Here is a meal by meal guide to eating for energy and managing your mood with food.
Breakfast
Eating a good breakfast boosts your concentration and revs your energy, particularly in the morning when you may need it most.
You can help keep your blood sugar on an even keel with complex carbohydrates. Avoid refined carbohydrates, such as white bread and white sugar. These have a high glycemic index, which can cause spikes and dips in your blood sugar levels.
The right complex carbohydrates provide your brain and muscles with the steady flow of the energy they need. Grains are great sources of B vitamins, which aid in the metabolic production of energy. Natural whole grain breads and cereals are good carbohydrate choices for breakfast.
For the best breakfast, add a lowfat protein, such as yogurt, cottage cheese, or skim milk, and watch your fat intake as well as your meat consumption (since meat takes more energy to digest).
Mid morning snack
Turns out, snacking may not be such a bad idea. Eating every few hours helps your body use nutrients more efficiently. It stimulates your metabolism, keeps your blood sugar levels steady, reduces stress on your digestive system, and decreases hunger, which means you will be less likely to overeat when mealtime finally rolls around.
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When you’re hungry, take a nap. Shower, drink tea, numb your taste buds with teething gel, give yourself a manicure. Do anything but eat. These are some of the tips that “pro-ana,†or pro-anorexia Web sites offer to those who choose to restrict their eating.
These Web sites gained popularity the last few years as a kind of support group and community for those who have accepted anorexia as a lifestyle rather than a disorder. They have also become a source of national concern as those with eating disorders reinforce self-destructive habits and ideals through the Web sites.
Before this year, there was no actual study on the effects of viewing the Web sites, but two MU researchers, Anna Bardone-Cone and Kamila Cass, have published a pilot study in “European Eating Disorders Review.†Their larger study about the topic is being considered for publication in an eating disorder journal.
There is a format that comes with a pro-ana, mia (bulimia) or pro-ED (eating disorder) Web site. There’s the “thinspiration†section filled with pictures of rail-thin runway models and celebrities, sometimes accompanied with their measurements, “to set better goals for yourself and to keep on track,†as displayed on “Shophisticated,†a pro-ana Web site. There’s also the “reverse trigger†section, composed of pictures of morbidly obese people, greasy food and “fat†celebrities.
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