Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. This may be true for everyone, but it is the most especially and most urgently true for the hypoglycemic. The magic pill for most of us is to keep our blood sugar steady, which means eating frequently--as often as 6 times a day--and eating meals that contain the right balance of protein, fiber, fat, and carbohydrates. It also means eating as soon as possible after what is, after all, at least an 8 hour fast every night (many hypoglycemics find a benefit from having even a 100-calorie snack right before bed, to minimize the number of fasting hours). This advice--eat 5-6 meals a day, consider a small snack before bed, eat a generous breakfast very soon after waking, eat fat at every meal--all of this seems counter-intuitive to a weight watcher. But speaking only for myself, by eating every 2-3 hours, I essentially do for myself the work that my pancreas and adrenal glands (the major sugar regulatory system) can't seem to do for themselves: i.e. I keep my blood sugar nice and steady. And when my blood sugar is steady, it is 1000 times easier not to overeat, and not to set off the terrible chain link reaction that happens to your body and your metabolism when your blood sugar falls.
So one of the things I want to say to my fellow weight-watching hypoglycemics is: don't be afraid to eat! I have eaten 5-6 times a day every day I've been on Weight Watchers, and I have lost weight every week.
I think one problem that hypoglycemics can get into while dieting is the desire not to "waste" their calories/points on breakfast. Again, I urge you to try--do it as an experiment for a week if you're not sold--to eat a great, full breakfast. Weight Watchers, I mean a 7-8 point breakfast, not the measly 3 point nonsense a lot of people force themselves to live on!
So here are some sample hypoglycemic-friendly breakfast meals. I'm listing them in approximate order of how frequently I eat them. I eat some variation of the fage yogurt breakfast about 4-5 times/week:
1) One cup of 2% Fage or other Greek yogurt (hypoglycemics need a little fat!), 2 tablespoons wheat germ, 1 cup mixed berries, 1 Tbsp. chopped almonds or walnuts. Sometimes I also add a quarter cup of uncooked rolled oats--just sprinkle them on with the wheat germ.
Another, perhaps even healthier option, is to have 0% fat Greek yogurt (dairy fat is saturated fat, after all), but include closer to 2 Tbsp. of nuts. If fruit is hard for you to handle in the morning (as it used to be for me: I'm still amazed I can eat it--but again, only with enough protein and fat!), then skip it and have the rolled oats. You can have your fruit later in the day, when it's easier to process.
Add other nutritional supplements (spirulina, flax seeds, etc.) as you like.
2) Omelette. The options are endless. My base is usually (a) two whole eggs plus two egg whites [5 points] or (b) one whole egg and three egg whites [4 points]. There is more cholesterol, but also more protein, in the whole egg, so you have to decide what's best for you. I then add 1/2 to 1 oz. of a really tasty cheese (gruyere, blue, goat) for a maximum of flavor. Then load up on veggies: red onion, mushroom, arugula, peppers, whatever you love. You can add a piece of toast or 1/4 oatmeal or veggie sausage and some fruit and still keep the meal at 8 points.
3) Smoothie. Soy milk, protein powder, spirulina, fruit, a glob of fage, sometimes a dab of almond or peanut butter. The plus: quick and easy. The negative: protein powder is not a whole food. But making this is a hundred times better than skipping breakfast.
4) Tofu scramble. With onions, mushrooms, veggies, and add a couple of tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Serve with some fruit.
5) Cottage cheese. With all the stuff you put on your fage.
6) Optimum slim cereal. This is about as whole foods and high protein as a processed cereal can get. Add soy milk, wheat germ, fruit, and a dozen almonds.
7) English breakfast. Sometimes we like to do a variation on the traditional British breakfast. Beans, toast, pan fried tomatoes, vegetarian sausage, one fried egg. Fun and yummy. I even put marmite on the toast.
ONE LAST THOUGHT ON PROTEIN:
Keep track. If you are suffering from hypoglyemic symptoms, try experimenting with different quantities of protein in the morning, and journal how you feel. If you follow this diligently for a few weeks, you should be able to determine exactly (I mean, to the gram!) how much protein you genuinely need in the morning. Through a lot of trial and error, I have learned that 20-24 grams of protein = happy me, and less than 20, or lord help me less than 16 = miserable me. Your mileage may vary.
TWO THOUGHTS ON BEVERAGES:
*** Drink less coffee. As important as all the other breakfast advice, maybe more so, is to cut way down on your caffeine consumption. Coffee overstimulates your adrenal glands. Need I say more?
*** Skip the juice. Human bodies are made to eat, not drink, their calories. I realize that I break this rule with my smoothie. But fruit juice is particularly hard for a hypoglycemic to handle. I adore fresh squeezed orange juice and grapefruit juice, so I have it on rare occasion: but only 2 oz., and only after I've eaten my protein.
All these meals come in at about 6-9 points, depending on how I load them up. They all also contain a balance of protein, fiber, fat, and carb that really works for my body. It took a lot of trial and error to figure it out, but now I know how many grams of protein, and how much fat and fiber, I really need at each meal in order to be OK. If you are having trouble with your weight loss and/or your hypoglycemia, see if the bigger breakfast can work for you too!
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