Your Breakfast, Your Plate and Your Body
Expanding your diet to fit your lifestyle and nourish your health
Breakfast seems to be an easy meal to skip to lose weight what’s the big deal?
Many believe that nixing the morning meal will help them lose weight, but the opposite is true, In fact, “people who skip breakfast often end up overeating at their next meal. Research backs this up—a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology showed strong connections between eating breakfast and lower waist circumference, BMI, blood pressure, blood lipids, and fasting glucose levels. Not to mention your mood and performance level will benefit. “When you’re hungry all morning, you won’t be able to pay attention and will probably be a little crabby and jittery.” Eating in the a.m. stabilizes your glucose levels, which helps you focus, reason, and process information.
But what if I’m just not hungry first thing in the morning?
Trying to ease into breakfast by opting for something small, like a cup of yogurt or a piece of fruit. (Then you can fuel up with a light snack, like an apple with almonds, mid-morning.) If you’re still not convinced, you can push your first meal to as late as 11 a.m. Just eat early enough that you leave room for lunch and dinner.
Yogurt: nonfat, low-fat, or full-fat? And what about flavored yogurts?
Yogurt can be an excellent breakfast food, thanks to its gut-friendly probiotics, protein, and calcium. But not all varieties are created equal. Registered dietitian and Health contributing nutrition editor, recommends plain full-fat Greek, preferably organic and grass-fed. “This type of yogurt packs the most overall nutrition, including a higher amount of protein versus non-Greek, and healthful fats, including anti-inflammatory omega-3s,” says Sass. Flavored or fruit-on-bottom yogurts can have 12-plus grams of sugar, so sweeten your own with fruit or a little honey or maple syrup. Chances are, you’ll use less sugar than the manufacturer would have. Like yogurt but not the dairy part? Sass also notes that there are plant-based Greek-style yogurts on the market with substantial protein and the same beneficial probiotics found in dairy yogurt.
Is no one drinking fruit juice in the morning anymore?
It’s true that fruit juice isn’t the staple it once was, since we now know its basically liquid sugar. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a small glass of 100 percent juice once in a while, but whole fruit is better.
Fruits help fuel productive morning hours by supplying fiber for blood-sugar regulation, antioxidants, and other key nutrients that support mental focus. If you really want a liquid breakfast, A smoothie, which retains more fiber than a juice, made with a protein and whole fruit. Try a mix of protein powder, mango, avocado, spinach, and unsweetened almond milk.
Eggs—friend or enemy?
Eggs incredibly rich in nutrients, including protein, selenium, and vitamin B2. Whole eggs can also help build muscle. After resistance exercise, the muscle-building response was 40 percent greater when whole eggs were consumed versus just whites. And while egg yolks contain some saturated fat, studies show that those who eat an egg a day are not at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. We now know that eggs’ dietary cholesterol won’t raise our levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. Some RDs and MDs recommend imposing limits on yolk consumption to one a day because studies have not focused on having more than that.
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