Good Morning, Mary Sunshine!

Q: The sun's not up yet, but you are. The coffee is made (gotta love those automatic timers!) and you're ready to face the day. But first things first — time to break your overnight fast. Not big on breakfast, you say? Don't have the time? What's your morning mode?

1. You can't face food so early in the morning. Coffee will have to do until your taste buds wake up and your stomach has taken down the "do not disturb" sign.

2. You're an early riser. Always have been. You like watching the sun come up and having some quiet time to read the paper before the activities of the day kick into high gear. Part of that early-riser gig is to eat breakfast.

3. Getting up with the sun is definitely not you. You savor every delicious moment of slumber you can steal. You have just enough time in the morning to grab something before you leave home and scarf it down in the car, bus, taxi, or subway on the way to work.

The Dish Divas' Diagnosis

1. There's no sense forcing yourself to eat early in the a.m., if the body just says no. But if you're up with the sun, you've got plenty of time for your taste buds to warm to the idea of food. If you've been skipping breakfast more often than not, your mother's words should be ringing in your ears: "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

Eating in the A.M. recharges your batteries, giving fuel to your brain and your muscles, making it less likely you'll succumb to a mid-morning munchies episode. If you're new to the idea of breakfast, take it slow, but be adventurous. Anything is fair game, if it's healthy. You can try more traditional fare, like scrambled eggs and whole-wheat toast or opt for last night's leftover Greek salad or California rolls, if that's what sounds good. Just try to make breakfast your new good habit. It will make choosing the right foods and not going overboard the rest of the day that much easier.

2. More power to you, if you enjoy getting up early. Now take advantage of your unique body clock and use that extra time to make a nutritious breakfast. (Densie Says: My motto — I literally have it hanging in my kitchen — is "All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.") Whip up a vegetarian omelet, whole-wheat French toast, or a boiled egg with a toasted English muffin. Top it off with some fresh-squeezed orange juice (all it takes is an inexpensive, plastic juicer and a few oranges). Yum!

3. Since you're obviously not a morning person, and eating on the run is a fact of your busy life, just accept it and work around it. You're not about to whip up a mushroom/onion omelet or even wait for oatmeal to come to a rolling boil. Never fear; quick is okay too, as long as it's something that serves as a nutritional down payment for the rest of the day. Don't reach for sugar-laden breakfast bars or low-fiber breakfast cereals that try to lead you astray with healthy, wholesome-sounding names. Read labels and choose something that provides you with a healthy dose of fiber (at least 3 grams per serving), a minimum of sugar (no more than 3 teaspoons per serving — 4 grams sugar = 1 teaspoon) and, if you're not taking a multivitamin, is fortified with vitamins and minerals. As long as you're going the cereal route, be creative and beat cereal boredom by mixing two or three different kinds of cereals in your bowl. (Carolyn loves crunchy Grape-nuts mixed with chewy Raisin Bran. Densie's top breakfast cereal combo: shredded wheat, sprinkled with honey crunch wheat germ.) There are plenty of other good, speedy alternatives. Try instant oatmeal packets that come to life when mixed with a cup of water heated in the microwave. (Tear, zap, pour, and voilà, breakfast is served!) Make it with skim milk or soy milk for an extra nutrition punch. Look for whole-grain frozen waffles that you can drop in the toaster, breakfast drinks that provide vitamins, minerals, and fiber along with a third of the calcium you need for the day. And grab a banana, an apple, dried fruit, or grapes to take with you as you dash out the door.

Want more? Check out chapters 4 and 5 for The Dish on Eating In and Eating Out.

Do You Know When to Say "When"?

Q: You're halfway through your meal. You're not famished anymore, but you're not really full either. Do you know when you've had enough?

1. You know it's time to stop eating when your plate is empty. It's a leftover vestige from dear old Mom and her admonitions to "think of the starving children in China."

2. You make sure that you dish up only half as much for yourself as you would for anyone else. You limit your intake, so you can cut calories.

3. You fill your dinner plate with small servings of meat, large servings of whole-wheat pasta, vegetables, salad, and a whole-grain roll. But you fill up about a third of the way through. You couldn't eat another bite.

