Breakfast gets you moving and starts your day the right way. Multiple

studies suggest that breakfast can benefit your day, and your life overall.

First, eating a meal two hours after you wake up makes you metabolize glucose from food differently throughout the day. Glucose is taken from your pancreas to your cells to produce energy. When people have breakfast, their blood glucose levels are more even throughout the day. Without eating breakfast glucose levels spike and lower hourly.

Second, breakfast eaters tend to eat healthier throughout the day. They consume more fruits, veggies and whole grains. Skipping breakfast can cause higher “hunger hormones” influencing a person to overeat during their next meal.

Eating breakfast can also help with learning! There is a direct relationship be-tween breakfast and school performance. It can enhance memory, attention span, cognition and even creativity.

Some schools even participate in be-fore school breakfast plans, like USDA’s Breakfast Program. These programs make breakfast available to all students. As a result, it can keep kids on track to perform at their grade level of education. Try something new and sit down for breakfast tomorrow. See how it changes your day!

I. HATE. BREAKFAST. Many people have tried to tell me that breakfast is the

best meal of the day, but I am not con-vinced.

Being on the dance team and arriving at school long before the sun rises does not allow time for breakfast. It is a major inconvenience, and I am not a fan. Eating so early in the morning leads to a painful stomach-ache all day.

Yes, breakfast gives you energy early in the morning, but I do not need the energy boost when I’m already up and active. When I get up for the day, I am wide awake.

Now, moving on to the food itself: Besides bacon, breakfast food is nasty.

The taste is not appealing, and I seriously hate anything sticky. Pancakes and waffles are way too doughy. Cereal is weird and soggy. Fruit is okay, but it is sort of bland. Sausages might be the grossest food ever; they are squishy, chewy and icky. I strongly dislike cin-namon rolls mostly because Shannon McSweeney enjoys them.

Do not even get me started on eggs. Eggs are disgusting in every way, they should not be so floppy. I’m not here for that. I respect people who like breakfast, but I will never be one of them.

Pancakes? Sign me up. Breakfast is the fan favorite, the star, those other

two meals are just placeholders between breakfasts. It’s literally called “The Most Important Meal of the Day.” From syrupy chocolate chip waffles to classic scram-bled eggs and toast, breakfast is appealing to all kinds of tastes.

Cereal is my personal favorite, because it’s delicious, has so many options and, maybe this is just my sweet tooth talking, it is also good to eat at anytime of day (fact: Frosted Flakes taste best as a midnight snack). In fact, I love cereal so much that my homecoming date asked me to the dance with a box of Lucky Charms.

Breakfast is even good on the go, just grab a cinnamon Pop-Tart or a banana and be on your way. In my years of schooling, I have perfected the classic “grab n’ go” for a quick fix of food.

Whether you’re a fruit fanatic or a pan-cake person, there’s a breakfast food for everyone. So, tomorrow morning, “donut” be sad, be “egg-cited”, because there’s a world of breakfast for you to discover.

In Parks and Recreation, my spir-it animal and life coach Leslie Knope said,“‘Why would anybody ever eat any-thing besides breakfast food?” and Ron Swanson responded, “People are idiots, Leslie.’”

I have a confession: I put a whole slab of unsalted butter in my coffee every

morning, along with a big ol’ spoonful of medium chain triglycerides (MCT Oil). MCT are healthy fats that promote optimal brain function and kick hunger in the tush.

The mornings are busy, and my solution to this momentous waste of time was to enjoy butter coffee as my morning sustenance instead of a large breakfast. I do not consume any type of food in the morning; yet I am still capable of func-tioning and performing everyday tasks without the inconvenience of a large breakfast weighing me down.

This butter coffee idea is from a mad scientist, Dave Asprey, who created and designed something called the Bulletproof Diet. The science behind this fatty coffee breakfast is based on your body’s state of ketosis. Ketosis is your body’s optimal state of fat burning. Your body reaches this state through intermittent fasting, e.g., eating butter coffee in the morning and then proceeding to eat a lunch full of meat and vegetables.

While the act of enjoying butter coffee may seem rather odd, I have experienced increased energy, a clearer mind and better yet, I have not had to deal with the inconvenience that is breakfast.

Don’t go bacon my heart, I couldn’t if I fried:

shannonmcsweeney, hailierydel, maggieprosser & katherinemartingraphics by

shannonmcsweeney

The great breakfast debate

To some sports fans, golf isn’t exactly known as the most

exciting sport around. Many peo-ple assume it’s mostly soft clap-ping and staying quiet during tee off. The Marian golf team proves this stereotype wrong.

