EPTIn Shape
What's the point of being in shape? I think that health is the number one reason. Staying in shape translates to better health, which translates to a happier life. Feeling better physically counts as a great reason. Being more capable of physical activities is another -- many rewarding activities require movement! Perhaps being more attractive might even be a reason for some (without intending to sound superficial). The bottom line is this: you don't need to stick to a strict diet to stay in reasonable shape. You don't need to live at a gym. What I would recommend is to familiarize yourself with the concept caloric maintenance. This term is related to the idea of daily caloric intake, which translates to the amount of energy you gain from food each day. At a given weight there is a caloric maintenance of that weight. When calories, or energy, consumed is equal to the overall calories your body is passively and actively burning then the body is at its caloric maintenance. There is no weight gain and there is no weight loss. If the calorie intake increases above the amount that are burned on a daily basis then weight increase results.
This concept is useful to keep in mind when pursuing better control over your weight.
Breakfast Strats
Let's face it: waking up with plenty of time to spare for breakfast is difficult for people keeping late hours before rising early for work and school. Often these people skip breakfast entirely. Other times they opt into an easy solution -- a fast food bite, a doughnut, a pastry, or a snackbar, among a swath of other attractive options. If you are someone who doesn't get a breakfast on a regular basis, consider this: eating a sufficient breakfast at the beginning of the day means you will eat less later. It makes more sense to eat more earlier than to eat more later. The reason is that you are more active earlier in the day, and less active later (and not active at all for a good deal of the night). Eating more later, when your body is not burning as much off, causes more unwanted weight gain. If you start doing breakfast, you will not feel the need to eat as much, especially at night when hunger really hits you. Even making up for not eating sufficiently early on in your routine by gorging at dinner is not optimal. You don't want all that food inside you that late!
An excellent way to eat a solid, lasting breakfast under 500 calories is to focus on protein and fibers. Protein provides less energy than fats, but proteins take longer to process. Little proteases have to work their way up and down long chains of protein to break them into the little bits your body uses in synthesis of new, useful proteins and other things, so the fullness lasts longer. If you munch down on a big tasty raspberry danish, prepared with lots of butter, oils, fats, etc, you will gain plenty of energy but you will feel hungry again sooner. You'll eat more later, and up your overall caloric intake. Fibers are great to sneak in at breakfast too. Again....let's face it: some of us don't eat our veggies like we should. Maybe some of us eat a bit too much meat & junk food. Sometimes we forget those pesky fibers! Fibers have some nifty effects on your blood, but chiefly they have a nice effect on your...pooping. TMI? Maybe, but seriously, they firm your shit. Literally. K, TMI.
Try this for breakfast: Yogurt with rolled oats and a fat spoonful of peanut butter. Washed down with some hot tea. It's not the most exciting idea ever...but hear me out. If you use Greek yogurt (you'll know it's "Greek style" because it will indicate so on the container), you will be getting a very clean and filling source of protein. Greek yogurt has much less fat than some of the other, tastier stuff, and it frequently comes in a protein-enriched variant. Get this stuff. It's a kickass way to pack in a filling amount of protein right at the beginning of the day, which will assist in fending off that massive gut-bomb lunch, or that coma-inducing dinnerfest + dessert. If you get the right stuff, it should have around 15-20g/standard yogurt serving of protein (check the nutritional label, always!). Mix up a bowl of this with some rolled oats, or something similar, and now you've got a very clean source of carbs, packed with fiber, plus some more protein.
Eating clean means less bad fats, not NO fats. Good clean fats are still absolutely necessary for a healthy diet. Peanut butter is a pretty good source of clean fats, believe it or not (on the topic of fats, your goal is generally to avoid the transitive stuff found in many greasy fried foods, as well as saturated fats -- label!). It's also got a solid amount of protein, so it goes well with the yogurt/oats at breakfast. Admittedly, the plain yogurt is pretty bland and perhaps even a touch bitter, so throwing in a bit of sweetness wouldn't hurt (but don't overdo it).
That's all for now!
