Sleep inertia is the groggy feeling we sometimes experience upon waking. We notice it most during the first 15 to 30 minutes after waking when our cognitive function dips for a while. Sleep inertia is worst when waking during the "biological night" after we have missed out on sleep. It might also be linked to deeper sleep. Sleep inertia could reflect adenosine being inefficiently cleared from the brain during sleep. Following unwanted disruptions to our sleep, the process could encourage us to stay asleep rather than become fully awake.

Sleep inertia

It's sometimes referred to as the transitional state between sleep and waking.

health

Health

habits

Habits

What is sleep inertia? | BBC Science Focus Magazine

<ul><li>Partners need room to do their own things</li><li>Friends and family can visit</li><li>People want to travel more but don't want to give up the convenience of spaces such as a kitchen, living room, and bathroom.</li><li>Having a place to call home (that actually feels like a home): having something to come back to at the end of the day that felt like a home, rather than just a suitcase or a small vehicle.</li></ul>

Why do people choose an RV over other methods of long-term travel?

There are quite a few places you can park your RV at night. The most common.<ul><li>Campgrounds: Using campgrounds that provide hookups is the classic RV parking method.</li><li>Boondocking: Boondocking refers to finding a piece of land to camp on where you’re not hooked up to anything. It’s much more affordable than staying at a campground but does require some investment up front. </li><li>Moochdocking: Moochdocking is where you set up camp on a friend or family member’s driveway.</li></ul>

Where you sleep

While selecting your RV is a very personal choice, there are a few things everyone should consider:<ul><li>Power to get over mountain passes</li><li>Personal safety considerations: Especially when traveling solo, when you're parked somewhere for the night, have the ability to simply move into the back to go to sleep (without going outside)</li><li>Ease of use while driving</li><li>Age of the RV: A newer vehicle will likely need less renovations within. However, older RV electronics can be easier to maintain for those without a lot of RV knowledge.</li></ul>

What type of RV should you get?

For the most part, there are two options for buying your rig:<ul><li>Purchase it outright</li><li>Finance</li><li>It’s very similar to a car purchase, and financing makes breaking into the lifestyle a realistic achievement for those without too much in savings.</li></ul>

How do you finance your RV?

The cost of RV life will depend heavily on how, where, and when you prefer to travel.<ul><li>The daily cost of living for items like food, campsites, and gas will vary wildly depending on the area you’re in. If you’re seeking out big destination areas (as many travelers like to do), you’ll be spending more money than elsewhere.</li><li>Speed of travel: No matter where you park your rig, slowing down can help you save money. </li><li>RV life can work for every budget: In general, however, you can spend as much or as little as you want. Some get into RV life to save money. </li></ul>

How much does RV life cost?

<ul><li>Some have their own businesses that allow them to set their own hours. Some make money from YouTube, Instagram, and their blog.</li><li>Many work regular full-time corporate jobs that are remote. Some work just part-time to cover daily expenses. Some work seasonal jobs and travel the rest of the year. Others live off savings for a while.</li></ul>People make their transition all different ways. You have to figure out for yourself what will give you the independence to live in your RV while still making enough money to meet your financial goals.

What do RVers do for income?

<ul><li>Wasp spray: Wasp spray can be used as a personal defense item.</li><li>First aid kit: Do your best to be prepared for small medical emergencies by purchasing the classic safety essential, a first aid kit.</li><li>Home security camera</li><li>Motion-sensing security lights</li><li>Alarm systems. Get alerts on your phone if there’s suspicious activity.</li><li>Built-in GPS for the internet: it allows you to see where your rig is as well as how fast it’s moving. </li><li>Bike lock</li><li>Fire extinguishers</li><li>Automatic fire suppression systems</li><li>A kingpin is a locking mechanism that stops someone from coming over and taking your towable RV.</li></ul>

What safety essentials should you consider?

Seeing friends and family: Living in an RV makes it much easier to see friends and family. As one couple put it, they’re now able to visit with family they would normally only see at weddings and funerals.Spending more time in dream destinations: When you work a traditional 9-5 with limited PTO, your travels are also limited. Over the course of a year, you may go to a couple destinations for a week at a time. Because it’s a lifestyle rather than a vacation, living in an RV allows you to stay in these places for longer stretches.

What are the best parts of RV life?

