Breakfast energy hacks

Working towards the ultimate morning routine and how what we eat can help to optimize energy. Medical correspondent, Dr. Darian Sutton is here to help break it down for us. Thanks for being here, Dr. Sutton. Let's start with the do's and don'ts of breakfast. Should it really be the biggest meal of the day? Well, it doesn't have to be the biggest, but it should be the most nutritious. So studies show that those who have a balanced meal have lower rates of diabetes, lower rates of heart disease, and that in turn is because you have better blood sugar control and you have lower cholesterol. When you make the right choices. The goal, of course, is to not overdo the calories. You want to limit the sugar. Most importantly, you want to make sure you hydrate. I think very few of us get enough water in the morning just to start our day. That not only improves your overall long-term health, but also reduces your difficulty throughout the day, improves your mood, and also helps you to sustain energy in general. Okay, and what do you recommend that people eat? Yeah. It said no smoothies. Yeah. What should we be having for breakfast? So, you know, smoothies can be good, but sometimes when you see those pre-made smoothies in the store, they look so nutritious, but they're just full of non-nutritious calories. Sugar and things that you want to avoid. So when you're trying to figure out what you want to eat, you want to follow some basic rules, and this is the general recommendations. You want to leave with whole grains. That provides those complex carbs. Those will be digested throughout the day, help to maintain your blood sugar. You also want to maximize fiber, and the way to find that is if you look at the ingredient list, so this is when you want to pay attention, you want to look for five grams or more per serving. You want to limit sodium. You want to limit sugar. You want to see less than 300 milligrams of sodium per serving, and you want to see less than five grams of sugar per serving, and the reason why we talk so much about balancing your sugar is because throughout the day, when you eat a lot of sugar, just five, 10 milligrams, that boosts your blood sugar. That, in turn, releases insulin, and throughout the day, if you keep doing that, your body becomes less sensitive to insulin, and insulin insensitivity is the precursor for diabetes, so the entire goal in this is creating energy that is sustained throughout the day. I ask one question about food before we move on to coffee. What about vegetables? Vegetables. You said nutritious. Yeah. Should we be trying to get vegetables in the morning, too? I'm thinking about kids. I love that. I think reframing how we use vegetables, it's not just for after the sun sets. You can have vegetables in the morning. That provides, again, those complex carbs, and that provides that sustained energy to help prevent those spikes so that you're not surging and to help prevent those pitfalls in the middle of the day when you just feel like you want to take a nap at work. You want to prevent that, and so that's how you can do that. I love that she's asking questions about it when she was just making fun of my grilled chicken, my scrambled egg, and my sourdough bread. I wasn't going to call you out for eating the mama and the baby at breakfast. Well, Gio's eating chicken and eggs at the same time. He didn't. Some can, but Gio can, and he's trying to maintain that protein, that 20 to 30 grams of protein that you start in your day. You don't look like that, eating. You don't look like that. Oh, that's funny. Forget me, just take Gio's notes. You look nice, too. Thank you, I appreciate it. Quick, a little cinnamon. We got to go, but cinnamon with coffee. Yeah, really quick. You can avoid sugar by using other helpful ingredients. Nutmeg, cinnamon, maple syrup even has a better glycemic index than sugar. That means that it's going to help control your blood sugar. And these are ways that you can make your coffee sweet without providing too much sugar in the day. Really, I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks for the coffee.