Category: Health and Wellbeing

Now here’s a thing.  My time has been all up in the air recently, and the first thing that always suffers in my life is that thing called “breakfast.”  It’s that alien word that has spent most of my life being sent to Coventry, as it’s one thing I’ve very rarely had time for in my life.  For the past couple of years, I’ve tried to add some sort of brekkie in the morning, but true to type, as things get more busy, breakfast for me, goes out the window.

Now I hear from all sorts of people that breakfast is a must, it’s a metabolism kick-starter, or it stops us being hungry, which by the way, is one of the most silly things I’ve heard.  For one, eating breakfast actually makes me hungry later in the day, but no breakfast = no hunger at all for me.  Do I want food, yes, but am I hungry – no.

I now also know the difference between hunger and wanting to eat now.  That has been alien to me my whole life.  I’ve gone day, and I mean days, at some points in my life, eating only an apple or two a day, but didn’t actually experience hunger as such.  Some food cravings yes, but no physical discomfort.  For me, it was all a mental thing.

Perhaps my metabolism has been out of whack my whole life, and yes, I can lose weight now my diabetes and badly behaved thyroid are behaving themselves, but sometimes, I do actually feel some discomfort when my body needs food nowadays. Note that I didn’t say “wants food,” but rather “needs food.”

The fact I now know what this feels like, and have never, ever felt it before, tells me that my thyroid has probably not worked properly, for the whole of my adult life.

This being said, I only feel that kind of hunger in a day, where I’ve kickstarted eating already.  If I haven’t eaten, the discomfort of needing food just doesn’t come quickly at all, but if I eat a bite or two, a couple of hours later, I need some food.

I’ve come to my own conclusions over the last couple of years.

Not Eating Breakfast Doesn’t Stop Weight Loss

To all those naysayers, who are adamant that breakfast is the holy grail of weight loss, with a calorie deficit, you are most certainly completely wrong.  Timing of food isn’t that important in my view, as long as we eat balanced meals throughout the day.  I’m sure my body doesn’t care if its first meal is 7am, 10am or lunchtime?  I prefer to begin my eating day from at least 10am, and lunchtime onwards if possible.  I eat fewer calories over a day that way.

It’s all about doing what works for us.  For some of you, breakfast could be the biggest meal of your day, and you eat little in the evenings.  I like to do things the other way around.  I eat little during the day, and most of my calories are consumed from evening meal onwards.

I’m not hungry in the morning, so I don’t want to eat when I don’t need to.  I do, however, finally know, at my age, what people mean when they say the world is only three meals away from anarchy, ie empty bellies for the masses will cause devastation for the world.  I really didn’t know what that type of hunger felt like for my first few decades of life.

Arguments For Breakfast

Kick-start the day, and get in vitamins and minerals.

I can’t argue with this one.   Eating can kick-start the day, and it does give us vitamins and minerals for the day.  I just prefer to have them later 🙂

Stops mid morning snacking.

Um, not if you’re anything like me.  I eat breakfast, and a couple of hours later, I’m ravenous.  I eat more calories in a day when I eat breakfast.

Cereal is a good breakfast.

Have we all actually read the sides of cereal packets?  Honestly, I think a chocolate bar would be healthier than some cereal brands.  It pays to read the nutritional labels to know what you’re getting, or what your kids are eating.  Many are full of sugar and have very little fibre.   Take a look at Ricicles and Frosties, or Coco Pops and decide for yourselves.  It’s easy to get the kids to eat them, but I doubt they should be a daily thing for anyone.

Bacon and Eggs are a good breakfast.

Once upon a time, I’d have said I disagree with this, but in comparison to cereal, then yes, it’s a great breakfast when bacon is grilled and eggs are poached.

To Breakfast or Not?

As much as the people who’ve tried to convince me over the years are concerned, I’m still ignoring most of you,  unless I’m going for a run, or need to concentrate for a long period of time, where I’ll have something to eat earlier than usual.  What we eat in a day has more effect that the time we eat it, so sorry to all of those who keep pressing breakfast on me, as it’s just never going to be a 365 days of the year thing.

And just in case you do like breakfast, here’s a recipe for Mango Frozen Yoghurt.

