Living the easy life has been taking its toll on my health. Why, for example, should I bother making breakfast when I hardly have the energy to get out of bed?

It took me a while to figure out this cycle. I was too tired to exercise because I didn't exercise. And I was too tired to put an egg in the pan because I didn't eat breakfast.

Thankfully, having a child changes things. Unlike my body, which has been conditioned to keep a low profile and allow me to destroy it, my baby is pretty good at letting me know what he needs and when he needs it.

And when he's hungry, he's going to get his breakfast.

And as I'm around, I might as well get something for myself and get the energy I need to make my day better.

From WebMD:

"That one act [of eating breakfast] seems to make a difference in people's overall weight," says Melinda Johnson, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association (ADA). She says breakfast can hold off hunger pangs until lunchtime and make high-calorie vending machine options less enticing.

 

Not only that, researchers at the 2003 American Heart Association conference reported that breakfast eaters are significantly less likely to be obese and get diabetes compared with nonbreakfast eaters.

 

Another study in the International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition showed that people who consumed breakfast cereal every day reported feeling better both physically and mentally than those who rarely ate cereal in the morning.