Meat and Nuts: The Breakfast of Champions
Written by Jaimie Bougie
It’s common knowledge that experts recommend that you start each day with a healthy breakfast. But the question of what is considered “healthy” and the right kind of breakfast is a topic of debate within our society. Whether you are an early riser or a late snoozer, what you choose to eat for your first meal sets up your entire neurotransmitter production for the day; in layman’s terms, what you eat will affect how your brain chemicals communication information from your brain to your body and basically how you’ll feel throughout the rest of the day.
So what should you eat to ensure that you are setting yourself up to have sustained energy and mental focus throughout your busy day, while also keeping your body composition goals in mind? World-renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin created the “Meat and Nuts Breakfast” specifically for this purpose. It’s a pretty easy meal plan to follow; as the name explains, you simply have meat and nuts for breakfast each and every morning. By starting your day with meat, you’re setting yourself up for a slow and steady rise in blood sugar throughout the morning while the the nuts provide a great source of healthy smart fats that allow blood sugar to remain stable for an extended period of time.
After conducting studies on the effects of this diet, Poliquin found the following advantages to eating meat and nuts for breakfast every day:
– Improved Mental Clarity
– Increased Energy
– Better Appetite Control and Reduced Cravings throughout the day
– Fat Loss with Muscle Gains in Athletes
Poliquin not only saw mental improvements in adults but in children as well. This is great news if you like to sit down and have breakfast as a family or plan your meal prep around feeding not only yourself but your children as well – you can all eat the same meal!
So meat and nuts for breakfast; sounds simple, right? The one caveat is that we recommend that you rotate through the types of meats and nuts you eat each day on a daily or weekly basis. Some experts believe that rotating through different foods helps reduces the development of food sensitivities, which are known to increase cortisol in people [1]. (And cortisol is a for sure ab killer!)
What types of meats and nuts can you rotate through? We recommend the following types of meats and nuts, to be paired up to your liking.
Meats
– Bison
– Buffalo
– Lamb
– Pork
– Venison
– Turkey
– Grass-Fed Beef
– Chicken
– Wild-Caught Fish
Nuts
– Brazil Nuts
– Hazelnuts
– Cashews
– Almonds
– Macadamia Nuts
When it comes to nuts, make sure you don’t overdue it; nuts are extremely energy dense, so a handful is all you need. Also try to stick to raw nuts whenever possible and avoid nuts roasted in unhealthy oils, such as corn and cottonseed to name a few.
If you are not a fan of nuts, are allergic to nuts, or do not have self control around them like me, then here are some other healthy fat substitutes you can put in place of the nuts with your meat.
– Avocado
– Unsweetened Coconut Flakes
– Choose protein higher in fat content, such as thigh meat over breast meat or ground beef over a lean cut of steak
– Cook your meat in healthy fat such as grass-fed butter, coconut oil or animal fats (lard, bacon fat, etc)
Enjoy!
References
[1] Dr. Mark Schauss, Achieving Victory Over A Toxic World
The Meat and Nut Breakfast: http://www.poliquingroup.com/articlesmultimedia/articles/article/270/the_meat_and_nut_breakfast.aspx
The Meat and Nuts Breakfast: A Scientific Update: http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/676/Meat_and_Nuts_Breakfast_A_Scientific_Update.aspx
How to Make the Meat and Nuts Breakfast Work for You: http://www.poliquingroup.com/Tips/tabid/130/entryid/2029/Tip-588-How-To-Make-The-Meat-Nuts-Breakfast-Work-For-You.aspx