Nutrition, Level 1, Weeks 1 & 2

Goals

• Understanding the Benefit of a Healthy Breakfast

Breakfast: Why it really is the most important meal of the day

We have all heard the cliché that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

And while there is some evidence that this isn’t fully accurate, it still is a very important meal, and can set the tone for the day.

Breakfast is usually overlooked, and usually rushed. But if you spend a little time thinking about what to eat for breakfast, you’ll be happier, more energetic, more productive, and have less pain, than you would otherwise.

Breaking the fast.

Breakfast is literally that, breaking the fast.

In the morning, upon waking, you are coming out of a 8-10 hour fast.

If you don’t eat breakfast, then you are coasting on fumes until you can eat, and fuel yourself.

Skipping breakfast may seem like a good way to lose weight and to speed up your metabolism, but unfortunately it does the opposite.

Skipping breakfast will set your body into a starvation mode. Your body will start to get ready for a famine.

Your metabolism will slow down, and most nutrients that you eat will get stored as fat, so as to fuel your body when the famine comes.

Once you go through level 1 and 2 of the pain free lifestyle nutrition protocol, you’ll have a better hand on how to eat healthy.

Then you can play around with skipping breakfast, maybe as part of intermittent fasting.

But right now, especially when you are trying to establish healthy eating habits, don’t skip breakfast.

When you skip breakfast, you’ll be ravenous by lunch time.

This will lead you to eat anything within your reach. At that point it usually doesn’t matter whether it is healthy or not. You just want to eat.

If you skip breakfast, usually by mid morning you will be tired and looking for a snack or the vending machine. If you are on the road, you’ll be looking for the closest Sheetz or mini mart.

So What Should You Eat?

You don’t want to just shove anything in your mouth for breakfast though.

If you eat something processed and meaty, you’ll feel full. But it’ll leave you lethargic, tired, foggy, thirsty, and achy.

This will affect your energy levels and concentration for the rest of the day. It’ll leave you feeling more achy than you would otherwise, by increasing inflammation.

If you can eat something healthy, then you’ll feel full, and not be achy, foggy, lethargic, etc.

You can have oatmeal, instant or regular. At this point, don’t worry about whether it is sweetened or not. Have some berries or an apple with it, and you have a fulfilling breakfast. You can even put some peanut butter in the oatmeal to give it more protein (recently I have been enjoying powdered peanut butter; it has less fat and less calories than regular peanut butter, and mixes easily).

Or have a piece of whole wheat bread with some peanut butter and an apple.

Or make a smoothie with berries, peanut butter, spinach and almond milk.

There are many options for a healthy, tasty, and filling breakfast. It just takes a little thought.

I hope that this helps you to have a pain free day.