We’ve talked a lot on the podcast about what NOT to have for breakfast when your goal is fat loss and hormone balance. By now, you know that to stay in fat burning mode and take advantage of the morning’s peak fat-burning potential, you’ll want to avoid carbohydrates in the morning. But people begin to panic when they consider what they shouldn’t be having for breakfast. They can’t imagine what options might still be available to them! You’ve got to listen to the full episode!
Question: I don’t have time to prepare a meal for breakfast every day. I’m busy, I have my hands full trying to get out the door and get to work. So what should I do for breakfast??
Answer: I’m all about preparing ahead of time. I recommend that my coaching clients set aside 30-60 minutes on the weekend to make 2 breakfast dishes that they can grab and go or heat & eat during the week. Then I recommend that they have 1-2 “oh crap” options – if they ran out of their premade option or they left the house without it or their dog at it all. And, of course, we talk about weekend strategies – things you can make on the days you have some more time to enjoy a delicious, fat loss friendly meal at home with your family or when you’re out for breakfast.
Make Ahead Grab & Go or Heat & Eat Options
Chia Pudding
1/4 cup chia seeds
1/2 cup brewed coffee (cooled)
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/4 tsp liquid stevia extract
1 tbsp almond butter
1 tsp cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder
Blend all ingredients in a blender or with an immersion blender. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours so the chia seeds soak up the moisture.
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The thyroid hormones tend to get the most attention from the general public when it comes to weight loss. You hear people say all the time that they struggle with their weight because they have a “slow thyroid” or something to that effect. There is no doubt that the thyroid hormones play a major role in both weight loss and weight gain. They are significantly impacted by insulin, cortisol, leptin and the other metabolic hormones. Fortunately for most of us, there are ways to improve thyroid function naturally via the foods we eat and our lifestyle choices. Before we dive into what we can do, let’s establish a basic understanding of our thyroid hormones.
There are several thyroid hormones and they all function differently. They are produced and released based on signals the thyroid receives from the brain. Your thyroid is extremely sensitive to external inputs such as diet, environment, stress and toxins. Suboptimal diet and lifestyle choices can wreak havoc on your thyroid. If you take away one thing from this post, let it be that last sentence. Your diet and lifestyle have a MAJOR impact on your thyroid hormones. If you want optimal thyroid function, you need to eat and live accordingly!
Let’s talk about several thyroid hormones and how they are different from one another. First up is T3. T3 is the hormone we’re typically referring to when we think about metabolism. It is an active hormone that regulates your body’s fuel usage and temperature. T4 is the precursor to T3. In order to be impactful, T4 must first be successfully converted. Reverse T3 is a completely inactive thyroid hormone. All three of these hormones need to be successfully produced and they need to be produced in the proper ratios. If the overall amounts or the ratios or off, your thyroid function will be impaired.
Producing these hormones in adequate amounts and proper ratios is not all that is required for your thyroid to function optimally. The hormones must be successfully released from the cell and they must successfully attach to the precise receptor on the cell it is targeting. All those factors must be in place or else you’ll impair thyroid function.
Remember that your body is designed for survival. When you drastically reduce your calorie intake, your thyroid function slows down, taking your metabolism with it. Why? Because your body senses that fuel intake is limited and it doesn’t want to allow you to burn off your stored energy in case you need it. When you slash your calorie intake, your thyroid hormone production is reduced and much of the thyroid hormone you will produce and release will be the inactive form. This is your body’s way of conserving energy in times of perceived threat.
Similarly, when your leptin levels are low or you are resistant to leptin (due to being overweight or obese or consuming a very high carbohydrate diet), your thyroid function will decrease. Again, your body is either not getting signaled, or cannot properly receive the signal, that there is adequate stored energy in your body so it opts to downshift your metabolism to keep you “safe”.
High levels of estrogen can also slow your overall thyroid function. The presence of excess estrogen increases certain proteins that bind to your thyroid hormones and render them inactive. The thyroid is producing the hormones you need but they aren’t able to do their job because their receptor has been taken.
