If you find you are too rushed in the morning to stop for breakfast, it may be worthwhile to change your habit and wake up a couple of minutes earlier.

Research clearly shows that eating breakfast is associated with successful weight loss and maintenance. Brown University and the University of Colorado at Boulder released a study examining the behaviors of those successful at losing weight and keeping it off. To participate, the 4,000+ participants in the study each had to document a weight loss of more than 30 pounds maintained for at least a year. The average weight loss for all participants was 73 pounds, maintained for close to 6 years. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of those surveyed eat breakfast every day, usually cereal and fruit.

Breakfast primes a body nutritionally for its day’s activities. Consuming some protein, fiber and fruit in the morning will give you energy, keep you appetite in check until the next meal, and may reduce your calorie intake later in the day. Specially designed, high protein diet breakfast foods can make it easy to get a perfectly balanced portion-controlled breakfast every day.Â

September is National Cholesterol Education Month, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. If you don’t know your cholesterol level, take some time this month to find out because high blood cholesterol increases your risk of coronary heart disease. To lower your blood cholesterol, follow a low saturated-fat, low cholesterol diet; increase your physical activity; lose weight if you’re overweight.

Portion-controlled diet foods and meal replacement diet plans can make it easier to lower cholesterol and lose excess weight.

So you’re minding your own business when a thought tickles you: I’m hungry. No, not hungry, exactly. This feels different, it’s more like this: Chocolate NOW! Chocolate NOW!

And almost before you know it, you’re halfway through that candy bar you swore off just yesterday. That’s the power of a craving.

What inspires a food desire so intense that it wobbles the will of the most committed dieters and healthiest eaters? The dictionary calls a craving “an intense, urgent or abnormal desire or longing,” but weight-loss experts will tell you that cravings are hardly abnormal.

The Roots of Desire

Where do cravings come from? While hormonal and nutritional fluctuations can influence eating habits, most unhealthy cravings probably stem more from emotion and past behavior, experts say.

If you’re used to grabbing a doughnut on the way to a long morning meeting, the doughnut may quickly become a morning fixture – whether or not there’s a meeting. Worse, every time you give in to the craving, you cement the pattern, ensuring future cravings.

How Can You Break The Cycle?

Step 1: Anticipate
Most cravings are predictable. They’re usually triggered by fatigue, exposure to favorite foods, certain moods and situations.

In any case, the next time a craving strikes, WRITE DOWN everyting you can about it. Chances are, you’ll soon detect a pattern to the timing, setting, food choices or feelings. Once you’ve identified your triggers, you can begin to prepare.

Step 2: Prepare
Plan for your cravings! Don’t get too hungry.

Never promise yourself that you’ll go for hours without eating. You won’t make it, and it’s NOT good for you or your weight management plan. If you need snacks during the day, make them healthy, have them ready, and trim your meals to compensate for the calories. If you’re on the go, take along goodies that are high in protein, like a nutrition bar or other high protein diet snack.

Step 3: Manage
Even the best plans won’t head off all cravings. But when they arise, you can manage them.

1. Surf it. Don’t panic. Distract yourself for 5 or 10 minutes. Experts say most cravings pass quickly if you can resist your initial thought.
2. Answer it. If you can’t shake the craving, have a concise, high protein, low fat 100 calories of something to quell it: for example, a chocolate or vanilla pudding or shake. Then move on. Show yourself that you can eat good food in controlled amounts.

Each craving you control will empower you to handle the next one. Applaud your victories. Beating your cravings will boost your confidence – and your weight-loss success!

• How can you get your weight loss efforts off to a great start? Raid your refrigerator and your cupboards! Make the commitment to yourself that you won’t be over-indulging this time. Instead you’ll be clearing the shelves of unhealthy, fattening “diet-killing” culprits like ice cream, whole milk, cookies and potato chips. The goal: to make your kitchen a safe haven for healthy eating.
• Two of the healthiest ways to cook vegetables include microwaving and stir-frying because both methods enable vegetables to retain more vitamins.
• Momma knew what she was talking about when she used to say, “Eat your lima beans!” As a good source of folic acid, potassium, iron and magnesium, lima beans can be added to soups, stews and hot or cold salads.
• In a hurry? Stock up on tasty diet beverages, snacks and nutrition bars so you’ll always have convenient access to a healthy weight loss snack.