<ul><li>Small living area: RVs are usually much larger than vans, but they’re still tiny in comparison to the stationary homes people leave behind.</li><li>Managing personal space can be a significant challenge. </li><li>Living on the road, you're at the mercy of the weather. </li><li>Planning exhaustion: You’re constantly planning everything from where you’re going to sleep at night to what hikes you’ll doing that week.</li><li>Campground scarcity: It can take time to get repairs and parts. Additionally, campsites are filled far ahead of time in some areas of the country. </li><li>Slight changes in daily chores: One of these is laundry. </li></ul>

Some challenging aspects to living on the road

<ul><li>Financial planning: Make sure you’re entering this lifestyle responsibly. Ideally, you should begin with as little debt as possible. </li><li>Decide what to do with your home: keep it or sell it. </li><li>Determine your residency.</li><li>Downsize: You will need so much less than you think you will. </li><li>Organize: When you have such a small space to work with, organization is key. </li><li>Prepare to make mistakes: As with anything you try for the first time, there’s a learning curve during which mistakes will happen. </li><li>Dive in: The only way to learn everything you need to know about RV life is by jumping in.</li></ul>

Before hitting the road

We dig into the lifestyle of long-term recreational vehicle living, by interviewing six individuals or couples experiencing it themselves

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

travel

Travel

So, you’re thinking of living the RV life – Lonely Planet

It's quite normal to wake up during the night. Waking up during the night does not necessarily mean you have insomnia. People will often return to sleep without realising that they have ever been awake. Reasons for night-time waking include being too hot or cold, needing the loo, having a nightmare, or medical (disordered breathing such as sleep apnoea or nocturia: excessive night-time urination).

Nobody sleeps the night through

Waking as much as five or seven times a night is not necessarily a cause for concern. It's more important how you feel 30 minutes after waking in the morning. Lifestyle changes can make a big difference: <ul><li>Stop caffeine consumption by 2 pm or 3 pm</li><li>Reduce water intake during the day</li><li>Alcohol can help you fall asleep but it causes spikes in blood sugar and cortisol levels, disrupting sleep.</li><li>A "pro-sleep" bedtime snack or an "anti-inflammatory" diet has been shown to improve sleep apnoea.</li></ul>

Lifestyle changes can make a big difference

<ul><li>For many, bedtime might be our first opportunity of the day to be alone with our thoughts. It’s connected to waking in the night because we haven’t had any processing time during the day.</li><li>Managing stress and anxiety during waking hours and learning how to relax body and mind are key to a good night’s sleep.</li><li>People might have this belief that they are a ‘bad sleeper’. A mindset change may be what’s needed. Accepting that you could wake up hours before dawn might be the first step towards good sleep.</li></ul>

Fixating on eight hours can make it harder to achieve

You eschew caffeine after lunch, have stopped drinking alcohol and eat healthily. But you’re still staring at the ceiling in the small hours. Here’s why

Shuteye and sleep hygiene: the truth about why you keep waking up at 3am

You don't need anything fancy when you start with strength training. All you need is some basic moves, consistency, and patience. The key to enjoying strength training is starting with a good foundation of exercises that work every part of your body. When you focus on a handful of main moves, you'll find it easier in a short time. From there, you can progress to different weights, advanced variations or new exercises.

Strength training fundamentals

Resistance training helps your body stay functional and healthy in the long term. Increased muscle strength can make everyday movements easier, such as getting up off the floor, carrying groceries up the stairs, or putting a bulky object on an overhead shelf. With age, maintaining muscle strength becomes even more important. Resistance training helps to improve balance, build bone density, reduce the risk of falls, and increase cognitive well-being.

Strength training makes life easier

<ul><li>Strength training twice a week is sufficient to increase muscle mass.</li><li>Start by focusing on compound movements that involve multiple joints, such as squats.</li><li>Include both pushing and pulling exercises to ensure you maintain good muscular balance and exercise all the muscle groups.</li><li>Use a weight that you can lift for about six reps per set with proper form.</li><li>Give yourself 2 to 5 minutes of rest between sets to allow sufficient recovery.</li><li>A beginner can perform one to three sets per exercise.</li></ul>

What you need to know before you start

<ul><li>Stand with your feet a little more than hip-width apart.</li><li>Lower your hips into a squat as you bend your knees and keep your back flat.</li><li>Lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor.</li><li>Push your heels into the floor.</li><li>Keep your heels flat on the floor and knees aligned with your second toe.</li></ul> The squat exercises your glutes and core muscles. If you find it too difficult, squat in front of a chair and lightly ta your butt to the chair.

