This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Skip Breakfast – And It’s Legit Terrifying

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You know the drill; you slept right through your alarm, threw on whatever clothes you could find and ran out the door without your keys – or your breakfast.

Cue horrible hunger pangs and unshiftable cravings for all of the sugar.

But skipping breakfast won’t just make you a bit hangry. In fact, going for hours without food actually kicks off a fairly intense physical process.

First up, your blood sugar will plummet and you’ll begin to feel seriously sluggish and unable to retain focus. A headache may kick in too, and in extreme cases your vision can become blurry.

As Kristin Kirkpatrick, RD, a nutrition wellness manager explains to Seventeen: “Your brain runs primarily on glucose. When there isn’t enough sugar in your blood to pull from, you lose your ability to focus.” Makes sense, huh?

Like this post? You’ll love this: 7 Healthy Breakfasts You Can Make In 5 Minutes Or Less

Then cue the mood swings. With both a lack of calories and nutrients, your brain isn’t adequately equipped to function, and so your emotional responses are altered, meaning you should probably prepare your co-workers for some serious mid-afternoon sass.

And it certainly doesn’t mean good news for dieters either, because after extended periods of fasting, your metabolism drops and your body begins burning muscle (not fat) as fuel.

Correcting it isn’t easy either. Once you give in to the inevitable sugar-binge to pull yourself out of the slump, you’ll feel great temporarily only for your blood sugar to again take a dive and for all the hunger, lack of focus and mood swings to come flooding back with a vengeance.

So what’s the solution? Well the obvious fix is to ensure that you don’t miss breakfast in the first place, but if it’s already too late for that, there are a few things you can do to counteract your body’s reaction.

Your best bet? Get some carbs, lean protein and fats into you STAT. This is one occasion when you can totally justify a slice or two of pizza, topped with grilled chicken and loadsa veggies, of course.

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• health