What makes breakfast such a crucial meal in the daily lives of an elite athlete? In this film we’re going to show you why breakfast is not to be underestimated and how it fuels an athlete for optimum performance.

Most people say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Although, all meals are equally as important, breakfast seems to be the one athletes struggle with most.

Incorporating breakfast everyday helps the body break the fast from your overnight sleeping period. In the morning the body has gone, ideally, at least eight hours without protein or carbs and any form of energy source. Consuming these nutrients at breakfast helps with muscle maintenance as our body still continues to breakdown and repair muscle while we sleep. It also helps to top up our glycogen stores, which is what gives your muscles and brain the energy to function optimally during training sessions. 

There are many downsides to skipping breakfast. Research shows that athletes who have not consumed breakfast show a decrease in performance and an increase in RPE – also known as “exercise felt harder”. Basically you will start to under-perform and feel like you are working harder without seeing any improvements in your fitness, strength and power. 

So depending on your training schedule your breakfast can act as either your pre-training fuel, or recovery for after an early training session, but breakfast also starts topping up the tank for the afternoon training sessions.
 
So what should you be looking for when preparing your performance breakfast? First of all our main macronutrients that feature in our first meal of the day are the all important protein and carbohydrates. Breakfast is also a great vehicle to incorporate our calcium and fibre intake for the day.

Calcium is consumed through dairy products and is important for bone health plus muscle function/contraction. Fibre is consumed through our wholegrains and fruits, and is important for our gut health.

Some options can include…
• Breakfast cereals such as Weet-bix, muesli or oats, added fruit for that extra fibre paired with milk and yoghurt 
• If you’re on the go in the morning and don’t have time to sit down and eat you can put this into a blender and drink it on the go. 
• If you have more time on your hands then cooking up some eggs is a cheap, easy, and convenient way to get your protein on board with some carbohydrates from toast and baked beans. 
 
We should add that breakfast doesn’t need to be consumed in one sitting. If you are short on time before your early morning sessions, have something on the go while you are traveling to training, whether that is a grab-and-go option, or half of your breakfast, as it is going to aid that top up so you can get the most out of your training. 

So, here we’ve covered all things breakfast from why we need the fuel, what happens when we don’t eat breakfast, and what to fill your breaky plate with … so, what’s going to be on the menu tomorrow?