You see, your body is like a car-and just like a car, or any machine for that matter, it needs energy to run. Your body’s energy or “fuel”

A healthy breakfast is essential in helping you reach your fitness goals.

comes from the foods you eat. A healthy breakfast is the perfect way to start your day-it will help you “wake up” in the morning and give you the energy needed to get through the day. Another reason you should never, ever skip breakfast, or any meal for that matter, is to avoid having your body go into “starvation mode”. We have an innate “sixth sense” and when our bodies feel like they are being deprived of food, metabolism slows and the body holds on to any stored fat that is available. This process is actually just the opposite of what we need when we are trying to shed a few pounds.

So how can we avoid going into “starvation mode” and slowing our metabolism? Well, for one, don’t “starve” yourself or cut huge amounts of calories from your diet. We need a constant intake of small, but healthy meals and snacks throughout the day to keep the body satisfied to allow the weight loss process to happen. And this is most important in the mornings. Think about it for a second. Most of us get at least 6 hours a night (hopefully a little more) of sleep. That’s 6 hours without any food. That means our metabolic process naturally slows while at rest. So when you wake up in the morning, if you overlook the opportunity to “fuel up” with a healthy breakfast, your body will start to think that you are starving and hold on to fat for dear life.

So what can we imply? Well, for one, starvation is not a good idea-never was, never will be. Secondly, if we can’t cut huge amounts of calories from diet, how do we lose weight? Well, it needs to be a combination of things. Cut EXCESS calories from diet and burn a few extra with exercise and strength training. Remember that lean muscle burns fat, so by exercising we increase muscle mass and therefore burn more fat. And lastly we can imply that weight loss, to be successful, has to be a gradual process. Exteme dieting may give you temporary results, but eventually the “demands” of the extreme diet will be too much for your body to handle and something has got to give-usually your waistline.

So, set realistic goals, start the day with a healthy breakfast and continue “fueling” your body with small, high-quality (not quantity) meals and snacks. Make sure to exercise on a regular basis and you should start to see some positive results!

Take Charge!

P.S. Want to: Learn the “Easy” way to get and stay in shape? Discover the secret to quick fat loss? How to exercise less and get better results? Discover the secret to ripped abs without doing endless crunches? Then be sure to get my “Amazing Fat Burning Formula” HERE.

P.P.S. If you like this post, and think it will help others, please help me help others by clicking on one of these “Share and Enjoy” links below.

Do you have kids? I’d love to know how many readers have kids – send me photos too if you like, I’ll post the cutest ones (I know, I’ll have to post them all because they’ll all be cute…).

As I’m writing this it’s 11:20 am and we’re going back to his school a little later today to have a birthday party with all his schoolmates in his classroom.

The big dilemma is always what kinds of foods to bring for the kids. You see, my son has been brought up on only natural foods since he was born. He doesn’t eat anything that comes from a package (unless it’s a fresh frozen veggie or fruit). This means he’s never had chips from a bag, chocolate, ice cream (in the traditional sense – we make our own healthy version… it’s so easy — I’ll give you a recipe for it in a second), no soda, no fruit juices, no cookies, no pizza, no chocolate cake. Yet kids his age eat these “unnatural” things almost every day.

Before you think I’m a little extreme by “depriving” my son of these “goodies”, let me give you a bit of a wake up call my dear parent (first, understand that parents saying they don’t want to “deprive” their children of these treats is a huge cop-out – more later).

Type 2 diabetes, also know as “adult-onset” diabetes, is now a growing epidemic amongst children. Children as young as 2 years old (!!) are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

What the hey?!?

Let’s get this clear right off the bat. TYPE 2 DIABETES IS N-O-T A DISEASE. It is caused from “faulty eating habits” that have overtaxed the bodies ability to handle “ingested sugars” from foodstuffs.

Here’s the insidious problem with the “typical” foods we eat today. Your body interprets processed foods as simply… sugar… even though there may be no added sugar on the label.

How is this so?

Modern processing of food renders it “too easy to digest”.

“What’s wrong with this?”, you may ask.

Here’s what’s wrong with it.

Your digestive system has been designed to process and digest foods that have lots of fiber in them. This releases a “trickle” of the digested “high-fiber” foods into our system as glycogen (sugar). Most of the foods found naturally in nature are low in sugar anyway. So, the length of time it takes to digest, plus the low amounts of naturally occurring sugar in these “natural” foods allows your pancreas (which releases insulin to help “shuttle” these sugars to the cells that need them) to do its job easily.

