QuestionEvelyn
I was never a breakfast person. Just not hungry until mid morning or noon. All I needed was a cup of coffee first thing in the morning,then I would have a 'brunch' around ten or eleven, and a late supper.
With a family I got into the breakfast habit. Not really hungry but I had it anyway. My weight started to creep up despite lots of exercise.
I have gone back to my old ways and now I'm losing weight! This seems to go against 'conventional wisdom' you MUST eat breakfast.
However, that is one size fits all. Everybody is different right? My sister can eat all day, well over 4000 calories and she is rail thin. My brother is like me he looks at a cokie and gains weight. All he needs is 1500 cals or so.
Your thoughts appreciated!
AnswerDear Bonnie,
Your sister is the one I'm really worried about! It sounds like quite a serious metabolic disorder if she really is eating that many calories and still is really thin - unless she scales up and down mountains for a living.
As for your case, you are quite right that weight and the propensity to gain or not gain weight is a highly individual - and genetic - predisposition (making your family interesting!). However, even thin genes cannot prevent weight gain in 9 out of 10 cases with excessive calorie intake and obesity is almost always a case of eating more and exercising less than before. This usually happens very easily around mid-age, since we don't tend to eat less (even if not so much more) but we do tend to move less and our metabolism definitely changes and slows down. This is natural, inevitable, and worth accepting with some dignity and renunciation.
However, like you, I myself never was much of a breakfast eater. I could do well without, feeling sharper without, less "bogged down". I justified this "unwise" choice with the Ancient Indian (Yoga) practice of not breaking the night's fast before one has done at least an hour's labour (after Yoga exercises). I still believe this to be a very wise practice on the whole, which can medically be explained by the way the liver works and the digestive system needs the nerve-sense pole (head basically) to be fully awake before it can work optimally. I have never understood how people can sit down at a breakfast table with only one eye open and a mouth that can barely let out an intelligible word.... This is most assuredly NOT healthy, whatever government healthlines advise!
The liver and the gallbladder alternate optimal functioning, peaking respectively at 3 pm and 3am. If you eat a carb-rich supper too late you risk the chance of overburdening your liver with work still needing to be done while it has actually already begun to close up shop. If you have any trouble sleeping (or wake up less than refreshed), have night sweats or digestive issues (constipation/diahoerrhea, flatulence, persistent bad breath or any cramps) this could be a sign that you are better off not eating too late. The older you become the less recommendable heavy meals in the evening are. The traditional (or monastic) practice of eating warm meals for lunch is an intuitive response to how our organism works best. A light repast is best taken before 8 pm, when it comes to regular health maintenance.
Back to breakfasts: they are, in any case, best kept light and invigorating. Quite literally, full of light-forces and warming energy. This does not mean a full-English! Or an Australian steak! Or even a stack of pancakes. Warmth needs to be derived from solarised sources, such as grains and ripe fruits and nuts/seeds. A breakfast also needs to be grounding. You have to realise, one awakes from a long journey to the Heavens/Astral World, and some people take longer to settle back down into their bodies (i.e. wake up) than others. Modern, conventional, healthy breakfasts automatically steer towards some golden rules that help achieve full consciousness. A glass of orange juice works like a natural pep-pill! Citrus fruit is a very astralised fruit (meaning: full of structuring properties in this case) and it shocks the astral system back into its earth vehicle (the body). Fruit and muesli breakfasts by far outweigh any other choices for this reason. The raw grains of a muesli (preferably soaked however) are preferred to packaged cereals, which are generally worthless (rich in void calories for the sugars/salt and addititives) and violate the sensory system with artificial or intense taste senations. Cornflakes alone just make you more hungry, but (corn) polenta is very earthing. Too much earthing food for someone who is quite a cerebreal or dreamy person would only make you fat. Try to keep a balance between cosmic and earth energy.
A common problem with b'fast is that once you start to eat early, it is hard to stop unless you measure out your portion before hand. This is just a matter of discipline. But it is often the real cause of weight gain: not the b'fast itself but too MUCH of it.
