Breakfast and Bones

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day but how often to we skip it? What’s the difference if we do? Apparently a lot!

A new study says ensuing your bones are healthy involves eating breakfast.  Researchers in Japan reported people who skip breakfast have a greater risk of broken bones from osteoporosis.  The study’s researchers say skipping breakfast and having late dinners are associated with an increased risk of osteoporosis. 

The study also revealed unhealthy eating habits were also tied to other lifestyle risk factors like physical inactivity, smoking, and insufficient sleep. 

But what about what you eat for breakfast?

And does just a few (or more) cups of coffee count as “breakfast”? The answer to that question is just having coffee probably doesn’t count. I was guilty of that for a long time.

I was also really, really guilty of loading my coffee with a ton of flavored creamers. I thought that was really the only reason I liked coffee.

However, I also spent a good part of the summer on crutches and in physical therapy because of my knee acting up. I had a major knee surgery in 2020, spent a lot of time rehabbing it, and finally got back to normal the past few years. Until this summer when all hell broke lose. Literally. My docs called it an arthritis flair and talked to me about ways to decrease the chances of it happening again.

Stay active and keep moving (but do it in a smart way and don’t go crazy when it feels betters), keep your weight in a healthy range so you take stress off your joints, and do all the other healthy things we already know to do –eat right (duh), don’t smoke (I would never), etc

But let’s talk about that “eat right” thing. That can mean a lot of things. Eating breakfast (which from the study we know is important) is going to affect you differently if have fruits, veggies, and whole grains vs. a big stack of chocolate chip pancakes drowning in butter and artificial maple syrup. Yeah, you’re not technically skipping breakfast with the latter but you’re also not eating the most nourishing food either.

So in my research of what foods to eat or avoid for arthritis issues, sugar was a big time red flag. This didn’t come as a surprise. We can all agree that while sugar tastes delightful, we know in our hearts it’s not great for us.

So what’s a girl to do about her coffee? Just quit drinking it? Until that point, I would have sworn I could never drink it black.

But I did.

And shockingly – I mean, you didn’t see the amount of flavored creamer I would use, so it really is shocking- I’ve been drinking it black for months. And liking it that way. I never thought I’d see the day.

But also- without any increased exercise (because most of the time I was just trying to walk like a normal person) and no special diet other than cutting out desserts, cutting out added sugar, no artificial junk or super processed foods, I’ve also lost weight, too.
[Sidenote- I didn’t have to cut out pop because I really never drank that on a regular basis but that has a ton of sugar in it.]

More importantly, I feel better. For instance, for breakfast today I had black coffee, a bowl of watermelon, and one slice of 12-grain bread cut in half and made into a half-sandwich with natural chunky peanut butter. (That’s the no sugar, no crap added, stir it up because the oil separates thick-as-heck peanut butter with an ingredient list of one thing: peanuts). And – again shockingly- I don’t miss the junk one bit. Sure, the sandwich tastes sinful and the watermelon is sweet, but that’s nature’s candy, baby.

So long term will it make my bones stronger and my flairs from flaring? I guess we’ll see. In the short term, it’s delicious, easy, and I feel really good! And that’s a win.

Want to send a message to Laura? Email anytime, she’d love to hear from you: Laura.McKenna@civicmedia.us
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