“We have a lot of fun, and meets are always exciting,” sophomore Chloe Herbert said. Herbert has been a part of the junior varsity golf team since her freshman year.

Even though she’s only been on the team for two years, she still knows all about the team’s traditions.

“We have a team get-together before the season starts, and we always watch ‘The Short Game,’ it’s this movie about little kids

playing golf. We love it,” Her-bert said.

The team is coached by head coach Mr. Robert Davis and as-sistant coach Ms. Connie Cavel. Cavel does everything she can to help the team, including blessing everyone before an invite.

“If we don’t have time to say a prayer, Ms. Cavel walks around the course and does a lit-tle blessing over all of us before we start,” Herbert said.

Even the most exciting sports have a hard time making practice more exciting than just repetitive drills, but the coaches find a way to make it fun, while helping improve each girl’s skills.

“Every practice ends with a game, with teams of golfers

trying to chip or putt for points. The teams that reach their points get to leave, while the other golfers have to stay and keep going,” Coach Davis said.

The golf team is a tight-knit group of 10 girls in all, and they say they love it when the Marian community comes to invites and tournaments and supports them.

The team doesn’t always get a huge student section because they compete on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The team makes up for it by supporting each other and trying their hardest to get the lowest score, because medals and trophies aren’t the only prize for winning an invite; the team

ends their competition by getting a victory snack.

“When we play well as a

team, coaches take the golfers to Dairy Queen for Blizzards,” Davis said.

Groovin’ on the Green; Marian golf team is far from sub ‘par’shannonmcsweeney

state golfNorfolk Country Club:

Oct. 9: Girls Varsity StateOct. 10: Girls Varsity State

Good luck at State,

Go Crusaders!

Freshman fairway Maddie Fitzgibbons stands after hitting. She competed at Benson Park in the JV Dual against Millard West on Sept. 24. Photo courtesy of Allison Martin.

BASKETBALL tryouts begin on:

Wednesday, Nov. 1: Varsity District Tournament Thursday, Nov. 9: Varsity State TournamentFriday, Nov. 10: Varsity State TournamentSaturday, Nov. 11: Varsity State Championship

Volleyball state

Monday, Nov. 13: Time is to be determined. Contact Mr. Cunningham for more info.pcunningham@omahamarian.org

Monday, Nov. 13Tuesday, Nov. 14 Contact Mr. Christiansen for more info. bjchristiansen@omahamarian.org

Wednesday, Nov. 1: Final Preseason meeting at 6:45am in the West Gym. This is a mandatory meeting for everyone interested.

Mandatory Meeting:

Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln SWIMMING tryouts are scheduled for:

Calling all potential basketball players and swimmers

Class AHeadline WritingOmaha MarianShannon McSweeney

At any given time, if you ask a Marian girl how she is feeling, chances are

she will respond with “stressed”. Mari-an is a school that prides itself on high standards and high achievement. They don’t call it a college preparatory school for nothing. But is being in a place where some students consider a B a bad grade healthy?

Our environment constantly pushes us to go the extra mile, to try a little bit hard-er and to value our achievements above our mental health. The overachiever cul-ture at Marian is a good thing- to a point. Participating in extracurriculars helps students find what they love and become a better leader, but overextending oneself to try to do it all leads to little sleep and lots of tears.

We have conditioned ourselves to

always compete with one another as a way of validation, from comparing grades in a class to asking people what they got on their ACT. Marian students need to realize that it doesn’t matter what someone else’s score is, because if we tried our best, we accomplished something.

Yes, this sounds cheesier than maca-

roni day, but prioritizing mental health is just as important as being prepared for college. Plenty of girls at Marian are

overachievers. They play sports, take AP classes, help with performing arts, are in every club and somehow get straight A’s.

While these girls may seem like CIA cyborgs, they are real people with real feelings. Being perfect all the time is exhausting, so overachievers need to know that taking a break once in awhile is okay, and helps to ease their stressful

workload. We are all very blessed to go to Marian and receive a great education.

We should take advantage of this opportunity and try to challenge ourselves and participate as often as we can. We should strive to prepare ourselves for college and take tests seriously.

But we also need to remember that school isn’t the only important thing in our lives. Studying for a math test is super important, but that doesn’t mean you should skip family dinner to learn about parabolas.

A healthy balance between school and life is necessary, and even if that means we aren’t overachievers, we are still achievers, and that’s just as good.

Staff Editorial: C’s get degrees

“ “We have conditioned ourselves to always compete with one another as a way of validation, from comparing grades in a class to asking people what they got on their ACT.

-Network Staff

The NeTwork

STaff ediTorial