There are so many reasons as to why breakfast is the most important meal of the day, not least of all because it aids in your weight wellness. Whether you’re trying to maintain the healthy weight you’re at, or get to a better BMI, you need to do breakfast right in order to ensure success.
Let’s start with the right time to munch your morning meal; as early as possible. While you might not feel hungry first thing in the morning, eating it soon after waking up is the best thing you can do for your wellbeing. Leta Shy, Associate Editor for Fitness at PopSugar UK, notes, ‘Studies have found that eating breakfast jump-starts your metabolism, and not only that, it can help ensure that you don’t feel so starved later that you make bad eating choices for lunch or dinner.’ Therefore, you need to eat your breakfast sooner rather than later in order to take advantage of your body’s fat-burning potential.
Not having an early-morning appetite isn’t great, but having too much food is equally as damaging to your weight goals. When you’re making your breakfast, watch out for portion sizes. Sure, a hearty breakfast can help to fill you up until lunchtime, but overdoing it can mean you fill up unnecessarily, and add on extra calories you don’t need. Rather, it’s better to go for smaller, healthy yet still filling options, instead of those foods that are packed with calories or enough sugar to ensure your mid-morning crash. Your breakfast should be full of slow-digesting nutrients to help keep you satisfied throughout the morning, so stock up on high-fibre, high-protein breakfast options for plenty of energy and fullness. Here are a few healthy breakfasts that really fit the bill.
1. Yoghurt, granola, and fruit: When you’re adding foods together, it’s important that you watch out for how the sugar content adds up. Combined, this morning meal contains 14.9 grams of sugar, with six ounces of Chobani plain Greek yoghurt providing seven grams of sugar, a ¼ cup of Bear Naked Fit Vanilla Almond Crunch Granola providing four grams, and ½ a cup of sliced strawberries adding the last 3.9 grams.
2. Vegetable omelette: For this delicious omelette you will need two large eggs (providing 0.4 grams of sugar), five cherry tomatoes (2.2 grams), six broccoli florets (2.4 grams), one cup of spinach (0.1 grams), three medium mushrooms (0.9 grams) and one ounce of shredded monterey jack cheese (adding nothing to your sugar total). Altogether, that makes a fibre- and protein-packed breakfast with only six grams of sugar.
3. Apple cinnamon oatmeal with almonds: This breakfast is a real winter warmer, and you’ll love it once the Christmas season arrives. Combine ½ a cup of organic rolled oats (one gram of sugar), one small apple (15.9 grams), ½ a tablespoon of honey (8.6 grams), eight raw almonds (0.5 grams) and ¼ a teaspoon of cinnamon (0 grams). Together, that makes one of the most sugary breakfasts on this list – coming in at 25.9 grams of sugar – but it’s still full of healthy goodness, and is too delicious to resist.
4. Wheat toast with almond butter and banana: This filling breakfast has such an earthy, wholesome feel to it. Simply spread two slices whole wheat toast (which contain six grams of sugar) with two tablespoons almond butter (two grams) and slice a medium banana (14.4 grams) on top. Again, this one isn’t the least sugary breakfast you can have, but it’s full of fibre and will keep you going until lunch.