STEP 1: REDUCE YOUR CONSUMPTION OF ADDED SUGARS
The advice to eat something, anything, as soon as you step out of bed is often heard, but we can make breakfast optional by downgrading it from ‘most important meal of the day’ to ‘meal’.
Different nations have different breakfast traditions. The big Amercian breakfast contrasts directly with French ‘petit jeuner’ or ‘small lunch’. The keyword here is ‘small.’
Breakfast foods are desserts in disguise
The greatest problem is, that like snacks, breakfast foods are often little more than desserts in disguise containing vast quantities of processed carbohydrates and sugar. One of the main ways to succeed with a Banting weight loss diet or a keto weight loss diet, is to forego sugar altogether.
Breakfast cereals, particularly those that target children are among the worst offenders. On average they contain 40% more sugar than those that target adults. Not surprisingly, almost all cereals for children contain sugar and ten of them contain more than 50% sugar by weight. Only 5.5 percent met the standard for ‘low sugar’. In diets of children under age eight, breakfast cereals rank only behind candy, cookies, ice cream and sugared drinks as sources of dietary sugar.
A simple rule to follow is this: Don’t eat sugared breakfast cereal or simply, make breakfast optional.
Bakery breakfast items
Many breakfast items from the bakery are highly problematic: muffins, cakes, banana bread and Danishes. Not only do they contain significant amounts of refined carbohydrates, they are often sweetened with sugars and jams. Bread often contains sugar and is eaten with sugary jams and jellies. Peanut butter often contains added sugar.
Traditional and Greek yogurts are nutritional foods. However, large amounts of sugar and fruit flavouring are added to commercial yoghurts.
Oatmeal is another traditional and healthy food. Whole oats and steel-cut oats are a good choice requiring long cooking periods because they contain significant amounts of fibre that requires heat and time to break down.
Avoid instant oatmeal. It is heavily processed and refined which allows for instant cooking and it contains large amounts of added sugar and flavors. Most of the nutritional value is gone.
While rolled oats and dried fruit granola attempt to disguise themselves as healthy, they are often heavily sugared and contain chocolate chips and marshmallows.
Eggs can be enjoyed
Eggs, previously shunned because of cholesterol concerns can be enjoyed in a variety of ways: scrambled, over easy, sunny side up, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached, etc.
Egg whites are high in protein, and the yolks contain many vitamins and minerals including choline and selenium. Eggs are particularly good sources of lutein, zeaxanthin, antioxidants that may help protect the eyes against macular degeneration and cataracts.
The cholesterol in eggs may actually help your cholesterol profile by changing the cholesterol particles to the larger, less atherogenic particles. Large epidemiologic studies have failed to link increased egg consumption with increased risk of heart disease.
Eat eggs because they are delicious, whole unprocessed foods.
Consider this: If you are not hungry, don’t eat at all.
Simplify your life.
Reference:
The Obesity Code – Dr. Jason Fung