Showing posts with label breakfast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breakfast. Show all posts

Saturday, 5 April 2014

An energetic and healthy bar

18:51:00 breakfast , diet 0 Comments
This morning i decided to make an easy and healthy snack. You could definitely use this snack as a breakfast bar. These bars are the solution when you have no time in the morning or whenever you are craving right before lunch or dinner. 
The low glycemic index in this carbohydrate-rich food will slowly raise the blood glucose and will be digested at slow pace. Turns out that you will feel full longer full and way more energetic for the rest of the day.

The bars contain a bunch of complex carbohydrates, proteins and healthy fats. Its nutrients directly influence the skin (acne), the nervous system, improves mental health (reducing stress), the circulatory system and heart (high cholesterol). The digestive system benefits too by reducing constipation.

 Was I convincing enough? Here is an easy procedure of how to make some.


Ingredients for 6-8 bars:
  • Olive oil for greasing the plate
  • 2 tablespoons of honey
  • 4 tablespoons of coconut oil
  • 3 tablespoons of peanut butter
  • 280g of oatmeal
  • 3 tablespoons of ground flax seed
  • 1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds
  • 1 tablespoon of goji berries
  • 2 tablespoons of chopped dates
  • 1 tablespoon of chopped and dried figs


    Procedure
  • Warm up the oven up to 180°C and grease the baking pan with olive oil
  • Let the honey, coconut oil and peanut butter melt on a low fire
  • Put them off the fire and incorporate the rest of the ingredients (keep some seeds and dates to sprinkle later)
  • Press the mixture firmly in the baking pan and sprinkle the seeds and dates over it
  • Put the pan for 10-15min in the oven until the mixture looks gold brown
  • Let it cool off and slice the cake into stripes
  • If you feel like it's too dry, feel free to add some honey on top


Et voila, a delicious and easy pack of nutrients at your disposal!

Enjoy!
Caroline



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Monday, 10 March 2014

The GAINS of breakfast

16:48:00 breakfast , diet 0 Comments
I’m not the type of athlete who ever skips breakfast. I truly believe those who still claim that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Several studies actually prove this fact even though very few people are aware of how important breakfast really is. 

 As an actively sportive person, very keen towards nutrition and quite pragmatic, when it comes to nutrition and sports, let me summarise here the fundamental facts of breakfast.
ives you an energy boost 
A well balanced breakfast that contains the essential macro and micro nutrients will give you enough energy to get through your day. Fibers, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin A are just a few of the many nutrients that will help boost your energy level. Oatmeal with a tea spoon of honey, some nuts and one kiwi is an example of a nutritious breakfast (besides what I personally eat every morning)
llows you to focus betterWhenever I skip breakfast, which happens very rarely, my concentration level is really low. One cause of this troublesome situation can be explained with the fact that, for instance, going to work without eating breakfast first is basically equivalent to preventing yourself from fuelling and still burning calories. A body lacking glucose, the sugar that supplies energy to the brain, cannot just work at his full potential. How do you get glucose? Breakfast, of course. 

 ncreases your metabolism rate

Despite the complex evolutionary adaptations that our body has gone through, the reality is quite different: our body still operates as some thousands years ago. Whenever cavemen didn’t have breakfast (which, by that time, it was clearly not called like that), they usually didn't have any food for the rest of day.  As a result, their metabolism went into a state of energy conservation, namely a slow metabolism rate. Can someone explain to our body that we are not living in stone age anymore? Because that's how our genetic compounds really work

 o more LDL cholesterolLDL stands for Low-Density Lipoprotein cholesterol. In simpler terms, the bad cholesterol. When too much bad cholesterol is circulating in the blood, a series of bad things can happen, such as the formation of clots in the inner walls of the arteries that feed the heart and the brain. This, in turn, can lead to dramatic consequences, as everybody knows.
Studies have shown that eating breakfast regularly can help to decrease the level of LDL cholesterol.

 taves off heart attacks
A study from Harvard School of Public Health found that men who regularly skipped breakfast had 27% higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease than those who did eat a morning meal. Skipping breakfast increases the risk of high cholesterol, obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, which are all heart disease risk factors. Waking up, switching on the news, preparing some breakfast and take some time to consume it is a good plan that might reduce the risk of having a heart attack. Isn't it great?

This list is not exhaustive, of course. I just wrote some good reasons to start your day with breakfast.  Bear in mind that not all breakfast is good. Breakfast is just like fuel for a car. The better the fuel, the cleaner it will burn, the less it will pollute and the more efficient the engine will be. 

 Can you read it now? Breakfast can only give you GAINS. Have breakfast!
Love,

Caroline
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Friday, 29 November 2013

Wake up. Start the day. Keep your target.

09:54:00 breakfast , nutrition 0 Comments
I woke up in a very energetic mood this morning.  I think that's the magics of sleeping one hour longer than usual, until I got a phone call at 8am from a friend who, unfortunately forced me to wake up.
Everything is ready for tomorrow. I am in a very positive attitude, my body is responding adequately to any type of input. But my psychological state is what really matters.
I don't feel scared anymore (yes, there was a time I was kind of freaking out thinking about the distance). That moment has just gone and been replaced by the will to accomplish a goal that has been in the waiting queue for such a long time.
Only four months ago I was struggling with a stress fracture, living in a state of depression due to the fact that there was no running after breakfast and no running during my lunch break.
Not today.
I hope that bad injury is not waking up tomorrow. That would be really a big disappointment. After all, that's what runners always have to deal with.







I am temporarily living in Brussels with my friend Gianluca and his place is really where any serious runner would love to be.
We have learned our special way to start the day with a proper breakfast.  Oatmeal, honey, walnuts and other seeds, soy milk, banana chips, cereal bread and italian coffee. And that's only our breakfast!
Almond and arnica oil for sport massage before and after workout, and of course a number of mineral salts and magnesium to support our long runs. 

Nothing more to add. Except that I am going out for a 30 minute run, to talk to my body and listen to what it has to say. 
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