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Breakfast of Champions

8/21/2012

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People always ask me, “What’s the best thing to eat for breakfast?” They ask about breakfast more often than dinner, lunch, or snacks. Most of us have been raised with “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” mantra. Well, it’s true! We are all looking for a breakfast that gives us both immediate and long lasting energy. On top of this, it should ideally be tasty, satiating, nutritious, and convenient.

Does this ideal breakfast even exist? Yes, and there are many of them. First, I want to tell you what types of foods we are looking for in order to optimize your breakfast.

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Low-glycemic fruit or NO carbohydrates
High glycemic carbs or a carb-centric meal will start with a shot of energy, but will result in a crash soon after. Eating low-glycemic fruit will give you a solid boost of energy without the sugar crash.

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Moderate amounts of fat
A solid dose of fat will allow a nice steady and consistent rise in blood sugar. This will give you long lasting energy as opposed to the spike and crash of eating a carb-centric meal, i.e. Bowl of Cheerios.

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High Protein
Protein is needed for tissue repair. If this alone is not enough for you to add lean meat to your breakfast, then consider that protein can be used for energy as well. It will give you a slow steady supply of energy and is more satiating than carbs.

Solid food
Solid food is digested much slower than in the typical smoothie. The ingredients in a typical health smoothie (milk, protein powder, and fruit) are all quickly digested and will leave you hungry 1-2 hours after consuming it.


Here are some examples of solid breakfasts

A common convenient breakfast

2 eggs
1 cup of berries

High protein breakfast

3oz lean meat
2 eggs

The ideal breakfast
– May take your body some time to adjust.
4oz of lean meat
Handful of nuts
Almost Ideal Breakfast
4oz of lean meat
1 cup of berries
Handful of nuts

Other options

1 cup Cottage cheese
Handful of nuts
Berries

2 slices of bacon (Yes, Bacon!)

3oz of lean meat

¾ cup Greek yogurt

Handfuls of nuts
Handful of berries
Most of these meals have three foods in common: lean meat, nuts, and berries. The lean meat will provide protein for cell repair as keeping you satiated. Nuts will provide a gradual and consistent rise in blood sugar/energy. Berries are a great low-glycemic fruit, meaning it will raise your blood sugar moderately slowly (much faster than nuts) with less crash. Other low glycemic fruits are okay to substitute for berries. Eat these foods for breakfast and it will help you lose body fat.

1) Group Health Cooperative, 2011. Retrieved from: https://provider.ghc.org/open/caringForOurMembers/patientHealthEducation/conditionsDiseases/diabetes/foodBloodSugar.pdf

Downtown San Jose Fitness Bootcamp. Women's fitness bootcamp serving the Naglee Park Neighborhood and Downtown San Jose area. Women's fitness, mom's fitness, injury prevention, weight loss, nutrition, healthy breakfast.

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Book Review: Eat, Drink, and Be Gorgeous

11/14/2011

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Here is a uniquely useful nutrition book unlike thousands of others that promise you a perfect body in 6 weeks with “just this one easy step”. I’ve seen so many nutrition books that are completely worthless. There are those generic books telling you to eat more vegetables, cut calories, etc. Duh! Worse yet are the overpromising, “get thin instantly!”, books that are just plain false and will tell you no more than the generic nutrition books. Then there are ones that just plain don’t work or are so restrictive it will never become practical in real life.

Eat, Drink, and Be Gorgeous: A nutritionist's Guide to Living Well While Living it Up, actually takes into account real life situations and addresses the psychology of losing weight. This book is written for women, but it applies to everyone looking to get leaner and be healthier. It does cover the basics and has recipes like many other nutrition books, but it also takes into account situations like what to eat on a date, emotional eating, and drinking alcohol. It also thoroughly covers nutrition regarding women’s health, supplements, and sex (yes, I did read these chapters). These are all real life obstacles that arise throughout a weight-loss program and are well addressed in this book.

Esther writes about techniques to weight loss that I have used for my clients and my own personal nutrition. Techniques like allowing yourself chocolate (if that’s what you crave) and actually allowing yourself to have as much as you want. The trick is, with what amount would you be satisfied with? This should be the amount eaten, but you are allowed more if you feel you need it. This is a great psychological technique and it does work. (For me it’s beer though. A guy’s version of chocolate.) She also devotes an entire chapter to emotional eating which will always be the biggest hurdle to weight loss.

This is a great book that doesn’t just tell you what to eat or what not to eat. It combines nutrition with real life situations and truly makes it personal nutrition.

Downtown San Jose Bootcamp. Women's Fitness Bootcamp Serving the Naglee Park Neighborhood and Surrounding Downtown Area. Fitness Bootcamp, Women's Fitness, Mom's Fitness, and Injury Prevention.

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Pesticides in Fruits and Vegetables, My Experience

10/27/2011

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I used to hate eating fruit. Vegetables I liked. In fact, I have loved eating vegetables for most of my adult life. Fruit on the other hand, never did anything for me. Party because I don’t like sweets, but mainly because I had an allergic reaction to almost all fruits. Apples, oranges, pears, peaches, bananas, and almost all fruits gave me an adverse reaction. Eating an apple would make my throat swell and itch, eyes water, and trigger sneezing. For a while I thought it was just apples, but I noticed almost all fruits did this to some degree. Apples were the worst, and guess what? They are most chemically contaminated out of all the fruits and vegetables!

Now most people never notice the difference between eating organic or conventional produce, but I can tell right away with fruits. Apparently I am very sensitive to the pesticides used on produce. For whatever reason vegetables, even eaten raw, usually don’t trigger an allergic reaction for me.

Peeling and washing fruits doesn’t necessarily remove all the pesticides from produce. Also, the thicker the skin, the less pesticides reach the edible portion of the produce. This is another fact that I experienced first-hand.  Apples, pears, peaches, and nectarines almost always triggered an adverse reaction even when peeled.  Oranges and bananas only sometimes bothered me. Even with a thicker skin, these two fruits were unpleasant to eat half the time. Anything with a very thick skin like pineapples or melons rarely triggered an allergic reaction.

My sensitivity to pesticides pretty much fell in line with the most contaminated fruits and vegetables list. Apples being number one, was a fruit I could never eat without getting a very unpleasant allergic reaction.
List of most and least contaminated fruits and vegetables: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/

So I started eating only organic fruits and guess what happened?  I have no allergic reaction to them. Surprise! I now enjoy eating fruits for the first time in my life. Most people will never experience this, but believe me, those pesticides are in there.

Downtown San Jose Fitness Bootcamp. Women's fitness bootcamp serving the Naglee Park Neighborhood and Downtown San Jose. Women's fitness, fitness bootcamp, mom's fitness, and injury prevention.

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    Jerry Yuhara CPT,PES, has 13 years of personal training and fitness experience. Throughout which, he has learned practical solutions to common fitness concerns. Read about fitness information related to Downtown San Jose Group Fitness


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