Finally, cortisol impacts your thyroid function. This relationship is a little more complicated. You’ll remember that in small, intermittent doses, cortisol is a significant fat loss ally. In these small, intermittent doses, cortisol can make your thyroid more efficient. Unfotunately, as is more often the case, excess cortisol inhibits the conversion of T4 (your inactive thyroid hormone) to T3, the active form. Why would we have excess cortisol? Chronic stress. Let it goooooo.
As you can see, there is a lot that can go wrong and impair thyroid function, leading to a slower, less efficient metabolism and an impaired ability to burn fat. Fortunately, there is a lot we can do to support the thyroid through diet, lifestyle and exercise.
First of all, proper thyroid function relies on several key nutrients. Here’s the thing – these nutrients MUST be consumed daily because our bodies have no ability to store them. Which nutrients am I talking about? Specifically iodine, zinc and selenium. If you aren’t sure if you are getting enough of these, your best bet is to take a high quality multivitamin. Nutrition is critical for optimal thyroid function.
As has been the case with all the hormones we’ve talked about so far, one of the most impactful changes we can make to maintain metabolic hormone balance is to control our blood sugar. Avoid dramatic peaks and valleys. The most straightforward and effective way to do this is to cut out processed foods and limit wheat and grain products. In fact, avoiding them completely is the ideal. Start by cutting out processed foods and focusing on vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, nuts, seeds and some fruit. However, as you make this transition be sure you aren’t drastically cutting your calories. Remember that dropping your calories slows your thyroid function. Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full.
Finally, lifting heavy weights and high intensity interval type training improves thyroid function by increasing the sensitivity of the cellular receptors to which your thyroid hormones need to attach to function.
I hope you’re beginning to see a trend as it relates to balancing and optimizing your metabolic hormones. They all work differently but they all impact each other. Not only that, they all benefit significantly from a healthy diet that minimizes the blood sugar spikes that result from processed foods, wheat and grain products.
If you want to know more about hormones and fat loss, check out my free podcast!
There’s also my new ebook! 50 pages of information and specific diet & lifestyle strategies to help you naturally balance your hormones and get into fat burning mode!
My last few posts have been alllll about carbohydrates. Why? Because they are such a controversial topic when it comes to fat loss. Their hormonal impact is HUGE. (If you’re more of an audio/video person, check out this training I did on carb strategies for fat loss)
There are so many carbohydrate trends and many of them are far more extreme than needed (high carb, low carb, no carb, etc). If we make smart carb choices – and this goes far beyond the TYPE of carb – it can significantly accelerate our fat loss progress.
If we make not-so-smart carb choices, it can prevent fat loss entirely (and make us have extreme cravings, fatigue and hunger). If you want to reach your fat loss goals and maintain them, you’ve GOT to make smart carb choices. Understanding carbs and fat loss can be one of the keys that helps you unlock your true health & weight loss potential. If you haven’t already, I wrote an overview post about how carbs impact our hormones and how hormones turn fat burning potential on or off. Check that out here. And now, for what I lovingly call the “Golden Rules of Carbs & Fat Loss”.
Right time.
Limit all carbs to your evening or post-workout meal
I’ve written extensively about why nighttime is the right time for carbohydrates and did a long podcast on the topic as well. For maximum fat loss you’ll want to eat your carbs with your dinner time meal OR post workout. Sometimes I’ll have them after dinner as dessert – a baked apple or something like that. In short, the reason we want to avoid carbs early in the day is that we are MOST sensitive to the hormone insulin in the morning. Even a slight rise in blood sugar will produce a larger insulin response in the morning because we’ve fasted overnight. The presence of insulin turns off our fat burning machinery so an exaggerated AM response puts us at a major fat-burning disadvantage for the day.
The other reason for avoiding carbs early in the day is that the hormone cortisol is highest in the morning. That’s just part of our normal sleep/wake cycle. Cortisol, a stress hormone, peaks in the morning to help us wake up. We always want to avoid spiking insulin when cortisol is naturally high, because cortisol exaggerates the fat-storing potential of insulin, especially around the abdomen.
So what should eat in the morning for fat-burning? I’m so glad you asked! My most popular podcast episode was actually on how to make breakfast a fat burning meal. Def don’t miss that one! You can check it out here.
