Is Breakfast REALLY as important as they say?

We hear lots of arguments for breakfast, and YES this is a view that I share.

But let me give you a different view of why breakfast is perhaps THE most important meal of the day.

In Chinese medicine, I am sure many of you will know, there are 12 primary meridians, or channels of energy. Each channel is related to an organ: i.e. the lung, large intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, pericardium, san jiao, gallbladder, liver. These 12 channels make up a continuous circuit, through which our "qi" (roughly translated as energy) flows. It takes 24 hours for the qi to make a complete circuit, and therefore it follows that the qi is predominant within each channel for 2 hours before moving on to the next. When the qi is predominant in a channel the organ to which it relates is best able to carry out its functions, and at the opposite end of the day it is least able to function. The qi enters the stomach at 7:00am, and leaves the spleen at 11:ooam. Which means that our body is best able to carry out its digestive functions between those morning hours, when we normally consume breakfast. Our digestive functions are weakest between 7:00pm and 11:00pm when we typically eat our major meal of the day.

So we can see that Chinese medicine theory also supports the idea that breakfast time is an important time to eat - we need to turn our eating habits on their heads: making our major meal the earliest and our lightest meal the latest.

Those old wives had it right again! "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper". Indeed!

Want to find out more about weight loss and health for free?

I am delighted to be able to share more information about my book and my Energy Balance Approach to good health and optimum weight loss this weekend at the Health and Healing Festival here in York. You will be able to catch me for a private chat on either the Saturday 24th or Sunday 25th April of the Festival - to be held at the Racecourse on the Knavesmire - or alternatively hear my free-of-charge public talk, scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm.

I would be delighted to meet anyone interested in achieving health and well-being through a sensible dietary approach. Especially I would be delighted to meet anyone who would like to participate in a trial-by-blogging of my weightloss approach.

What is a "good" breakfast?

We are told all the time that we need to have a "good" breakfast, and we are constantly bombarded by advertisements for breakfast products: usually "low fat", "good for the heart" cereal products. Just the other day I saw for the first time the new ad for breakfast biscuits!

But are these really good for us?

In my opinion, the answer is a very short and simple "NO": at least not for breakfast. If we look at diet from a Chinese Medicine point of view then no food is inherently good or bad: we should simply choose what is appropriate to meet our energetic needs. But that is exactly the problem with low fat high carb foods - they are highly inappropriate for the energy needs of most of us.

Why? Because our bodies will digest these foods very quickly, and release energy quickly into our systems at a time when we are not actually needing it. So our blood-glucose peaks, our insulin kicks in, and the excess glucose instead of providing energy is stored.

Where? RIGHT IN OUR MUFFIN TOPS!

Am I really saying that a low fat high carb food can contribute to body fat? Absolutely!

So what do we need instead?

Well protein and fats are more difficult to digest, and so the energy released from these foods into the system is slower and more steady - and more likely to provide energy at a pace at which the body may use it rather than store it. So though we do need to be careful to avoid excessive fat intake, some fat is not only OK, it's actually vital.

Porridge makes for a great start to the day: whole grain jumbo porridge oats that is - not the powdery stuff that we nuke in the microwave. Oats are high in protein, and therefore the energy release from porridge is slow and steady. Not only do they "do no harm", but they have been shown to actually combat some health problems.

The caution about oats of course is that they do contain gluten so are not suitable for people with coeliac disease or a real gluten allergy or intolerance.

MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST SOON!

What is the best diet?

There are so many "diets" promoted these days that it is really difficult to decide which are "good" and which are "bad".

Essentially we shouldn't be looking for a "diet" at all in the usual weight-loss sense of the word. Rather it is much better to find a healthy approach to eating that we can adopt for life. That helps us to rule out many unsuitable or unhealthy plans: the test being that if we cannot picture eating that way for the rest of our lives then it is not for us! Anything that we do only for 7 days or 14 days or even 28 days cannot benefit us in the long term because once the length of the diet "plan" is up, we have nowhere to go except back to our old ways eventually.

So if there is one beneficial thought I can leave you with today, it is that before we embark upon any "weight-loss" or "healthy" eating plan we should test it by considering whether or not we can picture ourselves sticking to it forever. If we want to change our body then we have to change our eating habits.

As someone once said to me:

"If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got".

HOW TRUE!

p.s. I will be speaking at the Health and Healing Festival in York on Sunday 25th April. Do catch me there, I would be pleased to speak with you!