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John in Fitness
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Eggs are Awesome

Want to know one of the easiest ways to control your blood sugar, naturally eat less food throughout the day while not feeling neglected? It’s simple – eat 3 eggs for breakfast. The incredible, edible egg has been vilified for so long that I will have to back up this seemingly easy tip with some solid research to show that eggs have gotten a bad reputation for no good reason.

Below are a couple of reasons why Eggs are Awesome. Hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll think the same.

Why Eggs Are Awesome

1 – It won’t affect your blood cholesterol levels negatively.

Since we’re talking about eggs, we have to talk about the biggest controversy when it comes to eating eggs, cholesterol. You’ve heard it before, “Eggs are not good for you because they are high in cholesterol.” People who say this fail to mention that high cholesterol foods (eggs, meat, etc) and in general, dietary cholesterol (cholesterol from food), does not affect blood cholesterol (cholesterol levels on blood tests). In other words, most people can eat lots of cholesterol and their blood tests won’t be effected. In fact, high cholesterol is more associated with high refined carb intake (sugar, white bread, etc) or a combo of fat and carbs, but not fat intake alone.

In addition to that research has shown that one person who ate 25 eggs a day (I know, ridiculous) had no effect on blood cholesterol In fact, one study showed those who ate 3 eggs per day lost more fat, decreased inflammation, increased their “good” HDL cholesterol and maintained their overall cholesterol levels when compared to those who didn’t eat eggs.

A study from Nutrition and Metabolism1 helped to show what happens when the only difference between two groups is that one group ate eggs, and the other group didn’t. All of the other macro nutrients (fat, carbs and protein) were the same between the groups. The group that ate the eggs had their HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) increase from 47 to 57 mg/dL. In addition to that, both groups decreased their triglycerides by an average of 45%. Therefore, don’t be scared to eat eggs, yes whole eggs, because of their cholesterol content.

2 – Eggs Keep You More Full Throughout the Day

People love to say “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” and although I won’t argue with them, what I will say is that most people have it backwards when it comes to what they eat for breakfast. Often times, people will have something like toast and juice for breakfast. Or if they don’t have that, they have some oatmeal (usually an instant type), a bagel or some cereal.

We’ve heard for so long that these are the foods we should be eating for breakfast that most people don’t know that these things are not good when fat loss is the goal.

Even to this day, I see the “Eat high carbs, especially for breakfast” mantra in articles, usually backed up with the reasoning that we need to “break the fast with some carbs” to give us some energy in the morning. The problem with that thinking is it’s narrow-minded.

With that said, research has consistently shown that those who ate a higher protein breakfast were better able to concentrate on mental tasks (useful for work and school) and end up eating less calories throughout the day. Let’s look at that last point a bit more.

Eggs Help You Eat Less

Here are three research studies showing the difference between when people eat eggs for breakfast versus the controls (usually bagels).

A –Overweight women, when eating eggs versus bagels for breakfast, ended up eating about 13% less calories throughout the day. This effect not only lasted for that day, but the effect lasted for 36 hours.2

B – Overweight men and women who ate eggs for breakfast (about 3 per day), while being suggested to lower their overall calories by about 1,000 per day, lost more weight, lost more fat around their waist and decreased their body fat more than those who ate bagels for breakfast. To further hammer home the point, there was no difference between total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol or triglycerides between the two groups, despite eating 3 eggs per day. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755181/)

C – Normal weight men who had eggs for breakfast, versus a bagel, had lower variation of plasma glucose and insulin. In other words, their blood sugar was more stable throughout the morning after eating eggs. In addition to that, their hunger hormone, ghrelin was reduced compared to the bagel group and finally, they consumed less calories throughout the day.3

In other words, study after study after study has shown that it is easier to control your hunger when you eat eggs for breakfast versus a lot of carbs.

In the end, eggs are really one of the easiest ways to both help keep you full throughout the day while providing a healthy start to the day. So the question is, are you going to start your day with some eggs?

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John
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