Breakfast and contract bridge are two topics that you might not see typed into search engines very often, but they are far more related than people would think.

If you or your bridge partner have been lacking in ability at the table, consider the wild idea that what you had for breakfast could have something to do with it. Diet is linked to daily functionality, nutritional, and how well the brain and body takes to its environment.

Feeding your head? Make sure you’re feeding it the right stuff. When you don’t, it impacts your health, and backfires on your ability to play a decent bridge game.

See a dietary professional at least once every year. Make sure that your diet is right for your personal needs – and often, if anything is amiss, dietary experts can diagnose and treat the issue across a wide scope.

Here’s a look at bad breakfasts for bridge players – and essential information about how it can affect your game.

The fried breakfast

Fried breakfasts are popular in homes and restaurants worldwide. Usually, the fried component of the breakfast refers to eggs, tomatoes, rashers, sausages – and sometimes, depending on whom you ask about a traditional breakfast, more or less things on the plate.

Why It’s Bad:

The typical fried breakfast is fine on occasion, but there are reasons to avoid it before big games or too often. The biggest dangers are salt content, fat content, and cholesterol content – and the more you eat, the higher your risk of developing health risks.

Vary the fried breakfast, or alter how you make it to reduce the salt, fat, or potential cholesterol risk if you want a healthier choice.

The protein shake

Protein shakes are the default choice for many, and usually just because shakes are a convenient option. People also often assume that protein shakes “contain everything” that they might need nutritionally.

Why It’s Bad:

The protein shake isn’t a nutritional cure-all – and while it’s meant to supplement a healthy diet, never use it to replace one. Drink too many protein shakes, and your body might become intolerant instead, or you risk causing eventual organ damage due to an overload of minerals, salts, and other ingredients.

For your health, check with your doctor, and take it easy on too many nutritional drinks.

The standard fruit salad

The standard fruit salad doesn’t need much description to most people. Take whatever you have in the house, slice it into pieces as you prefer them, and then throw everything together in a bowl. Some people like it with additional things (like muesli or yoghurt), and others prefer it plain.

Why It’s Bad:

First, its potential sugar content. Fruit becomes sugars in the body, and it’s easy to drive your body to sugar intolerance (and possibly, conditions like diabetes) over time. Yoghurt and other additions can increase the sugar content, too.

Second, some combinations of fruit can (especially eventually) overwhelm your digestive system.

If your morning fruit salad feels like it’s starting to turn on you at the bridge tables, consider using different types of yoghurt or fruit to see if it makes a difference.

The night’s leftovers

Leftovers from last night’s food order are almost always great to keep around, and many people do. But when consuming last night’s take-out for breakfast, there are plenty of reasons why it’s a bad idea regardless of which type of take-out in question.

Why It’s Bad:

if you’ve never heard of take-out syndrome, stop right here and look it up.

When we get food from a restaurant, it’s been warmed up once. If it arrives cold, many people choose to warm it up twice.

Once we eat it, it gets exposed to environmental factors and cooled down again. If you warm it up again after this, you have left room for bacterial growth to start – and adding a mild amount of heat is not a good thing. Repetitive take-out warming is dangerous, and it’s a quick way to food poisoning.