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Weight
Loss Planning
- A Good Start
Diets are
a dime a dozen- some very well-founded, many just plain ridiculous
(how many of your neighbors and co-workers have found the secret to a
perfect body without exercising with the latest diet craze?). But I
challenge anyone to argue two basic golden rules to eating well: Eat
your vegetables and eat a good breakfast. For those of you who want a
"quick fix" to their weight control issues, this is it!
Accomplish these two things and you are well on your way to your
personal goal.
Break
Fast
Break down the word "breakfast" and it will reveal its
importance. When most people eat in the morning, they are breaking the
fast that occurred through the night while sleeping (unless you work
graveyard shifts). This is your first chance to re-fuel your body and
start the day off right - don't blow it with a high fat, creamy mocha
caramel coffee drink and a gooey pastry. While you were sleeping, your
body was preparing to wake up and start the new day. Hormones are busy
producing chemicals to get you going, raise your blood sugar, and kick
off the day. For most people, the changes in blood sugar are within a
normal, variable range and it's a natural process that occurs. Others,
who have diabetes, may have very high blood sugar levels when they
wake up, mostly due to these hormonal responses that don't go
unchecked. Either way, it's important to start the day off with a good
tank of fuel - not junk!
Timing is Everything
There are several important reasons for spreading out your
foods throughout the day rather than eating a few large meals. The
importance of breakfast has been shown in several feeding studies, and
the relevance to most of you is:
-
people
who only eat one to two meals a day tend to have more body fat (as
measured by skinfold thickness - the "gold standard" for
body fat measurement)
-
people
who eat large meals versus spreading out the same amount of food
throughout the day tend to have higher blood cholesterol levels
than those who eat frequent, small meals.
-
skipping
breakfast, eating a very small breakfast, and not varying
breakfast foods is associated with greater body fat.
Mix it up
Now that we're all convinced to get up a little earlier to sit
down and enjoy a good breakfast, what is a good breakfast anyway? The
classic cereal and milk is o.k. (high fiber, low sugar, low fat cereal
and skim milk!), and eating something is better than skipping
breakfast altogether, but a little variety might be nice. Ideally,
breakfast should supply about 25% of your calories, if you consider
eating 3 meals plus 2-3 smaller snacks so that you're spreading out
your calories. Here are some thoughts on planning a good breakfast:
-
Eat a
piece of fruit rather than drinking juice. Whole fruit contains
more fiber and is more filling. Many fruit juices have sugar added
and they are high in "empty" calories.
-
Eat a
combination of fat, protein, and carbohydrate at breakfast so that
your meal can help provide energy throughout the morning.
-
Fruit
smoothies (made with non-fat yogurt, berries, bananas, skim milk)
are quick. If you're trying to gain weight, it's a pretty
concentrated source of energy and you can some powdered protein to
it. If you're trying to lose weight, just watch the total amount
that you drink and stay within your calorie level. Do not add
raw egg to these drinks - it's a high risk for salmonella.
Outside
the Box
For those of you who tend to overeat on their carbohydrates (this
is very easy to do on a weight loss plan), it's tempting to skip
breakfast to save on carbs. Don't skip, but do reduce your
carbohydrates and add other foods at breakfast. Think outside
the box (in this case the cereal box) at breakfast, and try other
foods. If you have a nutritious, low fat meal the night before for
dinner, there's nothing wrong with having the same thing at breakfast
the next day. Soup, salads, a mix of cold brown rice, fruit, and nuts,
muesli, some cold salmon or tuna on toast, a vegetable omelet (one egg
w/mostly vegetables) with one piece of toast are all good energy
boosters. The key is to get a good start on the day by having a good
breakfast.
Try my
FREE PersonalDiets Profile & Analysis - Click Here
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