The Dish Divas' Diagnosis

1. So you've become a lifetime, card-carrying member of the clean-plate club? It may have served you well when you were a skinny little kid and your mom was concerned you weren't eating enough to fuel your growth spurts. But now you're all grown up and the only way you're going to grow is out. It's time to join the lean plate club and get smaller plates! (Size does matter!) It's a behavior modification trick that's been around forever and it really works. If the plate is smaller than your typical dinner plate, you're forced to dish up less and the brain tells the stomach that you've eaten a whole plateful of food. But you wouldn't have to resort to playing mind games with yourself so that you'll eat less if you dish up lots of eat-more foods like brown rice, vegetables, lentils, topped off with a whole-grain roll. If that's what's on the menu, then grab that dinner plate and dish it up!

2. If it works for you and you're not just deluding yourself and following up with second helpings of your micro-servings, then go for it. You should be forearmed, however, with comebacks to comments like, "Is that all you're going to eat?" "Are you on a diet? Oh, pleeze! You don't need to lose any weight!" Try: "Me? Diet? No way!" Or you can try the ever popular, "I ate a huge breakfast [or lunch]. Believe me, if this was being served two or three hours from now, I'd be eating twice this much."

3. You are one with our eat-more philosophy. When you fill your plate with all the right stuff, there's little room left for the foods that are slackers in the nutrient department and weigh you down (literally) with an excessive calorie load. And don't forget to take your time eating and drink a tall glass of water (sparkling, bottled, or tap — as long as it's H₂O) before your meal, garnished with a tangy twist of lemon or lime. Bottom line? When you eat more of the right foods, you actually end up with fewer calories.

Want more? Check out chapter 2 for The Dish on Diet Basics.

Get Off Your Derriere!

Q: How much do you move? A lot, you say? Okay, check it out: Do you take the elevator, even though the door to the stairwell is always open? Do you park as close as you possibly can to the store, the office, the supermarket, even when the weather is great? (Admit it, you'd use valet parking if they had it!) Do you consistently make an effort to minimize effort? Why take two trips (to the car, up the stairs, to the bedroom) when you can do it in one?

1. Oh, yeah. This is you. Why take four steps, when you can take only two? Why get up to get a cup of coffee, when someone just offered to bring it to you? You drop a bath towel on the floor and decide you'll pick it up later. Why in the world would you park at the far end of the parking lot when there are plenty of spaces just a few steps away from the entrance?

2. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. You're no sloth and no one has ever described you as a couch potato, but sometimes you just feel like your get-up-and-go just got up and went.

3. No way. You're always up and movin'. Friends and family marvel at your energy level. You seldom sit and if you do sit, you can't sit still. Fidgeting is just a fact of your life.

The Dish Divas' Diagnosis

1. Whoops! Sounds like you have an undiagnosed allergy to activity. You need to turn your current philosophy on movement on its nasty little head. Think calories, not convenience. A calorie burned is a calorie gone forever; you can kiss that bad boy good-bye! And every calorie-burning movement counts. Take the stairs at the airport instead of the escalator. Waste steps at home. Make two trips upstairs to get what you need, instead of one. Those seemingly small and insignificant movements can add up. Even bending over to pick up that dropped towel is an opportunity to stretch and tone.

2. Maybe you're no slug, but if your energy level is not exactly at its peak and could stand a boost, you'll benefit from being more active, not less. On those days when you think submitting yourself to a painful flogging would be more enjoyable than going to the gym (at least you wouldn't have to move!), that's your signal that you need to go. Not only will it get your blood pumping, studies clearly show it can lift your spirits, making it that much easier for you to face the challenges of the day (dietary and otherwise). Unless you have some undiagnosed health issue that's draining your energy, it's guaranteed you'll feel better, rather than worse, once you've gotten active again.

3. So, you're one of those Nervous Nellies (the ones bobbing their knees up and down under the table). Lucky you. Research shows that you and others like you actually fidget away calories and tend to have an easier time of it when it comes to preventing weight gain. But that doesn't get you off the hook completely. Strength training to keep upper body muscles toned is a must and a little heart-pumping activity should still be on your to-do list, to keep you mentally alert and keep your cardiovascular system in good shape.

Want more? Check out chapter 3 for The Dish on Superfoods and The Dish on Looking Fabulous in chapter 9.

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Copyright © 2004 by Carolyn O'Neil and Densie Webb

Tags: Diets and Weight Loss

About the Author

Carolyn O'Neil, M.S., R.D., is a registered dietitian who is best known for her award-winning national and inter-national reporting on food, nutrition, and cuisine as the senior correspondent and host of CNN's On the Menu and CNN Travel Now. More

Densie Webb, Ph.D., R.D., a registered dietitian, has been writing about food, nutrition, and health for over fifteen years. She is the author and editor of seven other books, the associate editor for environmentalnutrition.com and a regular writer for the American Botanical Council. More