The problem arises when we eat processed foods that have been stripped of fiber, or contain added sugars. This releases a large amount of sugar into your bloodstream all at once, overwhelming your pancreas, which now has to release massive amounts of insulin to “process” all these sugars. Since there is too much sugar in the bloodstream all at once, the insulin carries it to your fat cells, which store this sugar as fat.

This is one of the main ways we get fat.

Over time, the “insulin factory” (pancreas) gets tired and weak from processing all this sugar and can produce less insulin and even shut down completely.  And, since the cells of our body become damaged when sugar levels remain high, they close their “doors” and do not allow this sugar to come in (insulin-resistance). This now becomes type 2 diabetes.

One significant study of adolescents in a large Midwestern city found that the rate of type 2 diabetes increased 10-fold from 1982 to 1994, representing 33% of all adolescent cases of diabetes. Nationally, it is estimated that 29% of adolescent patients with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, resulting in an estimated 2.8 million adolescents in the U.S. with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

Given the rise of childhood obesity, it is estimated that more than one third of all children who were born in 2000 will eventually develop diabetes, either during childhood or after adolescence.

Remember, this was a previously unheard-of disease in children (hence the name “adult-onset” diabetes).

Some ethnic groups are more prone to diabetes. For example, 50% of Hispanics in the U.S. are projected to develop childhood or adult diabetes. This rise in diabetes also leads to a reduction in projected lifespan — as much as 22 years for some individuals.

Have I scared you yet? You better get scared because simply eating the wrong foods not only causes a tremendous burden on our medical care system, but it also kills those people suffering from it prematurely and makes them suffer in the process.

Is this the path you want your children to walk?

Do you still not want to “deprive” your children of tasty sweets, desserts, and processed foods? Did you know pizza causes the highest and longest-lasting blood sugar rise of almost any other food on the planet?

You have a real choice to make a real difference in your child’s future health on this planet my dear parent. But you can’t cop-out by going for the “easy-meal” way by giving your kids processed foods, or stop in at a Mickie D’s or BK lounge.

“So what should I eat then Harry?”

Here’s a quick example of what I had for breakfast:

Spinach for a healthy breakfast?

• 3 cups of fresh spinach (easy to get — I simply buy bags of organic spinach from my local grocery store)
• 1/2 Haas avocado (it has a higher “good fat” content then the caribbean, or Florida, variety)
• 4 ounces of turkey breast (just get it at the deli, sliced up – I like the cajun kind for it’s “kick”)
• 1 tablespoon of UDO’s Choice Blended oil (high essential fat content great for a ton of things – helping to release stored body fat being one you might be interested in. )
• 2 ounces of Apple Cider Vinegar
• Sprinkled liberally with curry powder (which contains the spice curcumin (turmeric) – a traditionally Indian spice that’s been shown to combat human disease such as cancer, inflammation, and atherosclerosis.)

The supplements I took were the following:

• Lifeforce Advanced Antioxidant/Vitamin/Mineral blend (this, and the Creafit below,  are my own products so in the interest of disclosure, I will receive compensation if you purchase them)
• Creafit – Advanced Lean Muscle Formula (remember, always concentrate on building lean muscle, even if you’re a woman, as it helps raise your metabolism and burn more fat all day long)
• Extra Pantothenic Acid (about 1.5 grams) – helps to utilize fat for burning more efficiently
• Astaxanthin – potent antioxidant

I’ll take the LifeForce Antioxidant/Vitamin/Mineral blend several times throughout the day. It’s best to do this instead of taking the entire days dose at one time.

Reason? Most vitamins are water soluble. If you take too much of them at one time they’ll not be used. Better to spread it out throughout the day.

“But what about my kids!”, you holler at me, “they’re not going to eat a spinach salad for breakfast for goodness sake!”

I hear you my dear parent.

Here are a couple of previous posts for “good for them” and great-tasting recipes for a kids healthy breakfast:

Can a Healthy Breakfast Help You Lose Weight Quick? (scroll to bottom for the kids meal)
Why Should You Worry About Giving Your Kids a Healthy Breakfast?

Here’s my promised recipe for healthy ice cream. Just take the smoothie recipe in the 2nd article above, and pour it into an ice cube tray. Freeze, and wallah! Healthy ice cream your  kids will love.

