We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We also know that to maintain a healthy weight, we have to watch how much we eat and get plenty of exercise. BUT, as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean that eating only cereal is a good way to do it.
I'm sure that if you've seen TV or have opened a women's magazine in the past 5 years, you know about the Special K Challenge. You know, when you replace two meals a day with special K cereal and get to enjoy two snacks each day along with a 'sensible' meal. Kellogg's has actually created quite an elaborate and detailed website that helps the dieter create their own personalized plan. They can choose the type of plan that fits their lifestyle and personality.
Now, I used to eat Special K cereal quite often. I do love cereal and would eat it more often if I didn't care about the fact that just about every cereal is incredibly processed with a lot of sugar and other unnecessary ingredients. (There are definitely some cereals available though that are fairly healthy, just have to look for them)
The thing with this plan is that everything you eat except for the one 'sensible' meal is processed food product made by Kellogg. Now people, I know you're all more sensible than this. If you're reading this blog, chances are you either a pretty health conscious person already or you're working to incorporate more healthy habits into your daily life. So, I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but it annoys me that a company is misleading consumers masquerading over processed foods as healthy ways to loose weight. In one protein meal bar, I counted 6 forms of sugar, including high fructose corn syrup and also soy protein isolate. Both ingredients that should not be in our foods. Now, I'm not saying that all of their products are bad or that they're the only company doing this, and I'm definitely not saying that companies have all the control over what we eat. Actually, I'm saying that marketing campaigns like this reinforce the fact that we all need to be responsible for what we eat and knowing how to eat in order to have a healthy diet. It's not all about cereal and meal replacement bars (Special K or any other brand). We need to eat fruits, veggies, whole grains, protein.
The Special K Challenge is another fad diet that may work in the short term, but chances are it's not going to be a healthy and sustainable way to eat 5 months from now.
If you think this might be a good option to drop those last 5lbs or the 10lbs before your class reunion, take a second and think about what you're really going to put into your stomach and how it'll effect your body down the road. And if your friend is talking about trying it, stear him/her towards the produce aisle!
Agree with my assessment or do you think it might be okay? Have you tried the Challenge or something similar? And what did you think of the Grammy's last night?
