The last 50 years has been an absolute roller coaster ride when it comes to nutrition. It turns out the cheap, highly processed, and sugar loaded foods that have dominated our nutrition profiles are linked to every major chronic disease. If you haven’t yet, it’s time to transition to a real food breakfast.
We have bought into many misguided stories about nutrition. Our bodies are designed to run on real food, yet we have sacrificed nutrition for convenience. Sugar and refined carbohydrates are everywhere, easy to take on the go, and addictive. Bagels, toast, cereal, and pancakes provide minimal nutritional value and take your blood sugar for a ride. The same goes for sugar laced orange juice, yogurt, coffee drinks, and packaged oatmeals.
Although momentarily satisfying, refined and processed foods are void of nutrients, leaving our bodies starving for vitamins, fiber, healthy fat, and protein. Because blood sugar crashes have such a major impact on our energy, we often look for more sugar (or refined carbs) to get us back to neutral. It’s a dangerous cycle that’s difficult to break free of.
Diets high in sugar and refined carbohydrates are linked to all of the major chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. They also correlate to depression, anxiety, digestive, and skin disorders. Get back to basics and swap out the processed foods for real foods. If you feel overwhelmed just go one step at a time. It takes consistent effort to transform to a real food diet, but the results can be life changing. Tune into your motivation and think about your personal health care goals.
Here are a few tips to help:
- Erase traditional definitions of “breakfast”, “lunch”, and “dinner”. Fill up on real food for each of your meals.
- Use fruit to help you transition off of refined sugars. The fiber helps control blood sugar reaction (in addition to adding natural vitamins/minerals).
- Say goodbye to obvious bad choices (donuts, bagels, muffins, etc…). At best they become an occasional treat.
- Shoot to get 1-2 servings of fruits and vegetables at every meal.
- Meal prep, use leftovers, and be creative.
- Add healthy fats and protein when you can, they will help satisfy cravings and stabilize your energy.