Related articles by Zemanta

• ‘Fasting Signal’ Offers Clues to Insulin Resistance in the Obese (nlm.nih.gov)
• Lower Your Blood Sugar With These 3 Daily Tips and Understanding the Glycemic Index (battlediabetes.com)

Take Charge!

P.S. Want to: Learn the “Easy” way to get and stay in shape? Discover the secret to quick fat loss? How to exercise less and get better results? Discover the secret to ripped abs without doing endless crunches? Then be sure to get my “Amazing Fat Burning Formula” HERE.

P.P.S. If you think this article has value for others, please click on one of the “Share and Enjoy” links below.

All of these “perfect” outcomes were as a result of having done something before that allowed that perfect “event” to happen flawlessly, and seemingly without effort.

If you want to lose weight quick, so it goes with setting up your day of eating. Starting out on the wrong foot, with unbalanced food groups shooting your blood sugar levels wildly up… then cascading down again, will set yourself up for a failed day – you won’t lose weight quick (or at all) if you start your day eating the wrong foods.

But what is the right… and the wrong way to start your day with a healthy breakfast?

Here’s an easy quiz… see if you can pick out which breakfast (A or B) is the more healthy breakfast way to start your day:

Breakfast A:

Healthy breakfast?

bowl of sugar frosted flakes

1 cup of skim milk

1 cup of orange juice

1 slice of toast

1 pat of butter

1 tablespoon of jam

Breakfast B:

Healthy Breakfast!

3 ounces of sirloin

2 whole eggs

1/2 grapefruit

1/2 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup of black coffee (no sugar or milk)

If you chose Breakfast A, do NOT pass go, do not collect $200, and go straight to jail (you monopoly fans will get it).

Let’s take a closer look at these two to see why one is a healthy breakfast, and the other will send you straight to disease haven.

Breakfast A:

Calories = 605

Carbohydrates = 106 grams (70% of calories)

Sugar = 56 grams = 4.7 Tablespoons of sugar (actually 9 tablespoons when you consider that all the carbohydrates in this meal act like sugar in your body)

Fat = 12 grams (18% of calories)

Protein = 14 grams (12% of calories)

Fiber = 4 grams

Sodium = 630 mg (25% of daily recommended amount)

Breakfast B:

Calories = 378

Carbohydrates = 19 grams (20% of calories)

Sugar = 5 grams = 1 1/4 teaspoon sugar

Fat = 15 grams = (36% of calories)

Protein = 39 grams = (41% of calories)

Fiber = 5 grams

Sodium = 130 mg (5.4% of daily recommended amount)

Breakfast A is loaded with carbohydrates that “act” like sugar in your body, AND, actual sugar too. This “double whammy” will overload your pancreas (your organ that produces insulin in response to meals) like you won’t believe. Is it any wonder that type II diabetes is soaring in this country? And with parents feeding our kids these kinds of meals all day long (heavy on the carbohydrates, low on the protein and fiber and nutrients), is it no wonder that the US Surgeon General has issued a warning about the skyrocketing rates of diabetes in kids today?

The US Surgeon General also estimates that 1 in 3 kids born today will develop diabetes in their lifetimes – pretty sobering statistics.

Breakfast A will shoot your blood sugar levels sky-high, then, as your pancreas releases insulin to “clear” this excess sugar from your bloodstream, will cause your blood sugar levels to drop precipitously. This “yo-yo” effect causes you to quickly feel hungry again for, you guessed it, more sugar, and the vicious cycle continues all day long.

And guess which breakfast will cause you to feel full longer? If you guessed healthy breakfast B you get a gold star on your forehead. Even though breakfast B calories are almost half the calories of breakfast A, the stable blood sugar levels that result from eating breakfast B will let you go longer without feeling hungry again.

Here’s another tip – fat burning cannot happen in the presence of high blood sugar levels.

Insulin is an extremely potent “storage” hormone, which means that your body is looking for a place to store all those excess sugars and calories. You cannot “store” and “burn” at the same time. If you guessed that your fat cells are usually the only place for them to be stored (because chronic high blood sugar levels over time have already filled up your other “depot” areas like your liver and muscles cells), then you’re right. This means chronically eating foods like breakfast A are keeping you in a “storage” mode almost all the time.

