Breakfast - Smart Choices -Kick Start your day and your Life

Breakfast and Breakfast Choices :

I have chosen to write a blog on breakfast choice as I find people often make poor breakfast choice or none at all or they stick to them same thing all of the time and find it boring/tasteless and makes no difference to the health goals.

Like your mother told you, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it really is! It kicks start your metabolism going straight away, your metabolism needs to get going as early as possible to when you get up in order to burn energy and metabolise food. If you are looking for weight loss or improvements into your eating habits. EAT BREAKFAST! Like I said in my first blog, it is ok to eat when trying to lose weight and become healthy, you have too!

But it is what you put into your mouth that makes the difference. Breakfast wards off bad food cravings mid morning, and prevents the symptom of when you get to lunch, shoveling a silly amount of food into you because you are literally starving your system at this point and more often than not, unhealthy lunch choices.

Don’t worry, if you’re the type that doesn’t like to eat certain things or you are a vegetarian, I have some choices, surely you can at least try, it’s your body after all, you wouldn’t be alive without it!

Cereal: Cereal is a funny one, because you have marketers who get paid millions to tell you Kellogg’s Special K Fruit or Raisin Wheat, cereal is good for you, and you think why not, it has the word “fruit” and “wholegrain” and “fiber” on the front, it must be and a lovely photo shopped picture of a nice fruity bowl of cereal, be warned, a lot of these cereal’s contain huge amounts of false SUGARS. You do not need false sugars kick starting your morning; this is the first thing you are putting into your body in the morning so make the right choice, they inevitably leave you feeling hungry a short while later, spiking your insulin levels, converting that unused or un-burned sugar into fat and leaving you feeling no nicer about your insides.

Healthy Cereal Choices:

Porridge/Oatmeal – Go back to basics, this classic cereal will sustain you through to lunch. Try making it on water and adding some natural organic yoghurt and honey, both of these have organic natural sweeteners so NO NEED to add additional sugar or sweetener. You can also make it on milk (try organic milk if you can, less false sugars) – a 30-45g portion should be enough depending on your appetite and energy required. Add fresh fruit in to give additional sweetness and bulk. It is delicious. There is also Gluten Free Oatmeal out there for Celiac’s .

Watch when buying Oatmeal that you Do not buy the already flavored one (Apple & Cinnamon etc), it contains serious amount of sugar!

Wheatabix /Bran Flakes/ All bran – Be careful and read the back of these, these three are ok, they have some additional sugar and preservatives but all round are filling and substantial. Same as porridge try organic milk or yoghurt, branflakes and all bran are delicious with yoghurt instead of milk and add in some fruit or honey instead of putting sugar or sweetner, and we don’t need any more false sugars! You will notice after a while of not using false sugar you won’t put sugar in any of your cereal’s and will probably stop craving it as much.

Making Granola: Try making your own granola or granola balls to add into your cereal to give it an extra crunch or put some fresh fruit and natural yoghurt with some granola in a bowl delicious! Most store bought granola contains a lot of sugar. Recipe:  Chopped Almonds, Raisins, Dried Cranberries, Chopped Walnuts, Oats, Pine Nuts, Honey. Bake/Toast the fruit and nuts mixed together, use honey to make into granola balls and cool in fridge, store in lunch box.

Eggs/Egg Whites (Not just for weekends): Eggs contain a lot of protein and is HBV Protein (High Biological Value) meaning this is the highest quality level of protein source you can have. Protein is the belly filler and will keep you full for hours. The egg white contains all of the protein of the egg and the yolk contains all of the fat. If you are conscious about cholesterol try egg whites instead, In Canada you can buy them pre-packaged but Ireland you may have to separate the egg. All of these suggestions can be subbed for egg whites and are quick to make.

Omlette: mix with some fresh cut vegi’s (spinach, tomato pepper) makes a seriously filling brekkie.

Scrambled (without the butter and salt): have some scrambled with fresh pepper and some fresh fruit and 1 slice of wholegrain bread or 2 ryvita, filling!

Poached: on a slice of wholegrain or 2 rice cakes with some fresh melon and smoked salmon (or fruit of your choice) filing!

Boiled: on a slice of wholegrain or 2 rice cakes/ ryvita and fresh juiced/squeezed fruit or vegetable juice.

For those with little time and need breakfast on the go….

You too need energy, mommy and daddy can’t live without food either so think about yourself, or those with demanding jobs, your job isn’t going to keep you alive.. Your body is, so feed yourself! These can all be made quickly and eaten on the go (although I recommend for your digestion to sit down and relax while eating).

·        Toast/Rice Cakes with Natural Peanut Butter (protein and fill you)

·        Fruit mix in mini lunchbox and slice of toast/rice cake with almond butter/peanut butter

·        Hard Boiled egg and 2 pieces of fruit

·        Home-made granola bar (store bought have a lot of sugar)

·        Juice – Smoothie (my FAV!) – small bit of natural yoghurt and fruits and vegi’s mixed(make night before if time short in the morning – grab and go)

·        Smoked Salmon on Wholegrain Toast/Ryvita

Drinks in the Morning:

You have been asleep for 8 hours or more or less, you need to be rehydrated.  WATER or Warm water and lemon or green/herbal/fruit tea, these are the best things to rehydrate with breakfast!! Try not to drink cartoned fruit juices from shops, they contain alot of sugar!!! Try making your own juice and just store it in the fridge or look at the labels and buy 100% squeezed juice. Dont be fooled by any of these "100 Juice Concentrate" "Contains real fruit bits" , look at the ingrediants, if you cannot pronounce it or has added sugar (added Fructose) is one of the first few ingrediants...ditch it..fruit has naturally high sugars so you dont need any additional.

For those men out there that gyming it, lifting and training hard:

·        Keep plenty of protein(tuna/egg whites) in your breakfasts if you don’t take a substitute protein shake.

·        Keep complex carbs in your breakfast, so wholemeal flour pancakes with protein powder and raisins. OR Protein breakfast omlette’s inside of wholegrain wraps

For those fry lovers and weekend breakfasts:

There is healthy ways to do this, you can have a yummy weekend breakfast and cut the fat along the way:

·        Grill your meat instead of frying

·        Use lean (little fat) cuts of meat, rashers, bacon etc

·        Poach, Boil, Scramble(egg white) your eggs or make a mini egg white omlette with Smoked Salmon/Tuna

·        Wholegrain breads 1-2 slices, you don’t need 4

·        Grilled tomatoes and grilled mushrooms instead of frying

·        Grilled Potato cakes with onion and fresh herbs instead of hash browns

So mini tips: Keep it fruity and vegi, try and get some protein in by egg/egg whites/smoked salmon/tuna, lean meats (it will keep you full), keep your cereal choice basic with little additives and then jazz it up with those lovely fresh or frozen fruits and organic honey and yoghurt, breads – keep them wholegrain and natural (white bread is useless to your health being honest). Keep it Juicy ;) try and make vegi juices they prevent sugar cravings and amazing way to get your five a day. Be careful with butter and butter servings, try and use none or as little as possible in your eggs.

Make Smart Choices for your body in the morning, it sets you up for the day and your life… AND DONT FOGET THAT WHEATGRASS ;)

Remeber Healthy and Fit is sexy and we can all be sexy ;)