One of the most proven ways to lose weight, regardless of whether you do any exercise that day or not (although here at Overland Park Boot Camp we sincerely hope you DO) is to sit down – or stand up – and eat breakfast.
We know, you don’t have time… you’re always half way out the door when you remember you shoulda had a bite of something. Well folks, quite simply, it’s time to make time.
Set your alarm ten minutes earlier and go to bed a little before normal.
Why are we nagging you about breakfast here at Overland Park Book Camp? Well, how about the results of a rather influential study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which showed that people who missed breakfast were heavier than those who didn’t!
Blood sugar remains steady
The most basic reason for this is that eating breakfast (provided it’s a nutritional one) keeps your blood sugar level steady which makes you less likely to snack on junk food such as biscuits or donuts around 11am or earlier.
Or, as Milton Stokes, RD, MPH, chief dietitian for St. Barnabas Hospital in New York City succinctly puts it: “People skip breakfast thinking they’re cutting calories, but by mid-morning and lunch, that person is starved.
“Breakfast skippers replace calories during the day with mindless nibbling, bingeing at lunch and dinner. They set themselves up for failure.”
Provides fuel for your metabolism
Because you’ve given your body fuel to be getting on with, your metabolism works at optimum efficiency, happily burning away all those calories you’ve just put into it – or basically just getting on with what it’s supposed to do.
Elisabetta Politi, RD, MPH, nutrition manager at Duke University Medical School explains: “When you don’t eat breakfast, you’re actually fasting for 15 to 20 hours, so you’re not producing the enzymes needed to metabolize fat to lose weight.”
Easy, healthy breakfasts
- One cup of oatmeal, 1/2lf cup of low-fat milk, 1 cup of sliced strawberries, and 1 tablespoon of walnuts
- Small tortilla with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and chopped strawberries. Roll it up, slice it
- Smoothie – made with any type of fruit eg blueberries and strawberries and mixed with natural yoghurt, low-fat milk and banana
- Bran waffle with two tablespoons of peanut butter and sesame seeds sprinkled on top
- Slice a hard-cooked egg and wrap it in a whole-wheat tortilla with a piece of bacon or lean ham and a few cubes or slices of cheese with a tablespoon of salsa
So what do you think? Sound good or have you any tastier suggestions to give us here at Overland Park Boot Camp?
