A set up for…

Posted by Jennifer Campoli on May 17th, 2011
Filed under intuitive eating | No Comments »

It's been a while friends. :) So nice to be back and joining this blog world again!

Here's a fun topic that I've been thinking about for quite some time.

The Breakfast set up…

Let's talk about how the following scenario:

Alarm goes off. Time to start yet another day. Maybe you rush. Maybe you workout. Maybe you even take 30 minutes for yourself before you fly out the door for work, school, play, life.

Breakfast is simple: what you grab on the go, have always eaten or are currently trying to eat in order to lose a few pounds or just feel healthier.

Maybe breakfast is a bowl of cereal with fruit, maybe it's yogurt with granola. Or call it a fancy day if you have an egg with a slice of toast and juice.

But breakfast is not exactly a large or "full" meal. Maybe a few hundred calories if we're talking numbers?

Your day has begun.

Fast forward to lunch time and you have your meal. Sure, you're hungry but aren't you always? Or maybe you're too busy to even notice hunger.

Lunch has passed. Time to move on to the second half of our work, school, play day.

3 pm hits, 4 pm hits and you are…famished

Hunger pains, foggy head, fatigue, low energy. The "I could eat just about anything in sight right now" famished that hits you out of the blue.

Immediately you know that there you are going to make it to 5:30, 6:30 or 7pm dinner. I need to eat now!

Eat the first thing you see: chocolate, granola bar, fries, candy, cereal, ice cream, chips, oreos, the breakroom cookies. You name it, you grab it.

Tasty? Of course. Everything is right now.

Is one cookie enough? No way. It takes at least 3, 4 or even 5 for that hunger to finally disappear and your energy (aka blood sugar) to return to "normal." It still feels like you could eat an entire room full of food.

Result? Feel like crap, feel guilty. Realization that your snack wasn't what you would call "healthy" or ideal.

Next thought: I'm going to workout harder, run an extra mile, skimp on dinner, skip dinner as a whole. Aka punish myself for eating a crap snack.

Or maybe now you are just going to continue the tradition of eating "unhealthy" items for the rest of the day since you already messed up that "diet" so you grab yourself some french fries, a large milk shake and a burger from the drive through on the way home.

Or maybe you will just end your day wondering why in the world it is that you start your day off "great" with eating well and always end up over eating or picking the things that don't nourish your body and help move your goals forward.

Anything sounding familiar?

So, let's talk about the one thing you can do today, right now to change the above scenario.

You've heard it before and you will hear it again: eat a larger breakfast.

I know. "They" have been telling us this for years. I'm not going to give you any scientific reason behind it or claim that if you eat more your metabolism will function at warp speed. Any claim such as that is likely based on something that isn't necessarily a reality.

What I can tell you is this…

Breakfast can be the meal that sets you up for a satisfying, energy producing day

OR

Breakfast can be the meal that sets you up for an unsatisfying, energy zapping day

The choice is yours and the solution is simple: feed your body first thing. Give it a full, well rounded and nutrient rich collection of foods to get your body going and provide you with the energy to make the decisions that better your health rather than prevent it from thriving.

It doesn't have to be complicated friends. I promise.

Here's how you can begin:

1. Start small.

Continue to eat what you are already eating and just increase the portion just a tad. Then check in with yourself an hour, two hours and then three hours after the meal. Are those foods keeping you satisfied? Are you noticing the same energy zapping, hunger producing afternoon? If so, move on to step two.

2. Add in some new foods and variety.

Explore other foods that you enjoy in the morning and start adding one or two in at a time in small amounts. Just call it a breakfast experiment. Play around with new foods, new recipes and easy choices. See what happens!

3. Continue to modify portion size.

Consider this idea: what if your body needs more food than you actually think it does at breakfast time? Could the answer to this question be yes? If you are nodding your head or at least willing to find out then try to play around with amounts. Like numbers and calories? If you are eating less than 300 calories at breakfast I can almost 100% guarantee you that you need more food in the morning. Try 400. Then 500 and maybe even go crazy and try 600.

Then…at each step see how your body feels. Only YOU can decide what it needs and how much.

Have fun with this! Give your body the chance to really be fueled and energized first thing in the morning. I cannot tell you how many of my wonderful and incredible clients are in this exact position. I used to be guilty of it. Many of us are still guilty of it. It is a powerful shift to make.

It might just change your life! :)

Come on over to my new site as well to view blog posts! Click below:

Intuitive Nourishment & Health Blog

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