Eat Like a Star: How American Idol's Mandisa Lost 106 Pounds
By Ashley Mateo, SELF magazine
Want to look like a star? Have what they're having! Every Tuesday, we'll tell you what healthy breakfast helps our favorite stars kick off their day. This week, we talked to American Idol alum Mandisa!
The singer, who released her album What If We Were Real on April 5th, lost a whopping 106 pounds after her stint on the reality competition. To get in shape, Mandisa hired a personal trainer and learned how to cook so she could shed weight in a healthy way. The most challenging diet test for the star comes when she's touring to promote her music.
She says, "It can be difficult eating healthy on the road, but this is my typical room service order: an omelette using one egg and two egg whites, with spinach, mushrooms and easy Swiss cheese, cooked with cooking spray instead of oil, plus whole grain bread."
Related: Foods that Fight Cellulite
Not all of us are living off of room service (wouldn't that be nice?), but we can still follow Mandisa's lead--breakfasts with fiber and protein, like omelettes, will keep you satisfied longer so you won't feel those mid-morning hunger pains. Here's a bonus to that AM egg plate: A study from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge reports that women who added an egg to breakfast lost twice as much weight as those who ate the same breakfast sans egg. A little yolk is good for you as well--it contains almost as much protein as the white, in addition to heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, omega-3s and an array of vitamins including A, D, and B12.
See Also: Gwyneth Paltrow's Slim-Eating Secrets
Spinach is the perfect veggie to stuff into your omelette--three cups supply 40 percent of your daily magnesium, a mineral that blunts stress's effects on the body by stopping blood pressure from spiking, says Beth Reardon, R.D., director of integrative nutrition at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. Next time you're at the grocery story, grab the bagged spinach closest to the front of the shelf, says a report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Greens exposed to supermarket light while on display (as opposed to those stacked a couple of rows back) have higher levels of some vitamins, including C and B9. The reason? The nutrients are created for the process of photosynthesis (sixth grade science class refresher: that's the process plants use to convert sunlight into energy so they can grow).
Looking for an eggs-cellent breakfast? Try one of SELF's recipes!
More fromSELF:
