Time your breakfast. Enjoy it wisely.

Whether or not to eat breakfast can be a complicated question.

If you skip it and wait till lunch, you could be SO hungry, you shovel down anything you can get your hands on. Your eyes are bigger than stomach!

On the other hand, if you overeat at night – we all do sometimes - and wake up and automatically have a bowl of cereal when your most certainly are NOT hungry, you may be consuming unnecessary calories.

What do you do? be mindful. Are you really hungry?

The best way to manage your weight is to have a rhythm around meal times that runs very similarly from one day to the next, for the most part.

My pattern is to have my coffee with soy milk first thing, maybe a bite of something, then exercise, and then have what I call Meal Number One mid-morning, after I’ve been up for a few hours. I’ve re-defined breakfast as something to eat before lunch, not necessarily right at the start of the day.

Now if for some reason, your eating is chaotic and out of control, a schedule is the next best thing until you can do the work to establish that rhythm. For example, if you eat too much at night and wake up too full and are not inclined to eat until too much till later in the day, that can set the stage for a pattern of more late night eating and repeating the cycle the next day. This keeps the system out of whack.

In that case, a schedule is the next best thing – you may need to override bodily cues that tell you not to eat in the day, and start at least with a light breakfast and then eat at set intervals, for the sake of establishing earlier eating times and try to bring some structure to the chaos of eating.

If you have diabetes, consider starting by making sure you avoid eating 3-4 hours before bedtime. Then in the morning, you probably do want to eat something within an hour or two of waking, making sure it contains protein, to reset insulin levels. Eating more food later in the day is more likely to result in weight gain and higher blood glucose levels. That’s kind of a version of intermittent fasting, maybe 12-15 hours with no food. That is helpful for many people with diabetes and may even be helpful for those without diabetes!

Here are 3 favorite quick breakfasts you can even keep in the office fridge. Kefir with some ground flax stirred in, and protein powder. Oatmeal – choose the ones with no sugar and added flax or chia seeds – flax have the most the lignin a phytoestrogen, fiber that helps regulate estrogen hormones, and Omega 3’s Chia has some lignin although not as much as flax, but it has more plant based Omega 3’s, so try both. If you MUST have sugar, keep it to 7 grams per serving, that’s about 1.5 teaspoons. I also keep in my office refrigerator Ezikiel English muffins or sprouted grain bread and a jar of unsalted almond butter. Bring in a banana from home and slice it on top of the English muffin or put it in my shake or your oatmeal. And if I am TOTALLY unprepared, I pick up a protein box at Starbucks, with a hard boiled egg, pita, cheese, grapes, apples and almond butter.

That’s Smart Eating!

Recipes

Smoothie

1 cup low-fat kefir or Greek Yogurt
1 or 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
1 scoop protein powder (whey or pea protein)
Blend all ingredients in a blender, or stir in a cup with a fork. Add a splash or two of water for desired consistency. Optional: add 1/2 cup fruit.

Steel cut oats

1 carton Bob's Red Mill classic steel cut oats, or other brand without sugar. Add milk or soy milk according to package directions. Add 5 walnuts or other nut, chopped, or a tablespoon ground flax, hemp or chia seeds. Optional: add fruit.

Overnight oats

Cook 1/2 cup steel cut oats in 4 cups soy milk or other milk. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to sit on the stove till tender. Add a handful or raisins and 1/2 cup chopped nuts of your choice. Walnuts are a nice touch. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator and enjoy for a 3-4 days.

Ezekiel English muffin or bread or other sprouted bread. Dave's Killer bread is also a good choice.
Toast and top with almond butter and if you have it, sliced banana.
If your smoothie isn't enough, this is a great addition. It all depends on how much you need to hold you till your next meal.

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