Eat your Grains for Weight loss

At any given time, millions of Americans are dieting or have been told to diet, in order to lose weight. Many of these attempts are unsuccessful, but also many of the diets people go on to lose weight are inadequate in nutritional quality. One nutrient that people still try to avoid, since the low carb phase, is carbohydrates, which means many people are still afraid of starches, such as breads, cereals, rices and pastas.

However, breakfast cereals have actually been associated with higher intakes of fiber, calcium, zinc, iron, magnesium, vitamin A, some B vitamins, and lower intakes of fat and cholesterol. High fiber, whole grain cereals can also help decrease the risk of many chronic diseases.

In the September, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers wanted to investigate whether increasing fiber-rich whole grain cereals in a weight loss program would improve diet quality. Researchers split 134 people into three groups and followed them for 2, 12 week periods. They wanted to see if the program they were assigned to could be followed for the second 12 week period: One group only exercised and followed no specific diet, the second group ate a low calorie diet and exercised, and the third group ate a low calorie diet with high fiber, whole grain cereals plus exercise.

The results showed that both the low calorie group and the low calorie, high fiber cereal group lost similar amounts of weight, which was greater than the exercise only group. However, the low calorie, high fiber cereal group sustained their program longer than the low calorie group did. Magnesium and B-6 intakes were greater in the high fiber cereal group. It was also found that fat intake decreased by week 24 in the high fiber cereal group. Listen to the podcast to determine what we can learn from this study.

If you don’t eat breakfast, I suggest you start taking little steps to build breakfast into your daily food intake. It can be as simple as a bowl of cereal. Experiment with whole grain varieties and add some non-fat milk to it. Or allow yourself a little extra time and cook up some slow-cook oatmeal for breakfast. My favorite breakfast is oatmeal, edemame (baby soy beans) and home-made fruit salad. I cut up all the fruit ahead of time, so each morning I can just spoon out how much I want. The oatmeal cooks while I’m spooning out my fruit and the water is boiling for the edemame. Breakfast probably takes about 10 minutes to prepare each morning, but since this is my base for the day, it’s important that it be a quality meal. My small meal is in the evening. You may have heard the saying, ‘eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper’. That means the largest meal in the morning and smallest in the evening.

To read the full text of a NWCR study on the effects of breakfast in maintaining weight loss, click here: http://www.obesityresearch.org/cgi/content/full/10/2/78

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