Right carbs. Choose unprocessed carbohydrates
Let’s first talk about the WRONG carbs for fat loss. You want to avoid the carbs that will send your blood sugar through the roof. You want to avoid the highly processed, chemical-laden kinds of of foods you get in boxes and bags. I’m talking chips, cookies, cakes, etc. If it is made in a factory, it is not the right carb for fat loss. It doesn’t mean you can never enjoy an Oreo, it just means that for optimal fat loss, you’ll want to choose healthier carbs MOST of the time. The more processed carbs are generally higher in sugar and starch and will have a more significant impact on blood sugar and insulin than whole food carbohydrates. Remember, the more you spike your insulin, the longer you stay out of fat-burning mode and the more likely you are to experience chronic hunger and carbohydrate cravings.
The carbs you want to emphasize are going to be those that are as close to their natural state as possible. Ideally, we’re talking about fruit (especially berries, apples or citrus fruit) and starchy vegetables. Starchy vegetables are things like potato, sweet potato and squash.
Right amount. Start by limiting your serving size to 1/2 cup and adjust up or down from there
That means 1/2 cup of sweet potato or 1/2 cup of berries – one carb limited to roughly 1/2 cup. If you’re cruising along and burning lots of fat, you can add a little more and monitor your results. On the flip side, if you aren’t getting the results you want, you can try scaling back to 1/4 cup and see how that goes. For me personally, I try to stay around 1/4 cup with my dinner time meal or post-workout (depending on the length and intensity of my workout) and that’s where I get the best results.
Right company. Pair carbohydrates with protein or fat
For optimal fat loss, never eat your carbs alone. Always pair your carbs with either fat or protein (or both). Why is this important? Because eating your carbs with either fat or protein will slow down the digestive process as fat and protein are more cumbersome to digest than carbohydrates. By slowing down the digestive process you slow the release of sugar into the blood stream. What does that do? It requires less of an insulin response. This is one of the important ways we can enjoy carbs and still stay in fat burning mode!
I go into a lot more detail on carbs & fat loss on the Primal Potential podcast! You can check out some of those episodes here: Carb Timing: The right time and the wrong time for carb consumption. Overcoming Sugar Cravings Carb Spillover – How carbs make you fat and how to avoid it
I totally know that this is a complex topic and much of the recent strategies for fat loss are soooooo different from what you’ve heard your whole life. That’s why I put together a comprehensive e-course on carbohydrate strategies specifically for optimal fat loss. We talk about overcoming cravings, defeating hunger, increasing energy, improving sleep and much more. We talk about hormone balancing and stress responses and debunk a lot of low-carb and no-carb myths. We get into the nuances about fruit, gluten, oats, wheat, beans and so much more! Best of all, we talk about how you can actually IMPROVE your carbohydrate tolerance and your insulin sensitivity so you can eat more while staying in fat burning mode!
Here’s a video I put together to help explain what the carb course will teach you:
In the the “Carbs and Fat Loss – Timing Matters” episode of the Primal Potential podcast we are busting a major weight loss myth – the myth that you should eat carbs in the morning so you have all day to “burn them off”. I hate to break it to the folks perpetuating that myth, but that’s just not how the body works. The human body is not accounting software working on a first in, first out burn model.
This isn’t a long episode but it’s one you absolutely need to take time to hear!
If you aren’t sure what time is the right time for carbs when your goal is fat loss, please take a listen!
Other episodes you’ll need to hear along with this one are:
The Myth: For optimal fat loss results, eat carbohydrates in the morning so you have the rest of the day to burn them off. Avoid eating carbs at night because you won’t burn them while you sleep. THESE ARE FAT LOSS MYTHS!
The Facts: Carbs in the morning might be a perfectly fine strategy for endurance, muscle gain or weight maintenance but it is the WRONG strategy for fat loss.
Why? There are certain unique hormonal conditions in the morning that make adding carbs a bad idea when fat loss is your goal.
For the science behind carb strategies for fat loss, make sure to listen to the full episode!
Practical Implementation:
Avoid carbohydrates in the morning. That’s right – for optimal fat loss – no carbs for the first part of the day. This means saying no to oats, wheat, grains, processed foods, most dairy and even fruit. At least in the morning!
