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A Better You
by Jo Ann
Fore
Breakfast:
The Secret Weight Loss Tool
"Never work before breakfast; if you
have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first."
~Josh Billings
Our
obsession with losing weight is nothing new. What
is new to many is the actual benefit of eating a
healthy breakfast, and what it can do for our weight
loss. We all know we aren’t supposed to skip
breakfast – we hear all the time how it’s “the
most important meal of the day.” But do we
believe it?
If
you want to lose weight, you’d
better believe it.
Researchers
from the National Weight Control Registry reported
that eating breakfast was an important weight control
strategy. "Most -- 78% -- reported eating breakfast
every day, and almost 90% reported eating breakfast
at least five days a week - which suggests that starting
the day with breakfast is an important strategy to
lose weight and keep it off," says James O. Hill,
PhD, of the Center for
Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center.
Eating
breakfast prepares our body for the day. If, like
most people, you went to bed before midnight last
night, and got up sometime around 8:00 a.m., it’s
probably been 10 hours or more since you ate. That
was the last time your body received any of the fuel
it needs to run on. If you were in a hurry this morning,
and skipped breakfast, you deprived your body of the
nutrients it needs to perform at full capacity for
you. Your metabolism kicks in to overcome the deprivation.
It’s a fact: The body needs food to run on. When
it doesn’t get what it needs, it thinks it’s
starving. So, the next time you do give it what it
needs – your next meal – it holds onto
that and stores the majority of it as fat to use as
energy when it needs it later on in the day.
If
you are counting calories and skip breakfast in an
attempt to eat less, you’re actually sabotaging your
efforts. Again, uncertain of when the next meal is
coming, your body will store the majority of what it
receives as fat for later use. And, to compensate for
the absence of one meal, you usually end up overeating
at your next meal anyway. Or worse, you give into temptation
before you make it to your next meal.
Your
metabolism can be trained to work for you. When you
give your body breakfast each day, it recognizes
the consistency of receiving food. It is then free
to release the nutrients, and fats, to do the work
the body needs.
A
healthy breakfast provides you with carbohydrates
to get you going, and proteins to keep you going.
Choose foods high in quality protein, and fiber.
Like whole wheat bread, fiber rich cereals, oatmeal,
cream of wheat, peanut butter, yogurt, milk, eggs,
cheese, or even a healthy trail mix. One of my favorites
for a quick-fix breakfast is a slice of whole wheat
toast, two tablespoons of peanut butter and a banana
sliced on top. Delicious and nutritious.
WIN,
Weight Control Information Network, an information
service of the National Institute of Diabetes and
Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK),
offers these quick breakfast ideas:
» low-fat
yogurt sprinkled with low-fat granola
» oatmeal
with low-fat or fat-free milk, or soy-based beverage · whole-wheat
toast with a thin spread of peanut butter
» fruit
smoothie made with frozen fruit, low-fat yogurt, and
juice
» low-sugar
cereal with soy-based beverage
Check
out these links for some additional breakfast recipes:
http://www.mrbreakfast.com/category.asp?categoryid=1
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,healthy_breakfast_ideas,FF.html
http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=14605
Remember,
losing weight isn’t always about limitations.
Eat a big, healthy breakfast: It can be the most important
meal of the day for those who want to lose weight.
Jo
Ann Fore welcomes your comments about this article or suggestions
for material you would like to see in future articles.
Email her at: JoAnnFore@msn.com. A
Better You is published every Saturday.
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