Eat And Be Happy

Do you often feel rushed in the morning and skip breakfast to make up time? Are you cutting out meals to try and lose weight but finding that those stubborn pounds don't come off? I often get so busy through the day that I forget to eat and find myself reaching for unhealthy snacks or over-eating at dinner because I'm so hungry.  When I eat an unhealthy snack my belly triggers an unpleasant roller coaster ride of a sugar high and then a sugar low! I feel grumpy and unhappy.  This is not exactly a great habit to get into it.        

Did you know that prolonged periods without eating can make you crave fatty, high calorie foods over healthy, nutritions foods?  When you starve your body of nutrients, it protects you from starvation by hanging onto every calorie you have previously consumed and slows down your metabolism.  

What if I told you that eating regularly throughout the day could contribute to healthy weight loss?  Eating a balanced breakfast is a fabulous tactic that can help you avoid the call of unhealthy snacking. According to a new study out of Imperial College London, researchers found that subjects who passed on breakfast showed actual brain activity that led to temptations for fatty, high calorie foods later in the day. “One reason it is so difficult to lose weight is because the appeal of high calorie food goes up,” explains study author Dr. Tony Goldstone in a press release. In the study, 21 normal-weight subjects were shown pictures of food while they were positioned in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, which takes scans of brain activity. Subjects were fed a 730 calorie breakfast an hour and a half before the scans on one day and then given no breakfast the second day before the scans. The researchers focused on changes in the part of the brain that is thought to be involved in food appeal—the orbitofrontal cortex. They found that skipping breakfast created a “bias” in the brain in favor of high calorie foods. In other words, participants who did not have breakfast had an increase in brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex when fatty, calorie dense foods were shown.

If you are trying to lose those stubborn pounds, start by eating a nutritiously balanced breakfast and having healthy snacks between meals.   Not only does this keep your blood sugar stabilized but maintains the happy chemicals in your brain.  Lets set ourselves up for success by regularily feeding our digestive system the nutrients it needs throughout the day. The secret to a happy body is by eating - who doesn't like the sound of that?   From someone who LOVES food, i'm off to make a snack! :-)

Bon a petite :-)