Crunch your way to a healthy tummy - inside and out.

I first became aware of All Bran when I was a child and my Dad started to eat it as a healthy breakfast. When he had been eating it for a few months and we had seen no marked improvement in his health or well being it became clear he was doing something wrong. Turns out he believed that all bran had magical properties that completely annihilated all other foods so he would follow a bowl of the cereal with a full English breakfast and wonder why he wasn't losing any weight. Oh how we laughed.

Oh what a delicious decision to make :)

Then when I was at uni and following the Rosemary Conley plan (for the first time) I became re-acquainted with the cereal when I discovered a fat free cake recipe using All Bran. It was absolutely delicious and helped me to shift some unwanted poundage over the Easter break in my second year. It wasn't quite a substitute for chocolate, but having a slice of it while revising for exams was a pretty good alternative to chewing on celery.

Eating it again after so many years I was surprised at the variations that are now available. I was sent three to try; Chocolate Wheats, Golden Crunch and Red Berry Crunch. The funny thing was we were on holiday at the time they were posted and I never received the boxes. I wondered whether the postman had made off with them in a desperate desire to resolve some digestive issues or whether they had just gone astray at the sorting office. I never found out, but was sent some more anyway and they made it to the kitchen.

I've mentioned before that I don't do chocolate cereals so Hubbie had the privilege of trying the Chocolate Wheats and he was shocked that I was encouraging him to eat chocolate for breakfast. It is such a rare treat that he didn't complain and in his own words, 'I've felt better and fuller." There was more about his digestion, but due to the graphic nature of his remarks they are best left unrepeated I think.

Red Berry Crunch - yummy !

I tried the Golden Crunch and Red Berry Crunch which were both very tasty indeed. The range of flavours has passed me by so I had no idea there were so many different options now. There is still the distinctive All Bran taste - which I quite like actually - and the addition of fruit makes it just a little more interesting without being too sweet. I don't eat masses of cereal so the portions weren't too big, but they really did fill me up until well past lunchtime. I swim every day and don't eat until at least 2pm most days so feeling full is a bonus and stopped me from stuffing myself in a post swim binge. I hope that the side effect of eating All Bran will be that I'll eat less of the rubbish stuff that makes me feel rotten and regretful.

I've always struggled with being ok with my tummy, from a digestive point of view and in terms of physical appearance. I had really bad IBS about ten years ago and it was so severe I restricted my diet for years afterwards and was paranoid about eating anything that would make me a) bloat and b) feel ill. My tummy has never been flat. I envy those women who seem to expel a baby and bounce back into skinny jeans within minutes of giving birth. I lost a lot of weight before I was pregnant and I still didn't have a flat stomach. I did, however, have a healthier one. I still make sure I do a routine of stomach crunches every morning in the ongoing bid for that elusive flat stomach !

After a week of eating All Bran I noticed I felt full, but not bloated and it made me think I might go back to eating cereal for breakfast. In recent years I've been struggling to find a breakfast that isn't toast (which triggers my IBS) and trying a random selection of protein and low GI breakfasts that are high maintenance and often too much to manage. Cooking some porridge is worth the effort as it's my favourite breakfast option, but shaking out a bowl of All Bran is even easier.

Easy and quick breakfast 

So with the inner workings of my tummy sorted out maybe I can up the efforts to get it looking as good too ?

Do the crunch on the inside and the outside :)

This post is an entry for the Real Mums of All-Bran Linky Challenge, sponsored by Kelloggs