Breakfast like a queen, lunch like a princess and all that jazz!!!!

[Cogitoergosum]

I'm a huge fan of intermittent fasting, and I regularly stop eating at 8pm and restart at 1pm the next day: my take on the 16:8 regime and I love it!  My energy levels are good, my concentration is excellent and I feel great BUT, lately I have started to feel a little full in the old tummy area at night so I've decided to test out the breakfast like a king wisdom to see how it feels. But maybe I should call it Breakfast Like an Important Person to avoid gender stereotypification, henceforth referred to as BLIP!!!  

OMG!!!! What joy!  These two eating 'systems' couldn't be more different: with my 16:8 regime I was always cramming my food into a 7 or 8 hour eating window, and often going to bed feeling full. Don't get me wrong.  I love fasting and it's firmly established in my quest for a healthy lifestyle.  But after a week of BLIP I feel re-energised, content and somewhat puzzled!

I’m a bit of an old farty, and it’s a frustrating fact of Greydom that we seem to need less fuel to stay alive than we did in our twenties!  Bummer, eh?  I annoyingly maintain my weight on 1,200 kcals whereas only 6 years ago I lost weight on this regime, which gives me little scope to indulge myself, but masses of challenges to keep my plates full and my eyes and belly satisfied.  

I’ve divided BLIP into three basic calories blocks: 370-ish each for breakfast and lunch, 100 for a 4pm snack and 200 for a very light supper.  Does this sound harsh?  Well my breakfast this morning may put a mahoosive smile on your face!  To replicate my scrumdillyumptious 370 kcal breakfast, here’s what you do:

Take a moderate slice of rye bread [mine weighed 66g] and toast it.

Spread it with cashew butter [I weighed 20g]

Chop a large banana and tumble it on top of the heavenly toast. [mine weighed 125g]

Chop half a dozen strawberries and scatter them haphazardly over the bananas.

Drizzle a gleaming splodge of organic honey over the whole lot.

Make a large mug of tea with skimmed [fat free] milk.

Put everything on a tray, and carry it back to your still-warm bed.  Put the early morning news on and luxuriate while you munch and slurp your way through 30 minutes of indulgent yumminess then bounce out of bed, jump in the shower, box up a cottage cheese salad and some berries and yoghurt for lunch then skip out of the door with your smugometer reading ‘Expert’!

Here I sit, at 6pm, after a long day at work, anticipating a modest bowl of piping hot carrot and coriander [cilantro] soup and a small Skinny Cow dessert - with my Fitbit telling me that I’ve met my food and exercise targets - and I’m delighted.

The old saying ‘Eat like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper’ may sound outdated and impossible, but it’s huge fun to see how it can work!  And this happy pauper is happily anticipating another portion of Banana’s BLIP tomorrow morning!  I may even scatter some deep, dark, toasted hazelnuts or crunchy speckles of chia on top of the strawberries!  

[Cogitoergosum]

Breakfast BLIP!!!!

[WendyB]

Looks yummy!

[Dominique]

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@Cogitoergosum wrote:

I’m a bit of an old farty, and it’s a frustrating fact of Greydom that we seem to need less fuel to stay alive than we did in our twenties!  Bummer, eh?  I annoyingly maintain my weight on 1,200 kcals whereas only 6 years ago I lost weight on this regime, which gives me little scope to indulge myself, but masses of challenges to keep my plates full and my eyes and belly satisfied.  

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I think it’s mostly a problem for young people who have been very active and then drastically reduce their activity, for instance professional athletes once they retire. OTOH, if (like me, and probably a large part of the Fitbit population) you have been sedentary most of your adult life, and then start to increase your activity, then the additional activity more than compensates the decrease in metabolism that comes with ageing. It’s easy to do the math with an online calculator:

Me at 46, peak weight (78 kg), sedentary: BMR 1643, TDEE: 1971

Me now (56), 63 kg, extremely active: BMR 1443, TDEE: 2741

I "lost" 200 calories by becoming 10 years older and 15 kg lighter, yet I’m able to eat 770 more calories as a result of having radically changed my lifestyle and increased my activity.

If I had stayed sedentary and at the same weight, I could only eat 1911 calories. Yeah, I know, it’s still a lot and not fair to smaller & older women.

OTOH, I understand that if you lost a bunch of weight (e.g. going from obese to normal) and you’re a small female, you "lose" far more calories and don’t get to eat as much as a larger guy.

[Cogitoergosum]

Interesting comment, and I guess that if we ignore dietary advice as young people it will come back and bite us on the gluteus maximus when we're older!

Our bodies need fuel to function well, and it behoves us to fuel them well.  Move more, eat less, wise up and slim down!!!!

Moving about is so much easier when you're not dragging excess weight along with you, and it's no surprise that overweight people are disinclined to exercise. I know how much I avoided it when I was heavy.

I've taken many years to wake up to the pleasures associated with healthy eating, and I'm staggered that with easily accessible technology it's relatively easy to monitor, plan and manage my daily calories or food groups.  And even more important than that, I've found that it's fun!!!!  So that's why I'm mixing up my eating regimes - with intermittent fasting and BLIP keeping  my options wide open and my tummy full!!!

Best wishes!

[TXAnneV]

Gotta love that old aphorism from Nobel Prize winning author Adelle Davis, who said: "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper"