Disclaimer:
I’m not just writing this for the typical Pointman backyard athletes . Everyone eats, everyone loves breakfast, and this is where most people mess up. It’s sad to start your day off with an epic fail. I increasingly find myself providing nutritional guidance to older friends and relatives a lot lately. This is for everyone. Please forward this post to the overweight person in your life who needs help.
Don’t be a dumbass
If you're not proactive with your diet, most likely you’re eating like a complete dumbass. The majority of Americans are obese or overweight. Average is dangerous.
This is most clear with breakfast
What we consider to be a traditional breakfast actually could be very healthy and nutritious. But the average American breakfast is a diabetic tragedy that lacks any meaningful nutritional value. There is hope though.
Breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” was actually created as a marketing campaign for Kellogg’s. It’s just an advertising slogan and is not at all true, you can look it up. Soda, cereal, pharma, tobacco, cosmetics, and seed oil industries all use the same playbook. I literally run a marketing company and have studied this extensively. But they do it because it works. I considering making the entire post about the history of food propaganda, but you can google to learn more. It’s more important to focus on what’s happening now.
There is a food war going on
If you’re not fighting, you’re losing. And breakfast is ground zero. The most common breakfast foods are poisonous, fake, sugary, cheap, and addicting. Even more concerning is that corporations pump these foods into schools and communities where they know they can more easily trick young people. Uneducated parents on a budget don’t know any better. The downward spiral continues. Stop letting big corporations poison you and your family.
Here are some examples of literal corporate propaganda I found recently
These fake nutritionists have blood on their hands
The American Heart Association recommends seed oils on their website
Less body fat means you live longer
This is the most basic concept of nutrition and longevity, but it has somehow been twisted by the current culture. There is no “false standard of health”. Larger waists are “positively and significantly associated with a higher all cause mortality risk.” Excessive fat is objectively bad, especially around your waist.
These are the top two solutions I recommend to unfat yourself.
Solution 1: don’t eat breakfast
Are you the kind of person that is voraciously hungry before lunch time? It’s common, and likely because your blood sugar has completely tanked, probably because you gave yourself poison for breakfast.
By eliminating the morning poison, your body has a chance to normalize blood sugar and you tend to be less hungry by lunch.
Before: eat poison in morning, starving by lunch
After: fast in the morning, not hungry by lunch
Seems counter intuitive, but it’s a well noted adaption in the intermittent fasting community. I’ve been doing this in some form for about a decade and wrote about it before in The NEW Food Pyramid + Breakfast Challenge:
There is no secret to intermittent fasting.
If you eat the typical American diet, you are putting your body in chaos mode every morning.
When you fast, you simply skip the chaotic morning assault on your hormones and blood sugar, and your body has a chance to normalize for once. With a harmonized body, you will tend to feel less hungry and eat more reasonably. This is a good thing.
In my opinion, that’s not even the best part.
What’s really great about intermittent fasting is the lifestyle gains. By skipping breakfast, you free up a significant part of your day where you don’t eat. So rather than seeking food or cooking in the morning, where you are likely busy preparing for work anyways, you can use that time as you please to be more productive.
You don’t have to do it long term or frequently, but it’s totally worth trying.
Please note: if you have a particular condition or health concern, you need to consult your doctor before trying.
Solution 2: eat TRAD for breakfast
I’ve explained previously which food is nutritious and which is poison extensively in How to eat with the TRAD diet system
Here is the key guidelines
These are the principles of TRAD, which are consistent with the needs and history of your human body, but is also consistent with the popular modern diets.
Prioritize high quality protein in your meals first and foremost
Minimize or eliminate processed, packaged, and modified foods
Eat in alignment with what suits your body best
Eat less rather than more
So if you do choose to eat breakfast, follow the TRAD guidelines and the NEW food pyramid.
The goal and the result of eating TRAD for breakfast is the same as not eating breakfast — stable blood sugar and hormones.
[Bonus] This is the easiest on the go breakfast that I actually eat
When I do choose to eat in the morning and I’m on the go or don’t have meal prep already available, this is what I eat.
1) High quality protein bar
The overwhelming majority of “fitness food” is total junk and basically candy, so I avoid it at all costs. The only protein bars I currently eat are jerky, but only very specific products that don’t have sugar, preservatives, and too much flavoring.
The two brands I currently use are Epic and Chomps. And even some of their varieties do not satisfy the TRAD requirement. Note, I’m not affiliated or connected with these companies at all.
2) Fruit
Fruit is nature’s amazing way of giving you nutritious and tasty carbohydrates, and they usually come from trees. It doesn’t really matter which fruit you choose, as long as it agrees with you and it is grown in a healthy environment. I find fruits that have their own natural packaging like bananas and mandarins to be exceptionally convenient. Avoid dried fruit.
Fun exercise: ask your next date what their top 5 favorite fruits are. You’re welcome.
You might be pleasantly surprised with what counts as fruit. Here is a list. Avocado, coconut, olives, and cucumber are all fruits and fair game, assuming you eat them unprocessed and without junk ingredients.
3) Backup plan
If the above two fail, you can grab an RX Bar. Not ideal, but probably good enough. Respect to them for being super transparent with their ingredients, and perhaps helping accelerate that design trend.
Start winning in the morning
I hope this has given you a refreshing perspective on how you can start your day off the right way. The good news is, the path forward is super simple.
But, don’t expect yourself to be too strict every day. Be naughty sometimes.
Nate
PSA for all the new members, be sure to check out the latest God Bod backyard workout.