By: Leah Hechtman, Naturopath and Educator
From a metabolic perspective, our metabolism needs a 'kick start' in the morning and needs to be stimulated so that proper digestion and metabolic processes can easily occur throughout the day. The easiest and most important strategy to start your day well is to eat foods that are balanced. I often tell this theory to students and patients "What you start your day with is what you end your day with - i.e. start your day with sweet foods and you'll be sure that for the rest of the day you'll be trying to reach that sugar high". In simple terms this means start your day with complex carbohydrates, adequate protein and good quality essential fatty acids and you'll be sure to get your metabolism right. Foods to encourage for breakfast Complex carbohydrates: Essential fatty acids: Protein, protein and more protein! Foods to avoid for breakfast Sugar in any form: Other blood sugar de-stabilisers: Conclusion If you can't jump into grilled salmon and green vegetables just yet, start by making small changes. For example, instead of having jam on toast replace the bread with a wholegrain variety and add some nut butter underneath the jam to add more protein and stabilise your response. Eventually your palate with change and you'll be more adventurous with breakfast. We've somehow been programmed to think that breakfast has to be sweet but once you've made the switch everything in your day will get better - concentration, mood, energy levels and overall general wellbeing. Enjoy! Copyright Leah Hechtman, 2009 P: 1300 78 70 66 E: [email protected] W: www.naturalhealthfertility.com CommentsMyron Apr 2 2010 7:12AM Interesting article. Pity the 'food coach' only allows the 1st page of any article to print out. If the article is longer than one page, or there are a string of 'comments' on popular articles then that is too bad, as you can't recover the extra information with your printer. |
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I decided that it would be beneficial to actually talk about the benefits of each meal to help people plan their daily requirements. We often talk about breakfast being the most important meal, but why is that the case? What is breakfast or each other meal actually meant for? In my next few articles, I will be discussing the importance of each meal. The benefit of working with such a great team at The Food Coach is that these articles will be staggered throughout the year. This will help you to make positive changes in an approach that is realistic and maintainable. Each time you read the next instalment, you can then implement the next level of change and eventually your diet will have had a complete overhaul - great news all round!