Al G Smith

Q: What to eat for breakfast if I need to lose weight?

I am trying to lose weight by eating less and eating better foods. What do you suggest I eat for breakfast in the mornings so that I can drop a few pounds? I’ve got dinner and lunches down, just not breakfast foods yet.

A: Maybe challenging some conventional wisdom but if you want to lose weight and have a healthy positive start to the day:

1) Completely Ignore the spurious clap-trap masquerading as news about eating a big grilled sausage, bacon, egg and tomato breakfast spewed forth from a hideously mis-informed so called ‘nutritionist’ as reported from Sky News (!!!) and in retold Yahoo news today:
Yahoo “News”
This is UTTER UNMITIGATED CLAPTRAP — and totally confusing for anyone who is trying to eat more healthily

2) Recognize what your body needs after 7 to 8 hours of enforced ‘fasting’ (i.e. while asleep) — namely:
a) Hydration
b) The reduction of any acidity (due to the continuance of digestive processes, and the effects of water loss overnight)
c) Nourishment — meaning some quickly transformed, but lasting energy source in the form of more complex carbohydrates

Bear in mind also that ’sugars’ should be avoided as they are both acidifying and burn too quickly…this means avoid using actual sugars (such as on cereals — and IF you do choose to eat cereals use only those with no added sugar — oats for example are a good choice)

This also means avoiding too much sweet fruit as they are simply alternative sugar sources and little better than a candy bar (or so-called ‘breakfast bars’ most of which are simply profit-making sugar sicks that should be shunned a all times).

Ideally you should therefore try to eat food which provide some complex carbs, some mineral nutrients, some water, and some alkalizing effects.

An ideal start to the day would therefore be:
i) A half pint of good quality mineral water (or home distilled water) within a few minutes of waking.
ii) After a refreshing wash (i.e. not too soon after the water)– a good sized plateful of cucumber and tomatoes (and a generous sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley, plus some mild sweet salad onions IF you aren’t going to work in close proximity with clients for a couple of hours! Onions are a good source of flavonoids which are not only anti-cancer but also are known to be anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-allergenic and anti-inflammatory), generously dressed with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice, an seasoned with naturally iodine and mineral rich sea salt, and a little black pepper (or a milder chilli pepper — like pimenton picante; or sweet pimenton dulce — if you like it).

You could alternatively make these same ingredients into a superb ’smoothie’ (some might call it Gazpacho!) along with a couple of small cloves of fresh garlic for its additional anti-viral and blood cleansing properties.

If you still crave some further substance a slice of wholemeal spelt (a lower gluten wheatflour alternative) soda bread (i.e. NO yeast!) which is VERY easy to make at home, or a couple of organic rice cakes, would be OK topped with EV olive oil…or even a smear of butter wouldn’t be out of the question on occasions!

This is a TRULY health start to the day that will support your system in many ways and contribute to your weight loss goals. Ignore all else Good luck!

More useful tips at http://www.GoNaturalandOrganic.com

A recent Yahoo Answers submission about constipation and IBS that we posted. This is a health issue that affect millions in the ‘developed world’ — so perhaps a good one to start with:

How do I help my niece? (I am her guardian.) She has recently been diagnosed with severe and permanent irritable bowel syndrome. This means that often she has diarrhea or constipation. She is eight years old so she is perfectly potty trained. When she is constipated, the doctor told me to help her by “forcing” her bowels to work without medicine or laxatives or any sort or adding more fiber to her diet, because her condition is not dietary. I have been told that this can be done by pushing on her feet or having her poop in a hole, where she can squat. How can I help her?

Simply can’t believe that for a youngster they (the medical profession, that is!) haven’t come up with something better! The ’system’ (well, modern medicine in general!) is terrible when it comes to such diagnoses — I went through YEARS of tests, more tests, & even more tests…only to get the same IBS ‘umbrella every time…Which of course means “don’t really know what the problem is” diagnosis in the end…

In fact I now know through my only research and resolutions of most of my problems that there were probably several causative factors…

For starters: MOST folks on a typical Western Diet end up with a chronically impaired digestive system.