Squat

<ul><li>Stand with your feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, arms relaxed, with a dumbbell in each hand.</li><li>hinge forward at your hips and bend your knees slightly as you push your butt way back. Keeping your back flat, slowly start to lower the weight along your shins until your torso is almost parallel to the floor.</li><li>Push through your heels to stand up straight and return to the starting position. Remember to lift with your legs, not your back.</li><li>Pause at the top and squeeze your butt.</li></ul> This exercise is great to train your glutes and hamstrings. It also engages your shoulders, back, and core.

Deadlift

<ul><li>Lie on your back, knees bent and feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart. With a dumbbell in each hand, rest the weights just under your hip bones.</li><li>Squeeze your glutes and abs, and push through your heels to lift your hips off the floor until your body forms a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.</li><li>Hold for a second, then slowly lower your hips.</li></ul> Glute bridges target the glutes, engage the hamstrings and core muscles. They also help to build leg strength and core stabilisation.

Glute bridge

<ul><li>Start in a high plank with your palms flat on the floor, hands shoulder-width apart, shoulders above your wrists, legs extended behind you, and core and glutes engage.</li><li>Bend your elbows while you lower your body to the floor. Drop to your knees if you need to.</li><li>Push through the palms of your hands to straighten your arms.</li></ul> The push-p works all the pressing muscles in the upper body, including the chest, shoulders, and triceps.

Push-up

<ul><li>Keep your feet hip-width apart and a dumbbell in each hand with your arms at your sides.</li><li>With your core engaged, hinge forward at the hips while pushing your butt back. Bend your knees slightly and ensure not to round your shoulders.</li><li>Look a few inches in front of your feet to keep your neck in a neutral position.</li><li>Pull the weights up toward your chest, keep your elbows close to your body, and squeeze your shoulder blades at the top of the movement for two seconds.</li><li>Slowly lower the weights by extending your arms toward the floor.</li></ul> This exercise uses all the muscles in your upper body.

Bent-over row

<ul><li>Lie faceup on a mat, legs extended and arms straight over your head, keeping them close to your ears.</li><li>Contract your abs to press your lower back into the ground.</li><li>Point your toes, squeeze your thighs together, squeeze your glutes, and lift your leg off the ground.</li><li>Lift your shoulders off the ground and keep your head in a neutral position.</li><li>Your legs and mid-back should be off the floor and just your lower back and hips on the ground.</li><li>Hold this position for as long as you can while maintaining proper form.</li></ul> This exercise maintains core stability and creates a stronger foundation for other moves.

Hollow-body hold

<ul><li>Stand with your feet wider than hip-width apart, core engaged, hands clasped together or holding a small towel or dumbbell in both hands by your left leg.</li><li>Raise your arms diagonally in front of your body to the upper right of your reach, allowing your torso and toes to rotate naturally.</li><li>Now “chop” the weight down to the left, bringing it across the front of your body and aiming for your left ankle, naturally rotating in that direction. Focus on keeping your lower body stable and turning from your core.</li><li>Do all your reps on one side, and then switch sides.</li></ul>

Dumbbell chopper

<ul><li>Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart with core engaged.</li><li>Step backwards with your right foot, landing on the ball of your foot and keeping your heel off the ground.</li><li>Bend both knees to 90 degrees as you sink into a lunge. Keep your core engaged and hips tucked (don’t stick your butt out). Ensure your hips aren’t tilting to the side or forward and back.</li><li>Push through the heel of your left foot to return to your starting position.</li></ul> The exercise works the glutes, legs, and core.

Reverse lunge

This article contains a basic list of beginner exercises to encourage a good strength-training foundation.

The best approach to strength training for beginners is mastering these seven exercises. Find out how to program them into your workouts.

exerciseandfitness

Exercise & Fitness

education

Learning & Education

The 8 Best Strength-Training Exercises for Beginners

In the 1960s, professor Yoshiro Hatano invented the 10,000 step rule after he became interested in figuring out the most impactful method for preventing heart disease and obesity.
Hatano theorised that taking 10,000 steps a day, the equivalent of about five miles, would result in 20 percent of burned calories for the average person. The idea spread to the U.S. and other countries and became the recommended health standard in several organisations.

