300g of protein/d with 5 meals I will be doing at least 75g of protein for my breakfast. Breakfast is usually one of my higher protein meals (and fat) because I am replacing my carb calories with protein and fats. For a macro split I am usually close to 50-75% protein and 50-25% fat and with essentially zero carbs, depending on what I eat.

If you need to get some additional fats in your breakfast the best ones to add are coconut oil, butter and fish oil (omega-3 caps).
Coconut oil contains a ton of MCT’s which are energizing fats (good thing to have in the morning. The liver converts these MCT’s directly to energy making them an awesome alternative to carbs for pre-workout energy (especially if you are morning workout type of guy) or for just starting your day on the right foot. I often use powdered coconut oil as a creamer in my coffee. Comes all kinds of flavors.

Butter is rich in healthy saturated fats, CLA and butyrate. Fry your eggs in butter (Again if you can find it grass fed butter is always the best option). If you are not familiar with butyrate, it is a short chain fatty acid which increases insulin sensitivity and increases fatty acid release from your fat cells making it available for energy use.

Hopefully you are all familiar with Omega-3’s which help to increase fat burning, improve your insulin sensitivity, and decrease inflammation in your body.

Example breakfast

Classic breakfast for me would be steak and eggs, or more likely venison and eggs depending on the season. 8oz steak with a few eggs gives me about 100g of protein, 40g fat, zero carbs at about 800 cals. Portion size would decrease a bit if I was cutting and I would keep it around 500 cals for breakfast. When I cook a steak for dinner I always cook 2 for me. That way I have one ready to go for breakfast. Another classic breakfast is some kind of omelet with steak or ham or whatever meat I had leftover in the fridge and packed with cheese. The point with these breakfasts is to skip the toast and pancakes and OJ when you are serious about gains and fat loss.

Happy eating.