SELF magazine even has a dietitian blogging her daily meals at http://www.self.com/fooddiet/blogs/eatlikeme
While I won't blog an exhaustive food diary...I thought I would I would start with the most important meal of the day...breakfast! This is a meal that most of us don't do well: a little special k and out the door, or worse - nothing more than an americano on the way to work! Research released last year looked at the metabolic powers of a good breakfast: researchers put women on low calorie diets and for breakfast, either gave them a standard mostly carb breakfast, ringing in at about 300 calories or fed them half their daily calories (600!) as a breakfast with plenty of healthy carbs, protein, fat and even a piece of chocolate.
Guess who lost more! The big breakfast eaters...by a huge margin!
Why? Overnight, our bodies are fasting and by the time we wake up we have some starving brain cells on our hands and peak levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. If we don't give our bodies what they need, those stress hormones don't go anywhere - wreaking havoc on blood sugar and energy levels throughout the day.
No time for a full breakfast? Try my favourite smoothie recipe:
1 cup natural So Nice soymilk
1 cup plain non fat organic yogurt like Liberte
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 banana
1 scoop berry Vega powder (a vegan supplement with protein, fibre and vitamins and minerals)
This takes 60 seconds to whip up, stash in a to go cup so you can get out the door (just watch the blueberry skins in your teeth when you get to work - embarrassing!). It contains roughly 450 calories, 33 grams of protein, fibre - 3 servings of fruit, including a dose of antioxidant rich berries and probiotics!
Okay folks...that's a power breakfast!