Emphasize fat and protein in the morning. Great breakfast options include bulletproof coffee, eggs, bacon, fritattas, meat muffins, chia seed puddings, or if you’re in a time crunch, a low-carb protein shake
Limit your carbohydrates to your dinner time meal or post workout.
Watch your carb portion sizes. We always want to manage our insulin response, no matter the time of day. Try not to exceed 1/2 cup carbohydrates at any point. Some people will get best results with 1/4 cup.
Always consume your carbohydrates with either fat or protein, never consume them on their own. This might look like adding butter to your sweet potato and always having a piece of chicken or fish with your rice.
Today’s episode, “Want To Lose Fat? Eat More Fat!” is all about how you can accelerate your weight loss and fat loss goals if you decide to eat more fat. Yup, that’s right, fat is not the enemy. In fact, healthy fats can accelerate your weight loss. We talk about how restricting fat from your diet can slow your weight loss, the important role fat plays in fat burning & hormonal balance and then discuss some of the good (and bad) fats for fat loss.
The Myth We’re Debunking: Dietary fat makes you gain weight. We’ve been told for decades that cutting fat from our diets is the way to weight loss. We’ve been told to choose low-fat and fat-free versions of all sorts of products, even though those options are loaded with sugar and chemicals! We’ve been told that dietary cholesterol is the cause of heart disease and that we’ll improve our figure and our health if we just avoid dietary fat. It’s all wrong!!
The Facts: Restricting fat from your diet can actually make weight loss much more difficult. Cutting fat actually reduces the activity of enzymes in our bodies that help to burn fat. Meanwhile, cutting dietary fat INCREASES the activity of enzymes that help STORE fat. On top of that, restricting our intake of dietary fat can lead to hormonal imbalances which may slow our metabolic rate, prevent fat burning and increase hunger and cravings. Eating ample amounts of the right types of dietary fat can upregulate our metabolism, keep us satisfied for hours, eliminate cravings and keep us in fat burning mode.
We think of fat as a “high calorie food” – fat has more calories than protein and carb therefore protein and carb are healthier than fat – the first part is true. The second part is not. Yes, fat is more calorie dense than protein or carbohydrate but most of us don’t really understand what that means. A gram of fat has more calories than a gram of carbohydrate or protein, right? A gram of fat has 9 calories whereas a gram of protein or carbohydrate has only 4. That’s one of the big reasons people think fat is “fattening”. The problem is that we’re thinking about it all wrong. A calorie isn’t some magical thing that piles up and makes you look fatter. Calories are how we measure the energy potential in food. This one mindset switch might help many of you look at calories for what they truly are and move away from this eat less move more way of thinking about weight loss. Basically, dietary fat delivers twice as much energy to our bodies than protein or carbohydrate!! That’s a GOOD thing! That means that we can fuel our body for longer on less than we can if we just stuck to protein or carbs. Practically speaking, what does this mean? It means our body senses good, long lasting fuel and therefore doesn’t deploy signals that trigger hunger and cravings when we eat fat. So eating fat makes us feel full, it sustains our energy and keeps hunger and cravings at bay!!!
Here are some of the incredibly important roles fat plays in the body:
It is a structural component of every single cell
Our brains are approximately 60% fat
Fat is necessary for healthy vision
Fat is critical for cognitive health, attention and focus
Fat is required to make the receptors for dopamine and serotonin – our primary mood regulators
Fat intake influences metabolism
Fat is required for the metabolism of fat soluble nutrients like antioxidants and vitamin D
Fat intake is required for satiety
Fats influence blood pressure and blood clotting
Fat is needed for the proper growth and calcification of bone
Fat is necessary for hair, skin and nail health
Practical Implementation: Include healthy fats with all your meals and snacks. If you find yourself regularly hungry, you probably aren’t eating enough fat. Healthy fats that can support weight loss include: avocado, extra virgin olive oil, eggs, grass fed butter, grass fed beef, tallow, lard, MCT oil, macadamia nuts and coconut. Of course you don’t want to go overboard, but including one serving of healthy fats with all my meals and snacks has made a huge difference in my personal fat loss, hormonal balance and satiety.
