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Health & Fitness

What's for Breakfast?

People skip breakfast thinking they're cutting calories, but by mid-morning and lunch, they're starved.

What's for breakfast -- coffee? Most mornings, we barely glance at the kitchen. Fixing breakfast takes up precious time that's in short supply. But there's ample evidence that the simple act of eating breakfast -- every day -- is a big part of losing weight, lots of weight.

People skip breakfast thinking they're cutting calories, but by mid-morning and lunch, they're starved.  Breakfast skippers replace calories during the day with mindless nibbling, bingeing at lunch and dinner. They set themselves up for failure.

Research suggests that having a big breakfast with carbohydrates and lean protein, and even a piece of chocolate, will help keep your appetite in check all day and help you lose weight.

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And yet another study was done. But this one I tend to agree with.

The study compared sedentary, obese women eating a big breakfast containing carbs with sedentary, obese women eating a low-carbohydrate breakfast.

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Results showed that at the end of the eight-month trial, women eating the big breakfast lost an average of almost 40 pounds, while the low-carb breakfast group lost only nine pounds on average. Research was done at Virginia Commonwealth University,

Here's an example of a high-carbohydrate, high-protein breakfast:

A cup of coffee with cream, two 8-ounce glasses of milk, three slices of roast beef, chicken breast or turkey breast, two slices of cheese, and two slices of whole grain bread plus a pat of butter.

And here's an example of the low-carbohydrate breakfast: Three slices of cooked pork bacon, one egg, two teaspoons of butter, coffee with no milk, four ounces of 1 percent milk.

So how does it help?

It reduces hunger: Eating breakfast may reduce your hunger later in the day, which may make it easier to avoid overeating. When you skip breakfast, you may feel ravenous later and be tempted to reach for a quick fix

It allows you to make healthier choices:  Eating breakfast may get you on track to make healthy choices all day. When you eat breakfast, you tend to eat a healthier overall diet, one that is more nutritious and lower in fat. When you skip breakfast, you're more likely to skip fruits and vegetables the rest of the day, too.

It will give you more energy:  Eating breakfast may give you energy, increasing your physical activity during the day. A healthy breakfast refuels your body and replenishes the glycogen stores that supply your muscles with immediate energy.

So start planning your breakfast…oh did I tell you that planning is another great KEY to weight loss?  I’ll have more on that in another blog.

Wellness Matters for Life

Life Coach Doug

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