TIPS
1. First thing in the morning, drink 1-2 glasses of water. We are all dehydrated when we wake up.
2. Eat breakfast. When you skip breakfast, you will become calorie deficient and usually will end up binging later in the day.
3. Try to eat something with protein and carbs.
BREAKFAST SUGGESTIONS
1. Oatmeal with either bananas, walnuts and cinnamon or with berries. Or both!
- When choosing oatmeal, try to buy the rolled oats. These are usually minimally processed and 100% oats. No judgment if you use quick cooking oats though (although, they are really not as good for you as rolled ;)
- Not only does Oatmeal have lots of nutrients, but it has soluble fiber, which is excellent for your colon health!
2. Rice Porridge
- I had never tried this until I started going to school at IIN. All you do is take leftover cooked brown rice - about 3 cups, and simmer it in any kind of milk (I like almond milk) for about 10-15 minutes. Eat it with fruit, nuts, cinnamon and even a little maple syrup. So good! Plus, you get all the fiber, vitamins and minerals from the brown rice.
3. Mega Cereal
- We recently watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives - it is SO good and SO informative. I really recommend it. Anyway, we started learning about the Engine 2 Diet. Rip Esselstyn suggested making a high protein cereal. He mixed UNfrosted Mini Wheats, Uncle Sam's Cereal (a wheat and flax cereal), grapenuts, rolled oats, or any other sugar free whole grain cereal. Ezekiel has a good one too. He added banana, berries, raisins, and walnuts (and a few other fruits). We make our own at home. It's a huge bowl of cereal but ALL nutritious and filling. He claims it has about 35 grams of protein. Animal product free! That's pretty awesome. It really fills you up.
- Skip the wheat cereal if you have a gluten sensitivity.
4. Eggs and Whole Grain Toast
- If you eat animal products, eggs are always a good choice. My hubby would always make scrambled eggs and just take a couple of the yolks out. Try it with whole grain sprouted bread like Ezekiel. It's sold in the freezer section. It's pretty amazing. I'm obsessed with their bread.
5. Green Smoothie
- MMmmmmm. Add anything green from your fridge. I like Kale, strawberries, banana, ice - blend it up and drink. You can also add avocado, berries, juice. Make it however you like it - the important thing is that you're eating your green vegetables. It's a quick and easy and surprisingly good way to get your leafy green vegetables in!!
Let me know if anyone has any other good suggestions! So far, these work well for us.
Oh, one other fun little experiment for those of you who are interested in the mood-food connection : )
The Breakfast Experiment (from Rosenthal's Integrative Nutrition)
-this is a way to tune into your body and learn how to listen to its messages. Eat a different breakfast each day for a week and jot down what you eat, how you feel both right after the meal and then again in two hours.
Day 1: Scrambled eggs
Day 2: Scrambled tofu
Day 3: Oatmeal
Day 4: Boxed breakfast cereal
Day 5: Muffin and coffee
Day 6: Fresh fruit
Day 7: Fresh vegetables
You can expand on this and do it throughout your day during meals, too.
I eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast with a few strawberries and sometimes a banana. I also add cinnamon. I swear by it, after a week of consistently eating this my sugars are more stabalized and it keeps me full until lunch time. I also bought the 7 sprouted ezekiel bread and it actually is good!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! So glad you like the oatmeal and the Ezekiel bread!
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