Breakfast like a champ

While most people wouldn't consider skipping lunch or dinner very often, a lot of us think nothing of trying to power through the morning on an empty stomach. People skip breakfast for a variety of reasons: not hungry, no time, don't like breakfast foods or trying to lose weight. If you're a breakfast-skipper and still not convinced that it's important, read on.

It's true that some people just aren't that hungry in the morning. Many people feel like their stomachs take a while to ‘wake up'. Even though your stomach may not send you strong signals in the morning, if you skip breakfast, your muscles and brain will certainly protest. Working muscles and an active mind require plenty of healthy carbohydrates to keep them functioning properly.

Our bodies require the right carbs — fruits, vegetables and whole grains — as our primary fuel source. Taking in these ‘good' carbs in the morning can help keep blood sugar levels from lagging and fuel the activity of your brain and muscles. And the right proteins in the morning give the meal staying power and help you stay alert and productive until lunch.

Right balance

A breakfast consisting of only refined carbohydrates and little protein is short on the ‘good carbs' that fruits, vegetables and whole grains provide and doesn't provide enough protein to keep you fuelled for very long. If you're not that hungry in the morning, try a dish of yogurt and some fruit, or a protein shake made with milk or soy milk, protein powder and fruit. Or have a glass of milk and a piece of fruit. The carbs in the milk and fruit will fuel your muscles and brain, and the protein will keep you satisfied until lunch.

With all the quick breakfast options out there, lack of time shouldn't stop you from eating in the morning. Try to avoid a drive-through detour or a grabbing something at your local coffee house; most of the time the food choices there are limited, and are likely to be high in fat and sugar as well as low in fibre. Instant whole grain hot cereals, protein-packed energy bars or smoothies that can be eaten at your desk are all good options if you're rushed. Make it a point to carry fruit with you or keep some at work to round out the meal.

If you don't like breakfast foods, then eat whatever appeals to you. There's no rule that says you can't eat last night's leftovers for breakfast. Try a turkey sandwich packed with vegetables on whole grain bread or some leftover chicken, brown rice and veggies; both will provide a good balance of protein and carbohydrate. Add a piece of fruit (or save for mid-morning) and have a glass of non-fat milk and you'll be good to go until noon.

If time is an issue — and even if it's not — a protein-rich meal replacement shake is also one of the best ways to start the day. The combination of protein powder, calcium-rich milk or soy milk plus fruit is a quick and nutritious way to start to the day.

And here's a message for those who grab a muffin and a coffee drink on the way to work: a nutrient-packed meal replacement drink made with milk and fruit has less than 250 calories, but a sweetened coffee drink and a muffin could cost you more than 1,000 calories. A detour to the drive-through for a breakfast sandwich could easily set you back 500 calories and dump more than two tablespoons of grease into your system.

Don't skip meals

Think skipping breakfast will help you lose weight? Think again.

People who skip meals tend to get very hungry and over-indulge at the next meal, so there's really no overall reduction in calories over the day.

You'll be much better off if you spread your calories out over a few small meals and one or two healthy snacks.

Have some protein each time you eat – egg whites, fish, poultry breast, non-fat dairy products and soy products are good choices – so you'll feel fuller longer.

And try to include foods that have a high water content – like whole fruits, veggies, salads and vegetable-based soups – they're nutrient-rich and can help fill you up, not out.

Courtesy: http://beta.thehindu.com

Choose an educated wife for a longer life: study

Bachelors take note: If you want to enjoy a long life, marry a highly educated woman.

In a study, researchers found that a woman's education was a stronger factor in her husband's risk of dying over the next decade or so than the man's own level of education.

And a husband's social class based on his occupation had a greater influence on a woman's survival than her own occupational class, Drs. Robert Erikson and Jenny Torssander of the Swedish Institute for Social Research in Stockholm found.

Living with a partner is known to reduce a person's risk of dying early, Erikson noted in an interview with Reuters Health. And the current study, he added, suggests that one's choice of life partner may be an important part of the equation. The effect of a partner's social status is multidimensional, the researcher pointed out, with education, income, occupation and status each having an independent effect.

Erikson and Torssander looked at 1990 census data on more than 1.5 million employed men and women, 30 to 59 years old, who were living with a partner, along with cause of death data for the period 1991 to 2003.

As expected, for both men and women mortality was higher for less educated people and for those who made less money, while lower social status and working in a lower-level occupation were also tied to a greater risk of death.

Men who hadn't reached high school were 1.1 times more likely to die during follow-up than men who'd finished college. But the education of a man's partner had a stronger effect than his own schooling; men living with a woman without any high school education were 1.25 times more likely to die than men living with a college graduate.

The effect of women's education on their own mortality was strong too. But while a woman's own occupational class had little effect on her risk of death, women married to unskilled manual and routine non-manual laborers were 1.25 times more likely to die than women whose partners were in higher managerial and professional occupations.

Men's social class had less of an effect when the researchers accounted for income, the researchers note, while income was important in mortality for both women and men. "This points very clearly to material conditions in the household," Erikson said.

As far as women's education, Erikson and Torssander note in their report, "women traditionally take more responsibility for the home than men do, and, as a consequence, women's education might be more important for the family's lifestyle -- for example, in terms of food habits -- than men's education."

Erikson added: "We can assume that more highly educated women have better possibilities to find the important health messages that are around...There are lots of health messages in the media and I think some of them are important and some are just misleading."

More active kids have easier time falling asleep

If you're one of those parents who likes to let their kids run themselves ragged so they fall asleep more easily, you may be onto something: the more activity kids get, the faster they'll drop off to sleep, according to a new study.

The study, in 591 seven-year-olds, also found that kids who spent more time in sedentary activities took longer to actually fall asleep after they went to bed.

Up to one in six parents of school-aged children report that their child has difficulty falling asleep, Dr. Ed A. Mitchell of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health by email. The study's findings, he said, emphasize that physical activity isn't only important for fitness, heart health, and weight control, but also for good sleep.

Mitchell and his team had children wear an activity-measuring device around their waists for 24 hours. They report their findings in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Most children took about 26 minutes to fall asleep after bedtime, they found. The more activity a child did, the less time it took him to fall asleep.

"We showed that one hour of vigorous activity (equivalent to running) reduced the time to fall asleep by almost 6 minutes," Mitchell said.

"However, the average amount of vigorous activity was only 43 minutes," Mitchell said. Also, he added, the children tended to be active in short bursts. "Their activity might better be described as stop-go rather than continuous as an adult might do when they exercise."

And for every hour a child spent each day being sedentary, it took them 3 minutes longer to get to sleep.

The researchers also found that children who took less time to get to sleep stayed asleep for longer, and vice versa.

"Fortunately, difficulty getting to sleep wasn't associated with other health problems," Mitchell said, although getting less sleep has been linked to obesity.