There is, however, a lot to say for having some kind of breakfast before lunch - even if only at around 9 or 10. An apple, or a glass of milk, a yoghurt or a handful of nuts/dried fruit. One needs to break the fast, you see, before one introduces a whole load of food, for the metabolism to work optimally. Stopping and starting three times a day, also is key to a healthy metabolism. A bit like how you cannot keep a car in its best condition just by keeping it parked outside the house without using it much. (We don't live in garages, mind.) And like dogs need three walks a day rather than one long one, even if they have capacious bladders.
Coffee for starters is a classic mistake. The health benefits (and there may be some!) of coffee lie exclusively in a single cup after a meal, and then only before 3 pm. Tea makes a little more sense, since it is best taken before a meal. This has to do with the different qualities of tea/coffee, regardless of the caffeine-like correspondences in both. Green tea has some additional healthy properties (anti-oxidents), but I cannot really recommend it above a cup of nettle tea (good for that incarnation process), or a sprightly mint-spiked herbal morning-mix. This also because it is sensible to start the day off with neutralising fluids to flush the system through, helping to complete the nightly detox. (Coffee acidifies, acidic blood does not help regulate the metabolism). Lemon in water is a great cleanser (of mind, plate and blood): it also helps you better sense what your body needs that morning.
Weight gain, if it does not point to a metabolic disorder, is always a sign of shift in how you relate to the world. Maybe you have matured within, or you have escaped from the outside. Sometimes weightgain says something about having gained more mental accumen, sometimes it is a cushioning from true feelings. It all depends where you were coming from - and also on where your spirit wants you to go to. In short, though, across the board, it is mainly bad habits which make organs sluggish, and inappropriate substances (be it fats, alcohol, sugars, medications etc) which cause processing problems leading to weight gain. This then actually points to a (however mildly) imbalanced state of mind, ultimately....
Back to the specifics. A compromise between coffee and breakfast is a large cup of hot cocoa (like the French have). The cocoa bean has a "vibe" inbetween coffee and tea, and more nutritional properties. Yes, fat too, but use organic cocoa powder, non-homogonised (semi-skimmed, never long-life!) milk and honey or a grain syrup to sweeten, and it will be worth it. You will be giving your body a lot of goodness. If you are on the go by then, make it at home, in advance and keep in a flask. Whatever you do, don't get that lame excuse of a chocolate drink from a coffee-machine!
Don't then, however, (like the French) have any pastry with this cocoa! No croissant even, or other stodgyish carbs. The combination would acidify your blood and make you feel dopey all over again.
Finally, if the weightgain has been steady, it could very well be bits and bites have crept into your meals surreptitiously enriching your calorie iintake. Then it is time to retake stock of your diet, and throw out all the fake and plastic foods, go fresh, go slow, go real. No to snacks, no to alcohol on weekdays, no to extra toppings, sauces, frills and nibbles. Take time to eat. Not chewing properly underlies a lot of weight problems, since this also affects the metabolic organs (liver notably).
Two last tips:
Check to make sure you are chosing the leaner options. And check portion sizes. Don't start judging by numbers (calories) and cut out something fabulous like oatmeal e.g. although it's got more calories than a slice of toast, just don't deep fry a fish when you can grill it. Know your healthy options.
Basically, start by making a list of all the nutrients you need for that day (which can vary per season, state of healthy, activities planned, mood) and know which combinations work best to a) help keep your blood alkaline and b) derive all the vitamins/minerals (some combinations clash and annihilate the vitamin absorption others depend upon combinations or are enhanced by it). This takes research in some cases, but in most cases, the more you work with food (let it pass through your own hands, or really take a good look at it) and learn to appreciate the colour, texture, flavour, it's origins and journey (growth), experiment with flavours and methods of preparation, the more intuitive and correct your choices will easily become. Your weight will fall in line with this healthy attitude - sometimes a bit more than we might ideally expect, but don't be unreasonable on yourself out of second-hand opinions. Just stay within the WHO recommended margins.
And look out for that sister of yours!
Take care, enjoy your three meals a day and may you bounce into each new day with zest.
Evelyn.
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