History of the 10,000 step rule

Everyone's activity needs are different depending on their fitness goals. On average, inactive people will take about 5,000 steps per day, active people between 7,500 and 10,000 steps and very active people over 12,500 steps per day. Determine your fitness goals:<ul><li>Track how many steps you naturally achieve per day using a fitness tracker, then increase your daily steps goal using a realistic timeline.</li><li>Listen to your body. Doing too much too soon can leave you sore, overly tired, or injured.</li></ul>

Setting your unique step goal

Walk, walk, and keep on walking. There are many ways to get short and long walks into your day.<ul><li>Try parking farther from the grocery store than usual.</li><li>March in place between Zoom meetings.</li><li>Get off the subway a stop earlier and walk home.</li><li>Choose the stairs over the escalator.</li><li>Take your dog on a longer stroll.</li></ul> Doing 300 minutes of brisk walking a week will be similar to 150 minutes of light-to-moderate intensity exercise. That is only 45 minutes of walking a day.

How to get your steps in

Here's what you need to know about this important fitness number, from how many calories 10,000 steps burns, how many miles it is, and whether you really should be hitting it every day.

Why 10,000 Steps? Here's Where This Daily Fitness Goal Comes From-and Whether It's Worth Following

Anticipatory anxiety is worrying about the bad things that could happen. The anxiety typically focuses on things you can't control or predict.
While fears are normal, they can become signs of anticipatory anxiety if they start to interfere with your daily life.

Anticipatory anxiety

With anticipatory anxiety, you may spend many hours imagining the worst-case scenario. Symptoms include:
<ul>
<li>Difficulty concentrating</li>
<li>Trouble managing emotions</li>
<li>Emotional numbness</li>
<li>Loss of interest in your usual hobbies</li>
<li>Restlessness</li>
<li>Nausea and loss of appetite</li>
<li>Sleep problems</li>
</ul>

Symptoms of anticipatory anxiety

Anticipatory anxiety can appear as a symptom of generalised anxiety disorder.
Other conditions can also involve a fear of possible future events:
<ul>
<li>Social anxiety disorder involves an extreme fear of rejection.</li>
<li>A specific phobia can involve extreme fear of ordinary objects or experiences such as clocks, spiders, heights, etc.</li>
<li>Panic disorder. Anticipatory anxiety is common in panic attacks.</li>
<li>Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A traumatic experience such as a car crash or a mugging can cause anticipatory anxiety.</li>
</ul>

Anticipatory anxiety as a symptom

Your physical wellness can impact your emotional health. <ul><li>Nutrition: If your symptoms include a nervous stomach, you may find it hard to eat, and that can make you feel even worse.</li><li>Sleep: Anxiety can make it difficult to get proper sleep, but a lack of sleep can increase anticipatory anxiety. Cutting back on caffeine and practising relaxation before bed may help you sleep.</li><li>Physical activity: Exercise can help relieve symptoms of anxiety and improve your sleep.</li></ul>

Take care of physical needs

How you talk to yourself about anxiety will affect you.
When you start to worry about something, ask yourself if it is a realistic possibility. 
<ul>
<li>If the answer is no, try to redirect your thinking to the present.</li>
<li>If the answer is yes, it is helpful to make a plan to cope, for example, restocking your emergency supplies. Then, set your thoughts aside. You've done what you can.</li>
</ul>

Check your self-talk

It's often not easy to talk about what you're afraid of, but voicing those fears can help them seem less scary.
Letting loved ones know about your anxiety can also help, especially if you feel isolated because of your symptoms. Friends can offer support by listening and providing a distraction.

Talk about it

If your own coping strategies are not helping, you could explore professional help. A therapist can help to find sources of stress and help to address possible causes. They can also help you identify harmful or less effective coping methods.
Therapists may recommend cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or exposure therapy.

Therapy

Medication may help improve symptoms, especially when combined with therapy.
Medication may be recommended if your symptoms:
<ul>
<li>make it difficult to cope in your daily life</li>
<li>prevent you from making progress in therapy</li>
<li>cause serious distress</li>
<li>affect your physical health</li>
</ul>
Potential medications include beta-blockers, benzodiazepines (sedatives), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), and other antidepressants.

Medication

Constantly worrying about things that haven't happened yet? You might be dealing with anticipatory anxiety.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mentalhealth

Mental Health

communication

Communication

Anticipatory Anxiety: How to Handle Worries About the Future

Processed foods are often looked at with disdain, and not without reason. We conjure up an image of ultra-processed, plastic-like foods with suspicious flavours, dipped in synthetic almost-edibles.
But processed food wasn’t always so bad, and has changed our relationship with food over the ages.