Highland Spring is on a mission to encourage healthy hydration. Because when you’re 100% hydrated, you’re much more likely to be on top of your game – mentally, physically and emotionally.

As a fairly newish runner, who’s only been pounding the streets and treadmill since January this year, I’ve been drinking more and more water as I train, and often carry some with me on a run now, if it’s over 5k.  I find I need the hydration, even though other runners can often manage fine up to around 12k without any fluids at all.

The easiest way to stay hydrated for anything, is to drink water.  Research has shown that 66% of us Brits feel we don’t drink enough.

For an experiment, I had the boys drink nothing but water for a full day, to see how they got on.  For middler, it was simple.  He loves water, and always has done.  He happily went round with his bottles of H2O and needed nothing else at all.

For the other two, we had to change the format slightly, with the addition of a little squash, which did a great job along with the sparkling spring water.  It tasted like a fizzy drink, and looked like a fizzy drink, but without much of the sugar and additions we find in the regular fizzy drinks.

I have to say, that apart from running hydration or in hot weather, adding a little squash and ice to fizzy water, is my favourite way to imbibe a drink that’s good for me.

We do tend to buy quite a lot of bottled water normally, so I’m used to incorporating it into daily life at some level, but it was lovely to have our delivery from Highland Spring, and to drink it, quite literally, all the time for a while.  I tend to dislike tap water, and have to be organised, putting it into the fridge to try and reduce the chemical taint.  It’s also nice to have spring water.  I used to love going hiking when I was young, just to be able to drink the water streaming down from the hills, fresh and quite sweet to drink, just like my family would have, a few generations back.

I’ve always been someone who drinks a lot of fluid.  It’s one of the reasons my diabetes was missed early on, as drinking a lot of fluid has never not been normal for me.  If I ever have a headache, a glass of water tends to be the first thing I reach for, as it almost always seems to solve the problem.  I’ve never been able to understand people who manage to get through a day with one or two cups of coffee……  My mum is one of those, and I don’t know how people who drink so little manage to survive.  Just overnight, we can lose a fair bit of water weight while we sleep, just through breathing and surviving.  If you’ve never tried it, weigh yourself before going to sleep and again when you wake up, to see how much lighter you are.  I can lose a couple of pounds overnight, easily….

I often think children who struggle to concentrate at school can be helped along their struggles by keeping well hydrated.  Without enough fluid, concentrating is tough going, even for me…

How to get water into daily life.  Our tips…

• Drink from the regular plastic bottle with sports spout for the kids bags when out and about. These also make great packed lunch additions.
• For me, carrying a bottle while out for a run, and being able to bin it at the recycling station I pass on the way back is great.  I don’t have to carry my hand bottle for so long.  There’s nothing worse than carrying it when it’s empty, yet I still have a few kilometers to go.
• I made Broccoli, Sweetcorn and Asparagus Soup using some of our Highland Spring this week.  I wanted to see if it made a difference in comparison to using tap water, which can be a bit whiffy at times, due to the chemicals.  My soup did taste more creamy that I’d expected, so perhaps it was the lack of chlorine in the water which made it extra tasty.
• Use fizzy water to make your own drinks, including Bucks Fizz, with some orange juice, and a little alcohol if that’s your tipple.  Fizzy water mixed with a little fresh fruit juice is especially awesome, and healthy.
• If you can’t give up regular fizzy sodas, alternate them with healthy drinks and a water substitute in-between.  Add some whizzed fruit to jazz up the taste.  It’s easier to get young children into the habit of drinking water, so make the best use of their age while you can.
• As adults, aim to drink around 6-8 glasses of water a day, or a couple of litres.  The European Food Safety Authority recommends younger children drink smaller servings, around 150ml each, whereas older children need around 250-300ml.
• Drink plenty of fluid the day before exercising.  I find that if I’m well hydrated the day before a long run, I manage to run further.  If I’ve been skimpy on fluid the day before, it doesn’t matter how much I drink on the day, I can’t go so far.  Hydration really does help our performance.
• The glass bottles look fabulous on a table during a meal.  Very sophisticated.

Here’s the official skinny on water from Highland Spring….

