TYLER TOLMAN BLOG
Healthy Breakfast | The Best Foods For Optimal Digestion
Healthy Breakfast | The Best Foods For Optimal Digestion
I often get asked about what types of foods to eat at breakfast to set you up for the day and keep your digestive system functioning optimally. I used to start my day with fruit but more recently my way of eating is to actually start the day with water and to wait until 12 noon to eat fruit. I’ve realised that the body is in a state of detoxification until that time and to support it by not eating and just drinking water (called Intermittent Fasting) is the best thing you can do.
The Best Possible Foods to Eat Daily When Breaking Your Overnight Fast
I will go through the foods I choose to ‘break my fast’. The word breakfast does literally mean to break a fast from the night. Hands down fruits are the best option because they rehydrate the body and are full of fibre to keep everything moving. They provide you with lots of phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals and there’s just a lot of electricity and life force in them that energises you and sets you up for the day.
I typically choose a ‘mono diet’ of fruit. So that means I’ll have maybe 3 or 4 mangoes cut up. Or I might just have watermelon for breakfast or half of a massive papaya. Keeping to just one fruit makes things simple for my digestive system until it’s warmed up.
The thing to know about fruit is to not eat it at the same time as other foods. Typically eat fruit at least 15 minutes before you eat anything else because it moves through the stomach very quickly and digests very easily. If it gets caught up with food that takes longer to digest it can start to ferment and that leads to bloating and inefficient digestion.
In the nature of providing solutions for everyone at every level, I think oatmeal is a great denser option that you can make even more filling by adding in some seeds. And since we are talking about foods that are also good for digestion, oats are brilliant. They are also a natural antidepressant and really good for strength because they contain a good range of amino acids.
Mixing oats with sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and sesame seeds boosts the amount of omega 3, 6, and 9 in your diet. Chia seeds are awesome for digestion too either with the oats or as a porridge on their own just by adding water or some nut milk. You could add some raw honey for sweetness or if you are vegan you could use maple syrup or coconut sugar.
How to Tell if Your Digestive System is Functioning as Well as it Should Be
When we’re talking about optimal digestion, a good sign that everything is functioning properly is having a bowel movement within 30 to 45 minutes after a meal. As soon as you eat a meal there are signals that are sent from the brain to the stomach that basically say it’s time to make way for more nutritious food coming in to be processed. I am like clockwork! When I have a meal typically within 30 to 45 minutes I have a really good bowel movement.
If you are constipated (not having multiple bowel movements a day) and feeling a bit blocked up and want to keep digestion moving, a colon cleanse is the way to go. My 4 day Colon Cleanse is simply chia seeds, psyllium, buckwheat and bentonite clay with a little bit of salt. And that really cleans out the digestive system.
Clays have been used for thousands of years by many cultures as a means to extract toxicity from the body. Clays help the body to get rid of heavy metals and eliminate herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides from the body. You’re going to feel much better afterwards, trust me!
To make sure you have a good bowel movement first thing in the morning I always recommend having a litre of water as soon as you wake up (you can add lemon juice for extra benefits) and going for a 30-45 minute walk. This really sets you up to have a great day. By being outdoors and hydrated you’re going to start to realise that you don’t need to eat breakfast straight away.
So yeah, fruit for breakfast is really the way to go, just make sure you have lots of water first to help flush your body and if digestion is an issue consider a Colon Cleanse.
Thanks for reading!
