Diet Breakfast Advice

It is often said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it is certainly the one I enjoy most. There is plenty of scope for the anti-cellulite breakfast to be both varied and delicious – and filling and satisfying at the same time.

Some people find they can start the day happily with a couple of bananas, and that these will keep them going throughout the morning. This sort of fare will not do at all for me, as I do not find it particularly filling. However, this is the time of day when you can eat a lot of fruit. Nathan Pritikin said that the liver likes fruit until lunch time, and this seems to have been confirmed by later researches. Eat most of your fruit in the morning; the later in the day you eat it, the harder your body finds it to digest.

If you are just starting the anti-cellulite regime, it is best to stick to one variety of fruit at a time rather than having a fruit cocktail, which can be hard work for the digestive system as all the fruits contain different substances. Although slimming diets commonly suggest starting the day with a grapefruit, most anti-cellulite experts do not recommend too much citrus fruit as the liver finds it quite hard to cope with. Grapefruit. and oranges are very strong, and in addition contain large amounts of salicylic acid, the aspirin-like chemical that can lead to allergies. Most people find, however, that lemon juice does not cause these problems.

The fruit you eat can be as exotic as you like. Fruits such as papaya, guava, mango, pineapple, passion fruit, persimmon and melon are all wonderful at breakfast time. For a fairly substantial breakfast, grind up in a coffee grinder equal amounts of sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds and sprinkle these on the fruit. That will help to keep hunger pangs at bay for a little longer.

You can also keep whole sunflower and pumpkin seeds handy for snacks later during the day. It has been said that sunflower seeds help to reduce a craving for cigarettes, so if you are desperately trying to give up smoking, buy loads of sunflower seeds and have these instead.

Do try not to eat ordinary bread while on the strict anti-cellulite regime, and certainly don’t have toast, butter and marmalade. Although for many people this is the standard British breakfast, it could not be worse from a cellulite point of view. First you have the bread, which contains gluten. This tends to clog up the intestines and can cause digestive problems. Then you compound the damage by toasting the bread, thus releasing free radicals. After that you spread on mucus-clogging butter and lastly, sugar-laden jam or marmalade. All in all, a highly processed and not very healthy start to the day.

It can be hard to persist with fruit and mineral water while everybody else is feasting on highly palatable breakfasts, but it will be worth it in the end. You will come to look forward to this light, energising start to the day.

It is a good idea to get into the habit of not drinking at the same time as you are eating, as liquids tend to dilute the digestive juices, making it harder to digest food properly. When you first wake up, have a glass of mineral water or a wake-up herbal tea but do not drink with your breakfast.

You should not drink tea or coffee for the first two weeks of the anti-cellulite diet. Instead, have herbal tea or a coffee substitute. For a long time, I could not find any decent coffee substitutes, but now I have come across two that are really quite acceptable – Aromalt and Yannoh, both widely available from health food shops. No coffee substitute has quite the taste of the real thing, of course, but all serious cellulite shifters must try to wean themselves off caffeine.

You can drink decaffeinated coffee so long as the caffeine has been removed by the water process – if it has, it will say so on the packet. Otherwise, you are just substituting one set of chemicals for other chemicals, which are probably just as harmful in their way.

Any cow’s milk you buy should be skimmed or semiskimmed. I now find that full-fat milk is too rich for me, and the skimmed variety is just right. So much of what we think we like is purely the result of ingrained habit, rather than absolute free choice.

If you possibly can, try to exist on fruit alone, or fruit plus ground natural seeds, for breakfast for a week. Then you can introduce more substantial fare, such as porridge, muesli and yoghurt-based shakes.

Porridge is a very good, healthy food for all the family, provided it is made in the traditional way, and not with lashings of milk, cream and sugar. You can add a small amount of organic honey, chopped dates or figs, or soaked Hunza apricots to the basic oat mixture. To make porridge, use twice the amount of water to porridge oats, bring to the boil then simmer, stirring all the time, until you have a smooth paste.

Muesli is also a good choice for breakfast, so long as it does not contain added sugar or any preservatives or additives. Many readymade mueslis are very high in both fats and sugar, so read the label carefully first. Soak overnight in a little mineral water and then eat with live low-fat yoghurt in the morning.

One of my favourite breakfasts is a banana shake, quickly made in the liquidizer. All you do is empty the contents of a small carton of low-fat yoghurt (use soya yoghurt if you prefer) into the liquidizer, chop up a banana and add that, together with a squeeze of lemon juice and half a teaspoon of organic honey. Blend well until all is smooth, then serve topped with ground nuts. Or you could add a few dates, figs or soaked apricots.

You do not necessarily have to give up bread at the start of the day. Oatcakes, pumpernickel, rye and Manna bread (a sprouted, unleavened bread made without added salt, sugar or preservatives) are all acceptable gluten-free substitutes, or you can buy special gluten-free bread, which is now quite widely available. Oatcakes with sesame or sunflower seed spread will last just as long as hot buttered toast and marmalade, and once you have got used to them you may even find you prefer them. I do, now. Wholemeal pitta bread, which is unleavened, can be heated in the oven or microwave and then filled with sesame or sunflower spread.

If you must have jam or marmalade, try the Whole Earth varieties, which do not contain any sugar, although they are still high in calories.

Whatever you do, never go without breakfast. There is always the danger of snacking on junk food in the middle of the morning, and then making yourself feel horrible as a result. Breakfast need only take a very few minutes to prepare and eat, and it will set you up for hours. It is especially important to have a nutritious, non-cellulite-forming breakfast if you work in a place where you cannot easily get the right sort of food at lunch time. Staff canteens, school and college dining halls and sandwich bars are unlikely to be able to provide the kind of food you should ideally be eating. It is a good idea to take herbal tea bags and a coffee substitute into work, so that you do not succumb to the tea lady’s offerings.