A doctor has said that adding a simple food group to your breakfast diet could significantly help someone lose weight.
Dr Rupy Aujla was speaking to Dr Rangan Chaterjee on the latter’s YouTube channel. He emphasised the importance of incorporating ample protein into our morning meals for a health boost, explaining: “If you had a cereal, the likelihood is that you’re going to feel hungry because you haven’t satisfied your body’s requirements for protein mid-morning.
“If you have protein in the morning, you’re going to be less hungry and in a food environment where food is abundant, particularly hyper-palatable food you’re going to have a lot more self-control to not over-consume calories.
“So, that’s why I think protein at breakfast is a great strategy to ensure that you’re not over-consuming and improve weight maintenance.”
Beyond this, Dr Aujla also highlighted three additional crucial factors to consider when adjusting our eating habits, including the move towards unprocessed diets, reports Surrey Live.
Unprocessing our diets
He advises a switch to foods with the least number of ingredients possible, as that’s a sign they are less processed. He explained this approach with a simple guideline: “It’s a very easy thing for people to remember, it’s a heuristic, a rule of thumb.”
Further clarifying his opinion, the GP acknowledges the complexity, stating: “I understand it’s not as simple as saying if you don’t recognise the ingredients on the back of a packet, then just put it back on the shelf. I think this is actually a good strategy for most people because it’s understandable.”
Adding more fibre to our diets
The doctor acknowledged that people in the UK eat more fibre compared to those US, where 90% do not eat enough fruits and vegetables. He still sees room for improvement though, recommending an easy method to increase our fibre consumption. He said: “I have this principle of just eat one more (fruit or veg a day). Every time you sit down to eat, can you add just one more fruit, vegetable, nut or seed.”
Dr Aujla’s claims about the importance of sufficient fibre in our diets are backed by numerous studies, including one which concluded: “Much evidence supports an important role for dietary fibre intake as a contributor to overall metabolic health, through key pathways that include insulin sensitivity.”
Eating dinner earlier
In his final piece of advice for those looking to adopt healthy eating habits, Dr Aujla emphasised the importance of trying to eat our last meal of the day as early as possible. He explained: “I think eating an early dinner is a really simple strategy for ensuring that you are not going to over consume.”
He continued: “One of the reasons that people cite for why an early dinner works, in terms of better regulation of weight is because your body is better equipped to deal with nutrients from food during daylight hours and eating an earlier dinner essentially aligns with your circadian rhythm, which is the rough 24-hour cycle by which all biological organisms operate on, and so it’s promoting efficient use of those, the energy and the nutrients.”
A study conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that participants who ate later in the day were hungrier, burned calories more slowly and experienced changes in the body that promoted fat growth.