As a tribute to the start of my new space for all things Naturpathic, I thought it fitting to begin with some healthy guidelines about starting your day off right. The time of waking is a special time. This time, usually the morning for most of us, represents the beginning of a new day and new opportunities. The machinery of the body sees this time a little differently. For the last eight hours or more (time from your last meal) you have been fasting. What this means for the body, is that, all the sugar requirements needed to keep us alive have been coming from storage. The conversion of this stored sugar into usable sugar is called glycogenolysis and it happens mostly in the liver and muscles. When we wake and eat our first meal, breaking the fast, we are changing the method by which we acquire and utilize sugar. Now we are getting our sugar from digested food and storing the rest for when food is not available. This is called glycogenesis. The name of the game for the body is stability. We prefer a slow steady supply of sugar (like we get at night) rather than peaks and surges such as after sweet meals (high
glycemic index).
This first meal after our nightly fast will set the stage for how hungry we feel throughout the day. According to a study published by the
British Journal of Nutrition , eating a breakfast high in protein increases the feeling of satiety throughout the day. What this means is that we will feel fuller from eating less if we start out with a breakfast that is high in protein. For the start of my day I choose a hard boiled egg (17gm protein) as my protein of choice and I eat it within 1 hour of waking. Alternatives to this can include a lean, antibiotic-free, nitrate/nitrite-free meat such as turkey or pork. For you meataphobes out there 4oz (110gm) of tempeh will give you about 15gm of protein. While generally I remove soy from the diet for a whole host of reasons (later post) I do make an exception for fermented soy products.
So there you have it. In Summary:
- Eat Breakfast (within 1 hr of waking)
- Choose a protein rich source for the first meal such as a hard boiled egg, lean preservative-free meat, or fermented soy product.
- Ask your doctor before making any medically significant changes to your lifestyle.
