You eat weird stuff for breakfast

I get told this quite often, it’s become a bit of a running joke.

I eat weird things for breakfast.

Or do I…?

The point of breakfast

Whether you love it or can’t really be bothered with it, everyone will tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Personally, I don’t believe this.

Every meal is important, and if you are focused on weight loss, every single meal is important to your success (or failure).

The arguments for breakfast are the usual things we’ve all heard before:

Wakes up your metabolism (fact: it never goes to sleep)
Gives you energy for the morning

And the one I love the most…

It sets you up for making good food choices for the rest of the day

^^^^ remember this point for later.

So you’ve decided to eat breakfast

Chances are you’re in a rush and you want something tasty.

Head to the cereal aisle.

From the healthy muesli bars to the colourful children’s cereal you’ll notice they all have one thing in common.

Sugar.
Lots of sugar.

Shreddies keeps hunger locked up til lunch!

Yes, if lunch is at 10am.

The govnerment has just introduced a sugar tax on sugary drinks, yet it’s seems perfectly acceptable to tell people to eat cereal first thing in the morning.

If you have cereal in your house at the moment, I urge you to go and read the ingredients and then tell me if you think that’s the good way to start your day.

But, this is what we’ve always had.

It might be the habit of your lifetime but traditionally this wasn’t what we ate.

Chances are that your great grandparents didn’t sit down to a bowl of coco pops or toast with Nutella at 7am.

In Scotland your quick traditional breakfast was porridge, either with sugar or with salt. You’d eat that and then go out for a hard days labour. Eating such a high carb breakfast was fine because we had a lot more physical activity.

(Not that you can substitute a good diet for being active)

Now we’re eating our high sugar breakfast and going off to sit down all day at a desk and try to focus on work.

Not only are the ingredients much poorer in comparison, but we have no need for this sugar burst.

If we’re active we’ll use the sugar to power our activity.

If our muscles need re-fuelling after exercise, the sugar will be sent there

If neither of these apply, insulin must take the sugar out of the blood steam and so it is stored for later, in the fat cells.

Suddenly we’re hungry again at 10am.

And that high sugar breakfast has us craving more sugar.

(These are the so called ‘healthy choices’ that our morning cereal helps us make)

But cereal is healthy…?

Is it?

Really stop and think, IS IT HEALTHY?

Why?

It contains no vitamins and minerals – except for those which are added afterwards

It contains little protein or essential fats

It contains no vegetables

its not just the presence of sugar, it’s the lack of anything else.

it doesn’t need to be multicoloured and full of marshmallows to be unhealthy.

When you eat cereal you might as well put 40g of sugar into a big glass of milk, drink it and then take a multivitamin.

Ok, no cereal. What should I eat for breakfast?

Almost, literally, anything else.

I want to encourage you to ditch what you know about breakfasts.

Ditch the idea that there is a specific time to eat.
A specific food to eat at a specific time.
Ditch the idea that you can’t eat salad for breakfast
Or a fry up for lunch.

Food is food is food.

And cereal is not food.

Aim for nutrient dense foods

Healthy fats
Animal proteins, fish, poultry, meat, eggs, organ meats if you’re brave enough
Vegetables
Fruits

All of these foods contain vitamins and minerals naturally.
They contain good quality fats, carbs and proteins that our bodies need to help keep us strong.
They make us feel amazing.
They keep us feeling full until our next meal.
They are good for our bones, muscles and brain.

So before you tell me I’m weird for eating chicken salad and guacamole for breakfast

ask yourself which is is more weird,

Real food?

or

Fake food?

Ainzlie “eat real food” McMaster

P.s – if you’re not sure how to start improving your diet, get in touch and let’s discuss it.

P.p.s – I will tell you to ditch the morning cereal, so be prepared.