On the other hand, healthy breakfast B contains about the perfect combination of proteins, low-glycemic carbohydrates, and fats to keep your blood sugar steady — increasing the time when you’ll feel hungry again.

Healthy breakfast B is great for adults, with similar meals consisting of lean meat, fibrous vegetables, and healthy fats (olive oil) the rest of the day.

Quick Tip: You should not eat a high-protein, low-carbohydrate AND low-fat diet. Low-carbs and low-fat will NOT work for the long term. And in fact, you’ll have a harder time losing fat. You must eat a moderate amount of good fats (eggs have been villified for so many years that even in the light of recent data showing the fats in eggs are mainly benign, people still have issues with eating the yolks of eggs…don’t be one of the misinformed!).

For kids, one great way to start their day would be uncooked steel-cut oats (NOT QUICK OATS PLEASE – it digests too quickly sending blood sugar levels soaring) topped with all kinds of fresh fruit (sliced bananas, blueberries, blackberries, etc), and a cup of whole milk mixed with a great-tasting and good for them protein powder (see previous posts for my recommendations here – NO SOY PROTEIN PLEASE), and a 1/2 tablespoon of UDO’s choice (found in your health food store) mixed in. Your kids will love this concoction, trust me.

The reason you don’t want to cook the oats is because cooking it makes it easier to digest. And you now know that the easier a food is to digest, the more potential it has to raise your blood sugar levels. Raw is best.

Now that you have the knowledge, make the right choices, take action… and…

Take Charge!

P.S. Want to: Learn the “Easy” way to get and stay in shape? Discover the secret to quick fat loss? How to exercise less and get better results? Discover the secret to ripped abs without doing endless crunches? Then be sure to get my “Amazing Fat Burning Formula” HERE.

The alarm sounds… “HOLY MACKERAL!”, you scream internally at yourself. You just made the realization you’ve heard the alarm… FOR THE 4TH TIME THIS MORNING… because you kept pushing the “snooze” button! Bolting out of bed, you run to wake up the kids, yelling and screaming at them to “WAKE UP!!” Sliding into the kitchen you turn on the coffee pot, and quickly open the cupboards to get the cereal for the kids….

“WAIT!!!!”, you scream internally at yourself!

“I remember reading what Harry said about how cereal is slowly killing our kids. Do I really want to do this anymore after what Harry told me?!?” you thoughtfully think… “Hmmm… I don’t have any spare time this morning… but Harry did say it wouldn’t take much more time than pouring a bowl of cereal if I followed his recommendations for a healthy breakfast for kids instead (and me too he said),” you ponder…

“I did buy those bags of frozen fruit Harry recommended, found them right in the frozen food section of my grocery store, just like Harry said,” you remembered. “And the oil, yea, the UDO’s Choice Blended Oil I got at my local health food store, in the refrigerated section. Harry said to just add a couple of tablespoons right into the blender, add a banana, then open up the bags of blueberries, the strawberries, the mixed fruit (that had chunks of peaches and pineapple in it), any kind of fresh frozen fruit I could find. Just pour them right from the bag into the blender is what he said. Ok, here goes,” you say to yourself with mixed emotions…

“Oh, don’t forget the freshly bottled orange juice with all the pulp too (Harry said the kids won’t notice the pulp with all the other fiber from the fruits you add — we’ll see Harry… my kids hate the pulp), just a cup or two of that will do Harry said. Too much and it acts like sugar in the kids bodies…I don’t want them to start taxing their little pancreas, like Harry said all of the cereals do to our kids,” you remember reading at Harry’s blog about a healthy breakfast.

“Right! and the healthy, great-tasting protein powder Harry recommended. Harry not only said this has some of the best proteins in it, but also tastes incredibly good and will add a sweetness to the smoothie that will make my kids literally beg for their morning smoothies, much like Harry said his child does with him.”

