It is not the meal, it is the fuel
Most women over 60 grew up hearing that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Dr. Martin only half agrees. On this episode he says the first meal is important, but not because of the meal itself and not because you have to eat it. It is important because of what goes into it.
His word for food is fuel. Put the right fuel in the tank and your energy holds steady through the morning. Put in the wrong one and you feel it within a couple of hours. And in his view there is no middle ground at the breakfast table.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616It's what you're eating at that meal and there's really nothing neutral. It's either really good for you or it's really bad for you.
Why a carb breakfast leaves you tired
He describes sugar as something your body will not leave sitting in the bloodstream. When it rises, your pancreas sends insulin rushing to the scene to get it out, out, out. Use it as energy right away or store it as fat. The faster a food turns to sugar, the harder that rush, and the harder the drop that comes after it.
This is the part most people feel without knowing the name for it. You eat a bowl of oatmeal at seven, you feel fine at eight, and by half past nine you are tired, foggy and hungry again. He walks through exactly that:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616Let's say they have oatmeal, blood sugar spikes. Blood sugar must come down, comes down your blood sugar comes way down. You know what happens? You're hungry again.
Children show it as agitation and lack of focus, he says, and teachers know it well. Adults are more likely to show it as tiredness. He names it directly as one of the short term effects of the wrong fuel:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616But a lot of adults short term will experience fatigue because the fluctuations in blood sugar, it's amazing. They get fatigue.
He adds brain fog to the same list, and he says the swings can touch sleep, the immune system and hormones as well. Many women, he says, notice their hormones settle quite quickly once the sugar comes out. If you are tired all the time and you start every day with toast or cereal, that is the first place he would look. The wider picture of why energy runs low after 60 is in chronic fatigue in women over 60.
The breakfasts he would cross off
He does not soften this list. Oatmeal gets, in his words, a big X through it, and he is ready for the objection that steel cut oats are different. He says they have done the testing, and the blood sugar still skyrockets because oats turn to sugar rapidly.
Then he works down the rest of a typical North American breakfast:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616You don't want to start your day with any cereal. You don't want to start your day with a granola bar. A lot of people do. You don't want to start your day with toast.
The English muffin is on the same list, and so is bread in general. A bagel sits in the same bread group. Muffins get their own line: he says a carrot muffin can carry eight teaspoons of sugar, so it is really a cake. The sweetened cereals in the middle aisles of the grocery store are the worst of the lot, because many are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, which he calls the worst sugar there is.
"Food becomes your medicine."
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616What he would put on your plate
Here is the answer to the question in the title. It is the breakfast his grandmother would have recognised.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616If you make a better choice in the morning. Eggs, bacon and eggs, sausages and eggs. My grandmother liked steak and eggs. Ham and eggs, far better.
Protein and fat do not turn to sugar rapidly, so there is no big spike and no big crash. Insulin, as he puts it, gets a holiday. That is why a plate of eggs and meat tends to carry you through to lunch when a bowl of cereal does not.
He is generous with the rest of the plate too. Butter up your eggs, butter up your meat. Good dairy is welcome, and he names plain Greek yogurt as fine. Cheese fits. Milk he does not like, unless it is the cow in the backyard kind. And he practises what he says: he has not had cereal for breakfast in 50 years, and he calls himself a creature of habit. Pick the protein you like and eat it, he says. Habit does the rest.
If you are coming off years of toast and cereal, he warns the first week can feel rough. Your body has been running on glucose, and switching fuel takes some getting used to. That passes. Eating this way is also the base of how he handles insulin resistance, covered in insulin resistance in women over 60.
The coffee question
He wants coffee with that breakfast. He calls coffee a natural metformin, his shorthand for a drink he believes helps regulate blood sugar. He says he has no problem with berberine either, but he likes coffee. There is one condition:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616Now, don't ruin your coffee with sugar. You're ruining it, okay?
Tea is fine too, he says. Same rule: leave the sugar out of the cup.
Can you skip breakfast after 60?
Yes, if it suits you. He does not insist that everyone eats first thing.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1616If you feel good and you can do intermittent fasting and only eat at 10 o'clock in the morning or only eat at noon, good for you. And I mean that, good for you.
His one exception is diabetes. Diabetics usually cannot go without, he says. They have to eat. For them, and for anyone who does eat in the morning, the rule is the same: when you do eat, make it protein and fat, not something that turns to sugar in minutes.
So what are you having for breakfast? His answer, to close the episode: bacon and eggs, no toast.
Common questions
What is the best breakfast for energy after 60?
Dr. Martin's answer is eggs with bacon, sausage, ham or steak, with butter if you like, and a coffee without sugar. Protein and fat do not spike your blood sugar, so there is no crash later in the morning.
Is oatmeal a good breakfast for older women?
Not in his view. He says even steel cut oats turn to sugar rapidly, your blood sugar skyrockets and then comes down hard, and you end up hungry and tired again.
Why am I tired after breakfast?
If breakfast was cereal, toast, a muffin or oatmeal, he points to the blood sugar swing. Sugar goes up, insulin rushes in, sugar crashes down, and fatigue and brain fog follow.
Is yogurt a good breakfast?
He has no problem with plain Greek yogurt, and he loves good dairy. Milk he does not want people drinking.
Is it okay to skip breakfast after 60?
Yes, if you feel good doing it. He is fine with eating first at 10 or at noon. Diabetics usually cannot skip, he says, and need to eat.
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