Healthy Breakfast – The Most Important Meal of the Day
Almost everyone treats breakfast as the least important meal of the day. It never gets the attention it deserves. Dinner, on the other hand, is the kind of meal that should always be light and healthy, but we end up overeating at the dinner table (great way to gain weight since the body does not burn the calories readily – after all, you will be going to bed soon). Furthermore, we wake up the next morning ‘not feeling hungry’ for breakfast. This is the single biggest mistake for anyone trying to lose weight. A meal that is grossly underrated, breakfast ‘breaks your overnight fast’ and is therefore the most important meal for the day. It allows you to begin the day with energy and vitality. Isn’t it an irony that a timely and nutritious breakfast is a rarity for most of us ? You may be a busy corporate executive or a top-level athlete, the importance of breakfast remains the same for everyone. Let us analyze the role that breakfast plays in our life. Here are the basic truths about that first meal of the day:
Skipping breakfast won’t make you thinner.
Skipping this meal will usually cause you to eat more for lunch and / or dinner. If you start the day without a meal don’t be surprised if you feel tired, lethargic and easily fatigued later in the day. It’s almost like driving to work with no gas. The best strategy for keeping your weight in check and your energy level high is to fuel yourself evenly throughout the day. Eat a good breakfast, moderate lunch, and light dinner, (as well as small snacks in between, if you feel hungry). In particular, if you are about to have a hectic day, it becomes even more important to eat a good breakfast. If you starve your body by avoiding breakfast, it will begin to lose muscle (something you do not want) and retaining fat. The interesting thing is that muscle weighs more than fat, which means that dieting (skipping breakfast) may show up as weight loss on the scale. However, most dieters can become weaker although they may become smaller if they rely on dieting exclusively as a means to lose weight.
Breakfast enables you to function better.
Recent research results showed that children who skip breakfast are less able to concentrate in studies and in play. Their ability to perform complex tasks is impaired. The effects were similar in adults. As an experiment, change (improve) your breakfast habits for 2 days. You will then understand the impact that breakfast has on your day.
Cereals and fruits are still the best.
According to the National Cancer Institute of America, “diets high in fibre and low in fat, with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain breads and cereals with low fat cheese or butter may reduce the risk of cancer.” Daily fibre intake should be 20 to 30 grams. Insoluble fibre, the kind found in whole wheat bread and wheat-based bran cereals, helps lower the risk of colon cancer and speeds up digestion. Soluble fibre, found in oat bran and fruit, helps lower blood cholesterol, and may reduce the risk of coronary ailments. Start your day with a piece of fruit, a glass of milk / coffee and some high fiber bread. You can enjoy your breakfast while driving!
So try these simple suggestions and kickstart your day with a healthy breakfast!
Nitin Chhoda is a renowned personal trainer, columnist, radio and TV personality and trains clients in 12 countries online from http://www.phonefitnesstrainer.com
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Emotional Eating
Yesterday, out of the blue, without any foreboding gossip or rumor, the company I work for was taken over by a competitor. All afternoon we sat stunned and unnaturally quiet, trying to absorb what had happened and what it might mean to our future.
Two hours after the announcement of the sale was made, I walked through the office, a large call center divided into several teams that handle certain accounts or patients at different levels of care. Apparently quite independently of each other, each team was trying to handle the tension and the underlying anxiety in their own way.
What did they all choose? You guessed it: FOOD.
We eat when we’re happy and celebrating; we eat when we’re lonely; we eat when we’re bored. And, above all, we eat when we’re upset. When our whole world seems to spin out of control, food remains the only object that can seem to keep us anchored and stable. We reach to it for comfort, for re-assurance, for love. And we remain blind to the fact that our affection for it allows it to exert control over us. Over the next few months, as reorganization plans are implemented and the winds of change sweep through the offices of management and the cubicles of worker bees, we will reach out, over and over, for the comfort of eating to steady our stomachs and soothe our nerves.
Corporate downsizing – just another weapon to make us fat!
Does the pressure never stop? Perhaps when we’re dead, there is no longer any compulsion to eat – or maybe we are destined to go into our graves as a starving corpse who tries desperately to communicate with the living about the overwhelming urge to eat.
Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker’s Edge, she recently published a psychologically-based weight control e-workbook, “Diet with an Attitude” which develops mental skills towards the goal of permanent weight control. She can be reached at http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com. She provides support and guidance in use of the workbook through her regular blog, http://dietwithanattitude.blogspot.com
Food We Take Determines Our Character
When you take your food next time, take care of the food what you are taking. Because the food you take determines your character. Not able to believe this. But it is true.
Although many other reasons determine the character of a man, food becomes an important part in determining the character of everybody.
Mind controls one’s action, and speech. Decision making ability is the important functions of a mind.
Decision making ability is depending upon the food we take.
Vegetarian food enhances intelligence. Even though the non-vegetarian food contains some energy vital for the human body, the same energy is available more in the vegetarian foods also.
The direction you are sitting to take food is also important. Facing eastern direction will be good.
Whether the mood of the person who is serving the food or preparing the food will affect your health. Yes, definitely.
When the person who serve you food or cook the food is in a happy mood naturally it will reflect in the food he is preparing.
Not only that when we take that food it will digest easily and we can also enjoy the real deliciousness of the food.
If the person cooks or serves with angry, decease, depressed mind, lust, hatred, then even the nutritious containing in the food become useless to us and cause more problems like indigestion, etc
I can explain it with one real example. There is one famous Hindu shrine in India.
There are thousands of cows belonging to the shrine. They gush milk and it is utilized for the purpose of temple rituals.
The temple authorities found sudden spurt in the gushing of milk from the cows. Then they find the reason after some difficulty that it was because of the audio system near the shelters where the cows are housed.
It is the routine of the temple authorities to broadcast devotional songs at specific intervals. They found that when a particular song is broadcasted the cows are gushing much milk than normal gushing.
So the power of music through the senses, increase the gushing of milk.
Another real incident is the soldiers in an army unit were used to give fresh and condensed milk every day for the better maintenance of health and for their better fighting capability.
But the story of gushing milk from the cows in the camp is very interesting. Before gushing the milk from the cows, the young calf will be released free.
By that time the dog in the camp will also be released. On seeing the dog, the calf began to run out of fear. Unable to tolerate the sufferings of the calf, which is chasing by the dog, the cow as a “mother” become in an angry mood.
The milk gushing by that time from the cow that was in an angry mood contains more nutritious which is essential for the fighting capability to the soldiers.
At least now we believe that the mood of the person who serve us, indirectly affecting us, if the food is prepared and served in a wrong mood.
C.Krishnan
Author
C. Krishnan, formerly working with Government in India, has written many articles on inspiration, children, parenting, etc.,
You can view more of his articles in his home page http://www.tncity.biz