Processed Foods

The first evidence of processed foods came between 2.4 to 1.4 million years ago, when our ancestors Homo Habilis understood that food had to be manipulated before it is eaten. Pounding certain roots on the rock or making thin slices of meat helped the chewing process, making food easier to eat.
The later ancestors, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, had smaller teeth, which is only possible in evolution if there is less chewing, due to food being processed thermally, or cooked.

The History Of Processed Foods

Preservation was the main reason for the processing of food by our early ancestors, and it served us well. However, ultra-processed foods in the modern age have pushed this concept beyond its natural limits, and have unique evolutionary problems.
Apart from the effects of excessive chemicals in the body, ultra-processed foods are to be blamed for misaligned teeth, small face, a large body, and crooked teeth.

The Problem With Ultra-processed Food

<ul>
<li>At the start of the 20th century, canned foods became popular in middle-class households.</li>
<li>The ongoing wars and limited availability of fresh food opened up the market for frozen food.</li>
<li>TV dinners became popular in the 1950s, not due to their taste(which was awful) but due to their convenience.</li>
<li>On the farmers' front, innovative efforts like cutting out-of-shape carrots into convenient sizes drove up consumption of food that would have been otherwise thrown away.</li>
</ul>

Processed Foods In The Last Hundred Years

Humans had to process milk to drink it as raw milk wasn’t easily digestible. They made it into curdled milk (curd), or cheese that could be stored for long.
Later cheese was processed further by adding natural yellow colour. Enzymes were added to milk to help it ripen quickly.

Milk And Its Processed Derivatives

As manufacturers fine-tune the processing of foods and push it further, we need to be informed about what is acceptable and where the line has to be drawn.
Food processing innovations help the environment by reducing wastage and decreasing food insecurity, but the way food is ultra-processed nowadays begs the question of when innovation becomes deceitful to the average consumer.

Food Processing: Crossing The Line

Processed food isn’t just a modern invention, created from artificial ingredients. It is as old as humanity itself and may have helped create our species, writes Nicola Temple.

food

Food

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

How humanity has changed the food it eats

<ul>
<li>German-born Joseph Pilates was living and working in England as a circus performer and boxer. </li>
<li>At the start of WWI, he was placed in forced internment. While in the internment camp, he developed floor exercises. </li>
<li>Later on, he began rehabilitating detainees who were suffering from injuries and illness. Necessity led him to use available items like bed springs and beer keg rings to create resistance exercise equipment.</li>
</ul>

Joseph Pilates And The Invention of Pilates

Because Joseph Pilates had experience in fitness, it enabled him to develop his work. 
He studied various self-improvements systems. He drew from Eastern practices and Zen Buddhism and was inspired by the ancient Greek ideal of man that is developed in body, mind, and spirit. He studied anatomy and developed himself as a bodybuilder, wrestler, gymnast, boxer, skier, and diver.

Joseph Pilates' s Interest In Fitness

<ul>
<li>In 1925, Joseph Pilates took a boat to New York City. On the boat, he met Clara, a nurse, who would become his wife and work alongside him.</li>
<li>Joseph taught in New York from 1926 to 1966. He trained a number of his students to become teachers of the Pilates method. </li>
<li>The first generation of teachers is referred to as the Pilates Elders. Some taught the approach exactly, while others integrated it into their own philosophies and exercise sciences.</li>
</ul>

Developing Pilates Techniques

The dance community depended on the Pilates method of training for the strength and grace it developed in them and its rehabilitative effects.
Dancers and elite athletes kept his work alive. When science caught up with the Pilates exercise principles in the 1980s, it lead to the surge of interest in the Pilates we have today.

Pilates Exercises Become Known For Their Effects

Joseph Pilates was the founder of the Pilates method of exercise and the inventor of its exercise equipment. Explore his biography and legacy.

history

History

The Creator of Pilates: Joseph Pilates, Exercise Pioneer

Repression in psychological terms is a defence mechanism that involves keeping our feelings, thoughts and urges out of our conscious awareness. Our unacceptable desires are kept away from our consciousness so that we are less anxious.
It is a process by which painful and disturbing thoughts are intentionally hidden, and was first identified by Sigmund Freud. He compared the mind to an iceberg, where only the tip is visible and the major portion is hidden.