Getting your ‘gut health’ right is a key step towards seeing improvements in IBS symptoms (as well as in general health and wellbeing) for many people. If stats are to be believed up to 80% of all folks consuming a typical Western diet (that’s most of us in the UK and the US for starters!) are likely to have compromised intestinal health. This is for many reasons, mostly to do with lifestyle, food choices, and eating habits.

We can therefore end up with 80% ‘bad’ bacteria/20% ‘good’ (helpful/needed) bacteria in the gut — whereas the opposite proportions are said to be necessary for good digestion, and consequent better health.

One way to start moving things in a positive direction is to try and introduce some ‘good’ bacteria into the diet by using a probiotic supplement. My personal favorite is an all-naturally produced probiotic product that is grown from organic plant sources (NOT fecal matter like some products use!). It contains the whole range of lactic acid bacteria, reckoned to be the most effective and appropriate micro-organisms tough enough to get through the stomach acids to where they are needed in the intestines. You can read more at the link below — and there are useful articles on site too. Works out to cost about £1 a day (so not exactly cheap…BUT I can say hand-on-heart it seems to have made a radical difference not only for me but many others with long tern so called ‘permanent’ IBS). Also once things get better you may just supplement the diet say every two or three days:
https://saferalternative.mionegroup.com/

Further explanation about probiotics and details about need for probiotic support here:
http://www.gonando.com/probiotics.html
and here
http://www.gonando.com/super-supplements

The other things to consider is trying to move anyone, child or adult, with problems like this onto a more ‘alkaline diet’. This may be difficult depending on how much of a fussy eater a child (or indeed an adult) is. But the pay-off can be well worth it in terms of impact on long term health. It would take too long to explain how and why this has proven so good for so many — including many children — but the video (split into 7 easily manageable chunks! ;-)) of a presentation by world-leading expert, and proponent of alkalization, Dr Robert O Young, is here, along with a helpful list of alkaline foods: http://www.gonando.com/alkaline-foods.html

With full details in his book here:
http://astore.amazon.com/usastore1-20/

I’d really like to know how you/she gets on — if you try any of these ideas. I also really hope it helps. I cannot tell you how much these strategies have improved a situation for myself that I had thought was a life sentence! Hope they may help your niece too.
(N.B. - I should mention that the problem of alternate constipation/diarrhea can actually turn out to be ‘one’ issue — constipation. Odd though it seems, the apparent diarrhea can simply be a symptom suffering that stems from from retention of impacted faeces, and consequent evacuation of only the liquid part of the stool. The hard, impacted mass can remain for ages in the gut, when it suffers low motility, and this process only makes matters worse. The probiotic should gradually work its magic, as gut flora improves. But it is good NOT to use laxatives as this causes unnatural evacuation that can end up with a see-saw effect and making constipation worse overall. Plus it IS important that she is well hydrated, which means encouraging her to drink plenty of good, clean water, every day (preferably mineral water, or even home distilled water). BUT Avoid pop/colas, tea, coffee (guess she doesn’t do these anyway, but the diuretic effect due to caffeine can encourage dehydration). Good hydration is important to properly formed/textured stools. A moist stool is easier to pass than a hard compacted one.
Just wanted to add those thoughts. Good luck.)

More Yahoo Answers posts will be added here from time to time, as and when considered relevant to the topics of family health or mind, body and spirit, in order to try and make sure these ‘nuggets’ of wisdom don’t simply get compacted in Yahoo’s virtual ‘pipes’!

If you haven’t heard why you should be making efforts to alkalize your diet then here is a great chance to get an insight to the many health benefits from probably the world’s foremost proponent of Alkalizing for health - Dr Rob O Young.

There are a series of videos here of Dr Young giving a keynote presentation — some fascinating and compelling evidence for making changes to your diet sooner rather than later…

Free Alkalizing for Health Videos

As an added bonus you’ll also find a list of alkaline foods so that you can begin planning them into your diet as soon as possible.

You should also take a closer look at Dr Young’s authored works (sometimes along with co-author Shelley Redford Young, his wife). Some of his best books include:
pH Miracle for Health
pH Miracle for Diabetes
pH Miracle for Weight Loss
Sick and Tired (an in depth study with evidence that could blow your mind!)

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