THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY?- Weight Loss Part 5

I once watched a YouTube video about organising your life to help you save time and one of the things this woman advised was to only eat two meals a day. Her theory was, if you skip breakfast you save on washing up and therefore save time. Yes, this is true, but this is about the only benefit that I can think of. I have heard that eating breakfast helps kick start your metabolism, but I don't know how true this is.

I used to be one of those people that didn't eat breakfast. Starving by mid-morning I would often end up taking a trip to the vending machine for a bag of crisps. So, I was in fact having crisps for breakfast... Then lunch was often quite a large carbtastic meal, which, more often than not, resulted in the 3pm slump. Something many office workers can relate to I'm sure.

I'm not very good in the mornings, in fact I'd rather stay in bed as long as possible, get up and out the door in a mad rush. At least that's what I would tell myself most mornings. As a result, I'm never hungry first thing. I need to be up for about an hour before I can eat. I tried once and it took me half an hour to eat just one slice of toast...

When I started changing my eating habits earlier this year, I realised my breakfast habits needed a good kick up the backside! One vital change was making sure I got up early enough to have time to eat breakfast. After managing this I initially started with one shredded wheat with semi-skimmed milk, a banana and a small glass of 100% squeezed orange juice (I'd avoid juice from concentrate). Best to juice the fruit yourself, or even better, eat the whole thing! But how many of us have time to juice oranges in the morning?

In an attempt to cut out most carbs, I moved onto the melon breakfast, which consisted of a third of a melon chopped up the night before. This meant I could just grab and go, and eat it at work. A extra wee lie in! This satisfied me, but was a bit bland after a while, and a tad pricey. So, I moved onto the banana breakfast (yes just one banana), which again was fine for a couple of weeks. Then I started to exercise more, and my banana breakfast resulted in serious hunger pains by mid morning, and a lack of ability to concentrate properly.

At this point I didn't know what to do, I was quite simply stuck! I turned to Facebook for help and got SO many helpful responses! Many advised oatmeal in some shape or form, because of its high fibre and protein content. One of these suggestions was overnight oats. A layering of oatmeal and various other ingredients of your choice prepared the night before. This appealed to me as it meant I could still be lazy in the mornings and grab and go.

When I researched overnight oats, I found SO many recipes! Here's a list of 50 recipes just for starters... Instead of following one of these recipes I took the advice of a friend to use 40g of oatmeal with a teaspoon of chia seeds and ground flax seeds to up the fibre content. I also learnt that raspberries were supposed to be good for weight loss as they contain a lot of fibre! A banana was added for sweetness and the slow release carbs it contains and I decided to try almond milk rather than yogurt or normal milk.

For the past two plus months my breakfast has mainly been overnight oats with a small glass of 100% squeezed Florida (pink) grapefruit juice. It turns out grapefruit is also excellent for weight loss. High in fibre and lowers your insulin levels slightly, therefore preventing your body from storing as much sugar. And lower insulin levels apparently curb your appetite. Again, eating the grapefruit rather than just having the juice is better for you, and is a "negative calorie" food. Meaning you use more calorie to digest it than there are in the fruit itself. If ever I needed motivation to not be lazy in the mornings!

Eggs are also an excellent choice for breakfast, however you like them, if you like them.  I'll often have a couple of fried eggs (yes fried) and spinach or two poached eggs on a slice of wholemeal toast for breakfast at the weekend. Very tasty and keeps me going till lunch!

If you're not so sure about overnight oats or eggs, but aren't sure what else to try, do an internet search for 'low calorie breakfast' and see what tickles your fancy! Also, do what I did, and ask your friends. They are constantly surprising me with their knowledge and expertise on food. I'm sure yours will do too!

*DISCLAIMER: Just a wee reminder that this is what has worked for me. There's no guarantee that it will work for everyone as we are all different. I’m not a professional!