Repression: A Primer

The visible aspects of our mind consist of the thoughts, feelings and memories that we are aware of, and are in the conscious mind. The impulses, desires, memories and thoughts below the surface, are out of sight and reside in the unconscious mind.
Repression was a crucial finding for Freud, as the entire concept of psychoanalysis rested on the fact that unconscious and repressed feelings are blocking the mind of the person and leading to psychological distress.

The Conscious And The Unconscious

Suppression (often confused with repression) is a type of defence mechanism, where a person consciously tries to forget or not think of certain unwanted impulses or thoughts. 
With repression, this activity happens automatically without any conscious effort or intention.

Repression Vs Suppression

<ul>
<li>Primary repression is when unwanted impulses are hidden even before it reaches consciousness, and happens entirely in the unconscious mind. There is almost no awareness of the repression activity on the individual.</li>
<li>Repression proper is when a person becomes aware of the impulses and desires that are repressed, but still intentionally tries to remove it from awareness. This ‘selective forgetting’ is a way for people to block awareness of unwanted memories, especially the traumatic ones.</li>
</ul>

Types Of Repression

Our Personality, according to Sigmund Freud, has three components:
<ol>
<li>The Ego: The main conscious component of the brain that acts as an interface between reality and the other two aspects of our personality listed below.</li>
<li>The Id: The invisible, unconscious reservoir of our desires and urges that drive our basic behaviour.</li>
<li>The Superego: The idealistic and moralistic side of our personality that includes our conscience.</li>
</ol>

Parts Of Our Personality, According To Freud

The ego strives to balance the two aspects of our personality, the hidden desires and the idealistic conscience.
The repressed desires and impulses can simmer inside and come out in the form of dysfunctional behaviour and phobias.

Hail To The Ego

Repressed feelings can also pop up in our dreams, and the specific events that happen in the dream world. Analysing dreams, a speciality of Sigmund Freud, results in a lot of hidden impulses being revealed. 
One can also find repressed content in fears, slips of the tongue and feelings towards our loved ones, something known as the Oedipus Complex.

Repression And Dreams

Memories aren’t set in stone like we all believe and can be repressed, suppressed and even falsified. Imagination, dreams and past memory feel similar to the mind.
Memory repression, false memories, and amplified memories (vividly repeating a traumatic experience) can be a result of trauma, leading to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Repression And Memory

Repression was the first defense mechanism identified by Freud. This process is thought to hide upsetting things from conscious awareness.

How Does Repression Work in Our Unconscious Mind?

Studies have shown that having breakfast can boost concentration and memory, and it also plays an important part in blood glucose regulation.But despite the media hype, there’s no clear-cut link, for example, between breakfast and body weight, blood pressure, or cholesterol.

The benefits of having breakfast are not that obvious

<ul><li>Use a healthy oil, or grill it, and don’t go overboard on portion size. </li><li>A bit of bacon every now and then is fine, just remove as much fat as you can. </li><li>Baked beans are fantastic in the morning, so are eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes.</li></ul>

Having a healthy fry-up

<ul><li>Read the labels of cereals. For some, sugar makes up more than a third of the total content. A low-sugar product contains less than 5g of sugar per 100g.</li><li>Go for low-sugar, fiber-filled cereals, like Weetabix, oats, and bran flakes.</li><li>Muesli, although healthy, is calorie-dense, so watch the portion size. </li></ul>

Many breakfast cereals are loaded with sugar

Many juices contain the same amount of sugar as cola, but we don’t realise this. Go for tea and a piece of fruit, like an orange.

Breakfast choices: tea vs juices

<h4>Breakfast doesn't kick-start your metabolism. </h4><h4>Metabolism increases naturally when you get up in the morning and after you eat any meal. It doesn’t have to be breakfast.</h4>

Breakfast myth: kick-starting your metabolism

<ul><li>Skipping breakfast has been linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. This could be because breakfast skippers tend to eat more later in the day when our bodies are more glucose intolerant.</li><li>People who skip breakfast tend to be lacking in key nutrients, such as fibre, iron and calcium.</li></ul>

Skipping breakfast

In the morning, do you crave a big fry-up, or prefer to just run out of the door? We get the coffee brewing and talk about breakfast with nutritionist Leonie Ruddick-Collins.