If you want to know whether you need to eat breakfast at all, read part one here.
Here’s a quick summary of the points.
- If you don’t feel like eating breakfast then you are unlikely to gain weight by skipping it, but if you are hungry then you should eat breakfast.
- If your diet is high in carbohydrate it may negatively effect your concentration.
- To be at your best for work you should have more fat for breakfast.
- If you want to lose weight, a high protein breakfast will reduce hunger and limit body fat gains.
Healthy Breakfast Choices
Green Tea or Herbal Tea
If you normally skip breakfast, you may only drink a coffee. Caffeine raises your stress hormone by around 30% and interferes with your body’s natural waking up process. Switch out that first morning coffee for a tea and your body will thank you.
Eggs
I hope by now you know that eggs are not bad for you, that dietary cholesterol is only a part of the puzzle. Eggs are one of the healthiest breakfast options around. Boiled and poached are better than scrambled or fried, but any form is an improvement on cereal.
Boiled eggs last around five days in the fridge, so you can do a batch one evening to last you the working week.
Greek Yoghurt
While most yoghurts are full in sugar, Greek Yoghurt tends to be high in protein and a better option for breakfast. Be careful with Greek “Style” Yoghurt, as marketers are using this to make it seem healthy, when in fact anything can be named “Greek Style” without being high in protein.
Total Greek Yoghurt by the company Fage is my go-to option. Put 200g in a bowl and add on a fruit of your choice. Sprinkle on cinnamon and coconut flakes for an added health boost.
Avocado
A great high fat option. As with eggs, it’s full of good fats that you shouldn’t be afraid to eat. Avocados are also packed with fibre, which is lacking in some diets. The recipe below is one of four examples from Feel Good Foodie for combining avocado with egg on toast.
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is a great choice if you’re going to be active later in the morning. It is also a great high fibre option that will keep you feeling full.
Try the recipe for our No Bake Protein Flapjacks for a “grab and go” breakfast option for busy workers.
Starting your day with a high protein breakfast is a great start if you’re looking to lose weight. If you eat a healthy breakfast, it will keep you fuller for longer and prevent you snacking before lunch.
If you’re finding it hard to concentrate at work, ditch the high carbohydrate breakfast. Instead, try one higher in fat (eggs are a great choice here).
[1] Nutrient intake, diet quality, and weight/adiposity parameters in breakfast patterns compared with no breakfast in adults. O’Neil, Nicklas, Fulgoni
[2] Breakfast habits, nutritional status, body weight, and academic performance in children and adolescents. Rampersaud, Pereira, Girard, Adams, Metzl
[3] A high-protein breakfast prevents body fat gain, through reductions in daily intake and hunger, in “Breakfast skipping” adolescents. Leidy, Hoertel, Douglas, Higgins, Shafer
[4] A cross-over experiment to investigate possible mechanisms for lower BMIs in people who habitually eat breakfast. Reeves, Huber, Halsley, Villegas-Montes, Elgumati, Smith
[5] Skipping breakfast: morningness-eveningness preference is differentially related to state and trait food cravings. Meule, Roeser, Randler, Kubler
[6] Effect of skipping breakfast on subsequent energy intake. Levitsky, Pacanowski
[7] Skipping breakfast leads to weight loss but also elevated cholesterol compared with consuming daily breakfasts of oat porridge or frosted cornflakes in overweight individuals. Geliebter, AStbury, Aviram-Friedman, Yahav, Hashim
[8] Eating breakfast enhances the efficiency of neural networks engaged during mental arithmetic in school-aged children. Pivik, Tennal, Chapman
[9] Breakfast skipping and change in body mass index in young children. Tin, Ho, Mak, Wan, Lam
[10] Breakfast skipping and health-compromising behaviors in adolescents and adults. Keski-Rahkonen, Kaprio, Rissanen, Virkkunen, Rose.
[11] Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show two practices that distort scientific evidence. Brown, Bohan Brown, Allison
[12] Breakfast and cognition: sixteen effects in nine populations, no single recipe. Zilberter, Zilberter.
