It might surprise you to learn that, according to a recent study, the answer to how to get lean and have more energy is eating breakfast. The National Weight Control Registry tracks over 10,000 individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for long periods, and eating breakfast is a daily habit for successful losers.
“Most – 78% – reported eating breakfast every day, and almost 90% reported eating breakfast at least five days a week – which suggests that starting the day with breakfast is an important strategy to lose weight and keep it off,” says James O. Hill, Ph.D., the Registry’s co-founder and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
In a recent study, they found that almost 3,000 people who lost an average of 70 pounds and kept it off for six years ate breakfast regularly. Only four percent of people who never ate breakfast kept the weight off. Both groups consumed the same number of calories and ate the same types of food, and the only difference was when they ate their meals.
Eat Accordingly
According to Dr. Laura Lefkowitz, what you eat for breakfast also matters. She advises her postmenopausal women that are trying to lose weight not to eat the fruit serving at breakfast. She says the sugar, even in fruit, can set you up for craving sugar all day long. Instead, she suggests they have their serving of fruit around 4:00 pm with a little protein when there is a natural drop in energy.
Dr. Laura does recommend that if you are going to include any kind of grain in your diet, breakfast is the time to consume it. You also want to make sure you’ve got a good source of protein, like yogurt or eggs to accompany your piece of toast or a small serving of cereal. Needless to say, a sweet roll or sugary muffin is not what successful dieters are having for breakfast.
Jumpstart Your Day
One of the biggest benefits of eating breakfast every day is that it jumpstarts your metabolism. This will enable your body to burn more calories throughout the day, helping you to lose weight and increase your energy level. If you want to track your metabolism throughout the day to see which foods and meal times work best for you, there are technological advances that can make that possible.
For example, Lumen has a portable metabolism tracker that will tell you your metabolic levels with only a single breath by measuring your body’s carbon dioxide concentration. It then allows you to improve your metabolic flexibility, which is your body’s ability to efficiently switch between using carbs and fats as a fuel source. By tracking these amounts, you can find better weight loss results.
Is Your Weight Loss Stalled? Try Intermittent Fasting
Adding breakfast and tracking your metabolism are great ways to try to motivate weight loss and increase your energy levels. However, some women just can’t make any headway when it comes to losing weight. For others, the results they are seeing aren’t as good as they’d like, or they’ve reached a plateau and need to change it up a bit to get back on track.
Many women find that intermittent fasting is a great way to lose and maintain weight. If you’ve considered it but haven’t been able to take the plunge, now is a perfect time. With winter in our rearview mirror, it’s time to start looking forward to spring and summer, and that includes dropping the excess pounds we put on while we survived the cold weather. But whether you’re looking to lose a few pounds or have a ways to go, it’s all about taking that first step.
Since eating breakfast is so important, you should eat your breakfast no later than 9:00 am and your dinner no later than 6:00 pm. It’s the food you consume later in the day and evening that packs on the pounds, so eat more during the day and make your last meal a light one. Shut down the kitchen as soon as you finish dinner. The weight will start coming off with a limited eating window of 8 to 9 hours a day, especially if you are fasting after 6:00 every day.
Need to Lose Weight FASTER?
An easy way to jumpstart your weight loss (and lose 5 pounds fast!) is to try the ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet® (FMD). Women have liked the ProLon Fast because they are not hungry even though, technically, their body thinks they are going on a 5-day fast. Fasting with food sounds like an oxymoron, yet that is exactly what the program entails. The FMD® recipe allows your body to remain in a fasting mode despite consuming calories and losing weight!
While the ultimate goal of fasting is longevity, ProLon is a fat-focused weight loss program. You will lose fat (especially belly fat) while protecting lean body mass.* We’ve partnered with ProLon to offer our readers a discount when ordering the 5-day fast. If you’re in the U.S. and Canada, use Coupon Code PRIME for $25 off your order.
For our U.K. readers, use PRIME for $25 off your ProLon 5-Day Fasting Mimicking Diet.
If you’re still concerned about being hungry while intermittent fasting, Fast Bars are the answer to your worries. They’re designed to nourish your body while maintaining its fasting state so you can fast for longer without getting hungry.
Need A Program to Keep You on Track?
Since so many women over 50 struggle with weight loss, Prime Women developed a weight loss program we call PLATE. The acronym stands for Portion control, Lifestyle, Accountability, Timing (intermittent fasting), and Exercise. The goal of PLATE is to teach you how to eat for life! The Prime Women’s PLATE program is now available in an app on Apple or Android with reminders to keep you on track.
*Benefits seen in a clinical study of 5-day ProLon cycles monthly for three consecutive months. ProLon was also shown in the study to help individuals lose an average of 5.7 lbs and 1.6 inches off their waist circumference.
The ingredients in ProLon are generally considered recognized as safe (GRAS). ProLon is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The FDA has not evaluated ProLon or the statements on this site.
This article is for informational purposes only. Before using any products mentioned in the article or before joining the PLATE intermittent fasting weight loss program, please consult your doctor.
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Why Postmenopausal Women Can’t Lose Weight
