A doctor has shared how breakfast foods often thought of as "healthy" led to him unknowingly gaining weight.
Professor Tim Spector, who is a doctor and epidemiologist, spoke to diet guru Michael Mosely on his BBC podcast Just One Thing when he revealed that the breakfast he ate for 10 years made him gain 10 kilograms (around 22 lbs).
The nutrition expert, who cofounded the ZOE study, switched up his morning routine after noticing his blood sugar levels spike in the morning immediately after eating what he thought was a "healthy diet", the Daily Record reports.
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He said his go-to breakfast was a cup of tea with skimmed milk, a glass of orange juice, and toast with marmalade. Professor Spector added: "It would be brown toast - I didn't know at that time that they're often dyed brown."
"I was eating towards, what I was told at the time as a doctor was, a healthy diet. And it turns out that that diet had led to me gaining about a kilo in weight over the previous 10 years, so that I'd gained about 10 kilos over that time.
"And it was only when I stuck a glucose monitor on me as I was eating my breakfast that it shot up into the normal diabetic range. There was a worrying sign that really these carbs and sugars weren't right for me."
Professor Spector went on the explain his wife's blood sugar levels reacted differently to the same breakfast as he urged people to try different foods. He says he now eats full fat yogurt with nuts, seeds and berries and switched tea to coffee which helps him stay full until lunch.
He added: "We now know coffee is really good for your gut microbes. It was a radical difference. And I instantly saw that changing brought down my sugars.
"I wasn't getting sugar spikes. I also didn't feel nearly as hungry at 11 o'clock at work. I didn't feel I needed a mid morning biccy as I used to and I was just feeling generally better." [sic]
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