…or maybe not.
Maybe it’s not so wacky. And maybe it’s not a weight loss tip. And maybe everybody else already knew this.
But maybe somebody else will find it useful.
Who knows?
Here goes. (little poem)
It suddenly occurred to me, a few years ago, and just as suddenly recurred to me this week, that you don’t have to eat breakfast food for breakfast.
“Duh,” you say.
But hold on a minute, and let me explain.
I’ve been reading all kinds of things all my life that say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. When I was a kid, there were all kinds of articles and little news stories about helping your kid do better in school.
Then, just a few years ago, the Readers’ Digest ran a story about how most people’s weight loss programs fail because they try to make too many changes all at once. The story advocated making one small change a week. (I think it was a week—maybe it was a month—but you get the idea, right?) And the very first change they recommended was to have a good breakfast.
And we’re back to “Duh.”
The thing is—I’m not that wild about breakfast food. I don’t like oatmeal, eggs—yeah, okay, sometimes but that involves cooking and it doesn’t usually go well for me, soggy cereal—not a big culinary delight, and most other breakfast foods seem way too sweet for early in the morning. Toast and bagels, I do like, but no one could argue they provide a solid nutritious meal.
But I was reading about this “change one” idea and lamenting the fact that I don’t really like breakfast food when I remembered that runners “carb up” before a marathon by eating pasta.
Pasta!
In the morning.
“Well, why not?” I thought.
So, for a while there, I would have pasta for breakfast. Or a smoked turkey sandwich. Or, sometimes, a warmed up plate of gaucho chicken, lemon chive potatoes and broccoli from the previous night’s dinner.
It all tasted much better than donuts and pop-tarts.
I had more energy throughout the day.
And I was skinnier.
That last may be a prost hoc ergo propter hoc* fallacy, but it hasn’t been disproven yet. So, now, in addition to being back on the treadmill, I’m back to having dinner for breakfast.
Try it.
* Latin for ‘after this, therefore because of this‘ which is the kind of faulty logic that lets you assume that you broke your favorite glass because a black cat crossed your path earlier. (If that’s one of your superstitions, I’m sorry, but it’s just not true.)
