Breakfast

A trend I’ve consistently noticed after working with judoka of all ages and experience levels across the US is this: skipping breakfast.

Having breakfast is one of the simplest ways to improve your overall nutrition, energy levels, and hunger management later in the day. As a judoka, your nutrition needs are pretty high! Many of you are balancing school or a full-time job, along with heavy randori sessions, technical sessions, strength training and cardio training throughout the week. It becomes difficult to meet your energy (calorie) and protein needs when you eliminate an entire meal.

You may be thinking, “Look, that sounds nice and all but I need to lose weight. I’m not  hungry in the morning, and I don’t have time to make breakfast anyway.” I get it. Skipped meal = calorie deficit = weight loss, right?

On top of that,  you’ve been carrying the burden of needing to lose weight while training a high-intensity sport by a specific deadline-sometimes sitting 2, 3…even 6 kg over the cutoff (yes… that was me, even after moving up a weight category). It becomes a cycle you get stuck in. It can feel impossible to lose weight while eating consistently, so you just suck it up, suffer and cut something out. Judo is a tough sport and you can’t win without sacrificing- if  it was easy, everyone would do it. That was my mentality. 

After 10 years of studying nutrition, I ask you this:

Are you getting progressively hungrier and overeating later in the day?
Is your eating starting to feel uncontrollable?
Are you often craving calorie-dense foods like pastries, ice cream, or just a huge bowl of pasta/rice?
How is your performance by the time practice starts at the end of the day?
Are you focusing more on your weight than preparing physically and mentally for competition?
Do you wonder if there is a better way?

A version of you that can step onto the mat, bow in, and face your opponent fully prepared- physically and mentally.

Dietitians who were former combat sport athletes will answer with a resounding YES, there is a better way.

This niche group is very passionate about sharing what we wish we had known during our competitive years. Not for attention or “clout”- many of us are introverts-but because we understand the impact. It’s like when a coach helps you tweak your Tai Otoshi and everything clicks, and you can’t wait to share that knowledge back at your home dojo. Or when you try this new sushi spot that is fire and you just cannot wait to tell your foodie friends. When you’ve carried the physical and mental burden of cutting weight, it’s hard not to want to share a better way to fuel with others doing the sport that you love. 

Back to breakfast.

Let’s say you had a tough practice the night before and went to bed hungry because you were exhausted and figured it would help with weight loss. Not only are you depriving your body of the nutrition needed to recover and rebuild, but you’ve gone 7-8 hours without eating. Your body is using energy overnight to maintain basic functions.

Then comes morning practice, which requires glycogen stores, mental sharpness, endurance and strength.

If you skip breakfast, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage before the day even begins. This creates a gap in performance that no high-performing athlete can afford if they want to reach their highest potential. Plus, you just feel terrible.

Over time, this pattern can contribute to more serious issues such as relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), which affects hormones, immunity, bone density, fatigue, menstrual cycle (in woman), hormones, and growth/development (in younger athletes), among other things.

Flashback to my younger competitive self: mentally tough, driven, intense- able to push through anything. I believed I could get through anything and that suffering was required to succeed. But I was wrong.

My body had limits, and I kept running into them—injuries, fatigue, and poor performance at camps. While the body can occasionally push beyond its limits, consistently expecting it to do so without proper fuel is not sustainable.

No fuel in the tank means no road trip. You might be able to push the car for a while, but eventually, you need to stop and refuel if you want to get where you’re going efficiently.

I’ll go deeper into building balanced meals in another post, but for now, here are the basics for your morning plate:

• A carbohydrate (ex. toast, ½ cup oatmeal, pancake)
• A protein (ex. 1-2 eggs, 6 oz Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, milk/soymilk)
• A serving of fat (ex. 1/4 avocado, 1 tbsp of olive oil, slice of cheese)
• A plant/fiber source (ex. fruit or veggies in an omelette) 

If you have an early morning practice and you can’t stomach a meal- at minimum have a  simple carbohydrate snack for quick energy, then follow up with a balanced breakfast afterward.

You can also train your stomach to get used to eating breakfast- give it time and don’t give up right away!

Having a grab-and-go breakfast option ready for busy mornings helps. One of  my go-to options: 

• Chobani yogurt (protein)
• Granola bar (carbohydrate)
• Boiled Egg (protein + fat)
• A cutie mandarin (carbohydrate + fiber) 

This provides approximately: 429 calories, 25 gm protein, 57 gm carbohydrates and 10 gm fat. 

This works for me. I am about 70 kg, female and not training heavily. Nutrition is individualized, which is where planning and trying out different strategies with a combat-sport informed dietitian may help. Factors such as training load, age, weight category, digestive tolerance, food preferences, and budget all influence what works best. A heavyweight male who is 22 years old will definitely need a more substantial meal, while a 48 kg female who’s going straight to judo practice in the morning would swap some of the protein and fat for carbs.

If there’s one thing daily that I don’t play about with my nutrition, it’s breakfast (and coffee, but that’s another story).

Give breakfast a real chance. It has made a measureable difference for many of my clients, and it has the potential to be a simple and effective game-changer for yourself as well!