As the blender starts to whir with the frozen fruit, banana, fresh squeezed OJ with pulp, UDO’s Choice Blended oil, and Protein Powder I think,

Visit www.HarryJohnsonJr.com for this Healthy Breakfast Smoothie Recipe

“I have to start training my kids to eat the right foods now, and teaching them at a young age what good food choices are, so that later in life they’ll have a better chance to stave off the growing epidemic we have called type II diabetes, or adult onset diabetes,” you think after you remember reading about what Harry said on diabetes. Harry also said this:

“Type II diabetes, or adult-onset diabetes is actually brought about by years and years of eating the wrong types of foods. Foods we’re so used to eating but in fact act like sugar in your body because of how easy they are to digest. Some of these seemingly-benign, but nevertheless eventually deadly foods are:

• Cereals — any kind (forget the granola – your body thinks SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR when you eat it and dumps huge amounts of insulin in your body in order to process it – over time your over-taxed pancreas and body starts to reject the high blood sugar levels and becomes “insulin-resistant”. This is the beginning of an insidious disease that attacks the organs from the inside (high blood sugar levels slowly destroys organs, including your eyesight)
• Fruit juices – NEVER give a kid straight fruit juice – better to mix it with fresh fruit where there is some fiber to help slow digestion.
• Cola drinks – need I say anything about this… for real?
• White rice – try brown or basmati rices. They have more fiber.
• White bread (try and get Ezekiel Sprouted Bread in the frozen food section of your grocery store instead),
• Processed foods of ANY kind (if it comes in a package and it’s sweet, you’re doing two bad things… 1. You’re training your kid these foods are ok and setting up a life-long “bad food” habit. 2. You’re starting the exact process for diabetes to form for your child later in life. Try this for a snack – throw together raw cashews (kids seem to love them best over other nuts), raisins, prunes (kids will love them they’re so sweet), and maybe some raw pumpkins seeds (experiment with this to see if they like it – it’s a nice compliment to the other items in this snack), cranberries (they usually add some sugar to them so go sparingly), and goji fruit (found in health food store)

YOU HAVE ALL THE CONTROL HERE — AND DON’T LET ANY CHILD TELL YOU OTHERWISE.

If they’re older, you’ll just have to win this battle my dear parent. YOU HAVE TOO!

Do you love your child? Of course you do!

Do you want the best for him/her? Yes, no doubt about it!

Then you have to get tough if you have to… for your child’s future sake AND for the sake of THEIR children. Think about the ramifications of your decisions, both good and bad, simply by the choices you make with their food. Think I’m being excessive? Why don’t you have a talk with the surgeon general of the United states who states, ”

THE PROBLEM OF OVERWEIGHT IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

• In 1999, 13% of children aged 6 to 11 years and 14% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 years in the United States were overweight. This prevalence has nearly tripled for adolescents in the past 2 decades.
• Risk factors for heart disease, such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure, occur with increased frequency in overweight children and adolescents compared to children with a healthy weight.
• Type 2 diabetes, previously considered an adult disease, has increased dramatically in children and adolescents. Overweight and obesity are closely linked to type 2 diabetes.
• Overweight adolescents have a 70% chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. This increases to 80% if one or more parent is overweight or obese. Overweight or obese adults are at risk for a number of health problems including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and some forms of cancer.
• The most immediate consequence of overweight as perceived by the children themselves is social discrimination. This is associated with poor self-esteem and depression.

This statement was made in 1999! Ten years later and guess what… you think the statistics in young children are better… or worse?

Your children don’t know any better… they only know what you tell them by YOUR actions, and YOUR examples.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT LESSON FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU… YES YOU… ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CHILDS WELL-BEING AND WELFARE BOTH NOW… AND IN THEIR FUTURE.

You’ve read this far because you DO want the best for your child. And it starts today, right now, not tomorrow when you can “find the time” to get those fresh frozen bags of fruit and try to do some of the things “Harry said…”

D-O   I-T   T-O-D-A-Y!!!

“Harry was right,” you surprisingly say to yourself… “it really doesn’t take much longer to put this healthy breakfast together for the kids. Plus, now that they don’t have to sit down for breakfast, because I put the smoothie into individual sealed containers with built-in straws, they can have their breakfast without rushing while on the way to me taking them to school,” you exclaim!

Happier than you’ve been in the morning for a long time because you’ve not only saved time, but you’ve also given your kids a great healthy breakfast start to the day, you reminisce about how you you used to look and think, “what if… hmmm…”, as you happily drive your kids to school, healthy breakfast smoothie straw seemingly permanently attached to their lips because they taste so great.

Take Charge!

P.S. Want to: Learn the “Easy” way to get and stay in shape? Discover the secret to quick fat loss? How to exercise less and get better results? Discover the secret to ripped abs without doing endless crunches? Then be sure to get my “Amazing Fat Burning Formula” HERE.