Eating A Little Healther - Best Cereal & Apples

I walked into the Giant to pick up a prescription for my mother (knee surgery pain meds!) at 11:00 at night a few days ago. It was great, because the pharmacy is open 24 hours! So I'm told it's going to take about 30 minutes to fill so I decided to do some of my healthy eating food shopping I've been putting off.

Here's the background: I've been meaning to pick up some healthier foods and snacks to keep with me during the day. When I'm shooting a wedding, the amount of energy I need is ridiculous. Many don't know that you're on your feet with 20 lbs of equipment in your hands for over 10-12 hours at a time, running around, trying to get every important shot possible. Your body needs energy to keep going or you're just going to crash.

Aside from energy, I want to maintain a healthy diet. The reason to eat more throughout the day is that it keeps your metabolism burning at a higher rate throughout day. So my meals are breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and then dinner. That's 5 times through out the entire day.

Many people try to lose weight or maintain their weight thinking they have to cut out food, but this is exactly the wrong thing to do. By not eating, or eating less, you starve your body, which tells it to shut down the calorie burning factory. No burning needed, so it sends some of the workers home. However, if you feed your body throughout the day, it is in a constant cycle of burning. Of course, if you feed it fatty & unhealthy foods, we all know what will happen next: bog down, fat storage, cholestral..the list goes on. So this doesn't mean you feed it Twinkies and chips.

I also wanted something higher in fiber to get all those cancer fighting benefits. So first, I wanted to try the healthiest cereal possible because I just don't have time to eat anything else in the mornings. It's the simplest to prepare. You'll even find a bowl sitting in my car because I take it with me! So, I googled and came across a list of high fiber cereals. One of them was for Kashi Go Lean (regular). If you get another version, like Kashi Crunch, you're eating more sugars and more calories. So I went over to the cereal aisle, compared other brands as well, and find out Kashi actually has 10 grams of fiber. That's 40% of your daily fiber requirement and more then many other cereals there. It also is very low in sugar with only 6 grams (I read you should stay under 10g).

I've been eating it every morning for a week, and it's pretty good. I never put sugar in my cereal...that's just gross. Cereals already have enough sugar IMO. I have to warn you, the taste is 'healthy.' If you're not used to eating whole grain cereal and you're coming from Pops or Cap'n Crunch sugary sweetness, this will be a 180 for you. For this type of cereal, I think it tastes pretty good and it's very healthy. I add some fresh strawberries if I have time to cut them, and away I go. Definetly try a box or let me know what others you've tried.

Also, while I was at Giant, I also picked up the healthiest apples you can eat. They are called Red Delicious. They have the highest amount of anti-oxidants of any apple. If you don't know, you need these bad boy antioxidants to fight free radicals, which are linked to heart disease and some cancers. I eat one of these in between meals as a snack. Other apples are health too, but this one tops out.

Just one last thing about all this fiber for the women out there: studies have shown there is a dramatic reduction of breast cancer with women who consume a higher fiber diet from fruit and cereal. (Source)

You can also read some more here: Link

Now I just have to try to actually make time for the gym again. I used to row for the UMBC crew team in college...God, I miss that! Need to start doing that again somehow if I can find the time.