5 Healthy Breakfasts To Kick Off Your Day
Eating healthy breakfasts is one habit that can help you stay mentally and physically sharp. Although we sometimes don’t give it much thought, the first meal of the day is the most important one.
The nutrients you ingest in the morning help “recharge” your body with energy to help you get through your day.
They’re also instrumental in giving your metabolism a boost, which is crucial for maintaining a stable and healthy weight.
However, not everyone makes good food choices when it’s time to cook, or they decide to replace their breakfast with coffee and donuts because of time constraints.
That’s why we’re presenting five interesting ideas for more varied and healthy breakfasts.
Enjoy!
1. Light breakfast
If you want to cut calories, don’t skip your breakfast. Instead of spending your morning hungry, opt for this filling option that has only 200 calories.
Ingredients
- A cup of tea of your choice,
- A vegetable sandwich with whole wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, and fresh cheese.
Check out this article: 5 Foods to Avoid Eating for Breakfast
2. Stress-fighting breakfast
Long work day ahead of you? Feel like stress will overpower you? Then choose this delicious, energizing breakfast (225 calories) for its stress-fighting properties.
Its ingredients include nutrients that support hormone balance for your well-being, which helps to keep your emotions in check.
Ingredients
- One cup of green tea
- 1 pear, chopped
- A bowl of whole grain cereals with oat milk
3. Breakfast for good mental focus
If your day-to-day life involves a lot of concentration and mental focus, make sure to try this breakfast that’s full of important nutrients.
It has more calories than the previous options (about 470), but is a great way to get through morning fatigue and fight mental blocks.
Ingredients
- 1 glass of skim milk
- A bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit
- 1 apple or banana
4. Heart healthy breakfast
Are your cholesterol levels high? Do you have problems with your blood pressure? If you have cardiac issues, make this breakfast to take care of your heart.
It’s high in dietary fiber and antioxidants that aid to balance lipids in your arteries and strengthen your heart muscle.
Ingredients
- One cup of green tea
- One serving of whole wheat bread with plain tuna
- A handful of nuts
- 1 kiwi, chopped
5. Breakfast for athletes
If you’re an athlete or practice high impact physical activity, you should prepare a breakfast with simple sugars to give your energy a boost.
A good portion with protein and antioxidants will help you improve your physical performance.
Ingredients
- 1 glass of orange juice
- A slice of whole wheat bread with cured ham
- A handful of dried fruit with a teaspoon of honey
Why you shouldn’t skip breakfast
Many people skip breakfast because they think they can lose weight that way. Cutting out those morning calories seems like a simple way to shed a few pounds.
However, that’s not the case—skipping breakfast can actually play a role in being overweight. A lack of energy causes metabolism to slow and leads to an accumulation of body fat.
What’s more, within hours, feelings of anxiety to eat will increase, which results in eating more calories than you should.
Other effects from skipping breakfast include:
- Difficulty concentrating and remembering things,
- Fatigue or drowsiness,
- Anxiety, stress, or emotional imbalance,
- Decrease in muscle mass,
- Weakening of the immune system,
- Digestive issues,
- Nutritional deficiencies.
Recommended reading:
What to do if you have little time to eat breakfast
You don’t have to invest a lot of time to enjoy a complete, balanced, and healthy breakfast. In fact, all you need are some simple, fail-proof tricks:
- Wake up 15 or 20 minutes earlier than usual. That way, you’ll have time to make breakfast.
- Plan out your breakfasts for the week. If you write down what you’ll eat, you can have all the ingredients ready ahead of time.
- Make a smoothie. These drinks are fast to make, and you can mix different ingredients to whip up a light and complete breakfast.
Ready to give these delicious breakfasts a try? Make sure to sample these quick options!
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Cheng HM., Koutsidis G., Lodge JK., Ashor A., et al., Tomato and lycopene supplementation and cardiovascular risk factors: a systematic review and meta analysis. Atherosclerosis, 2017. 257: 100-108.
- Rothenberg DO., Zhou C., Zhang L., A review on the weight loss effects of oxidized tea polyphenols. Molecules, 2018.
- Abdelhamid AS., Brown TJ., Brainard JS., Biswas P., et al., Omega 3 fatty aacids for the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 2018.
