I make no secret that I think breakfast cereal is junk food (except for a good muesli or gluten free porridge), and I have written extensively about what I think we should eat for breakfast (including what I eat on a daily basis) – meat and nuts.

The high protein breakfast

However I do appreciate that moving from corn flakes to steak and cashews can be too big a step to take for some people. So I’m going to share an except with you from my new book “The little book of nutrition tips” available on amazon.co.uk and give you seven ideas for breakfast that are certainly a lot better than breakfast cereals.

1.    Standard porridge

8 to 10 tablespoons of oats.
30g of whey protein (optional).
200ml of milk or hot water.
1 tablespoon of xylitol.
½ teaspoon of cinnamon.
½ an apple.
1-2 tablespoons of ground seed mix (flax, pumpkin and sunflower).

Mix the whey protein with a little cold water and whisk to make a frothy lump free liquid. Add hot water or milk to the oats, xylitol and cinnamon, mix together and bring to the boil. Add the whey protein and simmer for 30 seconds to a minute. Serve with sliced apple and sprinkled ground seeds.

2.    Muesli

Search your health food shop for sugar free muesli, especially ones made with quinoa or amaranth. Alternatively try my recipe…

4-8 tablespoons of kallo puffed rice.
2-4 tablespoon of quinoa flakes.
1-2 tablespoons of raisins.
1-2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut.
2-3 tablespoons of mixed crushed nuts (almonds, hazelnuts and Brazil nuts.
1-2 tablespoon of mixed whole or ground seeds.

Simply serve this with some whole organic milk if you are not sensitive to dairy. You could try some goat’s or sheep’s milk or some quinoa or almond milk.

3.    Pancakes

1 whole egg.
30g whey protein powder or.
300ml water or whole milk.
1 tablespoon of xylitol.
2 tablespoons of ground

Balanced Breakfasts

This is a geat piece from Dr John Briffa about Wimbledon Champion Novak Djokovic changing his diet recently and attributing his success, in part at least, to eliminating wheat and gluten from his diet.

http://www.drbriffa.com/2011/07/04/what-does-the-number-one-tennis-player-in-the-uk-have-to-learn-from-the-worlds-number-one/

I can confirm that from working with elite athletes many come back with food intolerances to gluten, but also diary, soy and eggs. once people eliminate these from the diet things start to improve especially body fat levels and recovery from games / performance.

The biggest problem with sports nutrition is carb loading. People and athletes think they need to carb load for everything, but this is simply not the

Sports Nutrition

Working with elite athletes is a passion of mine and when the opportunity to help Mark Schwarzer prepare for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa came up, I jumped at the chance. Little did I know how inspiring he would be for me; what a driven, top professional he is and how hard he would work in the gym. Although I had been advising Mark on nutrition and supplements for about 18 months, we started working together more seriously in January 2010.

Initially I did some assessments on Mark including working out his body fat percentage and lean muscle mass, and conducted a structural balance assessment to establish where Mark was weak and what muscles were imbalanced. Upper and lower body structural balance testing has been developed by world-renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin and for those wanting to know more on this should visit www.charlespoliquin.com. From this data and with the knowledge of the performance

Preparing Score Schwarzer For Your 2010 World Cup