• Drinking water can make you happier: brain scans show that when you’re properly hydrated the parts of your brain associated with anger, fear and alertness are de-activated.
• Lots of us visit the doctors for fatigue each year, when actually the problem could be due to dehydration. Keeping hydrated can help give you the energy you need!
• When you’re hydrated, your heart doesn’t have to work as hard. It’s much easier for your body to pump blood through the blood vessels to muscles.
• Staying hydrated before and during exercise helps avoid cramp. Hydration levels are affected by how long and how hard you are exercising, so if you are sweating or in a warm environment you might need to drink more than usual.

Highland Spring Water is natural water, that comes from Scotland’s beautiful Ochil Hills.  If you want to see other people’s tips for using water, check them out on Twitter, at the hashtag #HyGreat

It’s no secret to my readers that I’ve lost a bunch of weight recently, and I’d still like to lose around a stone more, but I won’t worry too much about that.  I’m still heavier than where I started at the
beginning of all this blubbery inflation, but I fit into UK Next 8 and 10 clothes mostly, with the odd 12, so I’m happy with that. I know I might not be able to keep it up, but for now, I’m in control of my weight.

What I have been most surprised about, was the amount of people who constantly ask me how I’ve done it, as if there’s some sort of magic wand around that melts fat off.  When I tell people what I’ve done, they begin to lose interest, then some even turn round and say something dumb, like,

‘no really, what else did you do?’

Or they assume that now my thyroid is in a better way, that the fat dissolved itself away.  Now I know having thyroid issues helps with weight gain etc, but losing it isn’t any easier for us than it is for the rest of you when it’s sorted out.  My thyroid being in sync now might stop me adding to weight, but it does nothing for losing what’s already there.

It’s simple really.  Just CICO.  Honestly, all other diets work on basically the same principle.  Eat less calories than you expend, and you will lose fat.   CICO is simply calories in v calories out.  I don’t believe in the real plateau either.  It’s impossible to eat more and lose weight as such.  Nobody living in a real starvation mode will retain their fat for a sustained level of time, and three or four weeks of the scales not moving, is not starvation mode.

Weight loss isn’t linear.  

Just because you eat 1200 calories a day, most people won’t lose 2lbs a week, every week, forever.  Some weeks you might lose 3lbs, some 4, then maybe some at 2lbs, a week or two here and there of half a pound, and maybe a couple of weeks gain one or two.  And boy, does it get demotivating for the scales not to move at all for nearly two months.  Yep, been there, but eventually, if you stick with it, the downward trend begins again.

The closer to goal we get, the longer it takes to shift.  It’s a journey, not a fast track to skinny blingdom.

Losing weight should be about health first, and the weight on the scale way down on the list.  In second and third place, I prefer to look at fitness, endurance and before the scale, even how my clothes fit.

That’s my view, and you’re welcome to disagree with me.   My clothes still don’t fit as well as I’d like around my midriff, and that’s why I’d like to lose a bit more fat, but on the whole, I’m happy enough with the rest of me.

You can’t outrun a bad diet?

Hmmm, well, I see this all the time on the internet, yet it’s possible that it’s completely wrong too.

Certainly, you can’t outrun a diet where you take in far more calories than you burn off by running.  And given a mile roughly equates to around 100 calories, then a fairly long run won’t even make up for a pig out session in front of the TV with a good sized pizza.

What you can do, with exercise, in increase the size of the CICO calorie deficit, which means you can eat a little more on those days.  If your daily target calorie count is around 1400, and you run for 6 miles, you could technically eat 2000 calories that day and still be in a modest deficit of calories.

Some diets are better than others.

Of course they are, but some are absolute tosh.  Any weight loss diet has to have you eating less calories than you use up in a day.  Whether you count in points, pounds, kcals or packets, it all adds up to the same.  I’m not a fad of diets that replace the calorie with a fancy name, and it isn’t any way to help someone maintain their weight when they’ve finished losing it in the first place.  If you find something healthy that works for you, then go for it.  Otherwise, learn portion control and nutritional value of foods and work it out for yourself.  I learned that I’ve spent much of my life with far too little protein.  I’ve fixed that.

There’s no easy weight loss method.

Losing weight sucks, big time, but if you’re determined and ready for it, nothing will stop you.   Good luck to anyone on a journey, and I hope you feel as good about yourself as I do for what I achieved over the last year.