Many people find that eating breakfast is difficult to fit into their busy lifestyle. Whether you are short of time or not feeling hungry enough to eat, missing breakfast can affect your daily performance.
Eating a good breakfast is important to provide your body with the energy required to begin the day. Healthy breakfast options will boost your energy and stop you becoming hungry throughout the day.
People who eat breakfast every day are generally slimmer than those who skip it. Because they feel full in the morning, they are less likely to snack throughout the day. This leads to less high calorie snacks between meals that can lead to weight gain.
In today’s busy world, it may feel like there is not enough time to include a breakfast into your schedule. But adjusting your routine slightly can help you feel energised and prevent unhealthy weight gain.
- Try waking up 15 minutes earlier in the morning
- Prepare your breakfast the evening before to make it available quickly
- Choose a simple healthy breakfast
- Try to get tasks completed earlier
Breakfast ideas to boost energy
Adding fruit to your porridge or cereal can provide natural energy while tasting delicious. Here are some breakfast ideas which can give you a real energy boost.
Muesli and fresh fruit
Add low fat yoghurt and fresh fruit to muesli with no added sugar. This can be included as one of your five a day and provide protein and calcium.
Low sugar cereals
Try to switch from a cereal with high sugar content to options with no added sugar. Avoiding the most popular cereal brands with up to 37% added sugar can improve your health and protect your teeth from attack. Look for porridge, wholewheat cereal biscuits or shredded wholegrain pillows without added sugar.
Porridge with banana and blueberries
Replace sugar or honey with mashed banana as a healthier sweetener for your porridge. Add a handful of dried blueberries for extra fruit.
Apple pie porridge
Adding dessert apple, a pinch of cinnamon and some apple juice to your porridge and semi skimmed milk is a quick way to make a great tasting breakfast
Baked beans on toast
Choose beans with reduced salt and sugar content on wholemeal toast. Beans are full of protein and fibre whilst remaining low fat.
Breakfast for protein
Scrambled eggs
Adding scrambled egg to wholemeal toast is an excellent way to provide protein to your breakfast. Use low fat spread and semi skimmed milk. Sprinkle with chives and pepper for extra flavour. Add spinach for a green egg option for an extra nutritional boost.
Cheese and cold meat platter
Choose low fat cheese and lean meats such as roast turkey or ham to reduce calories. Add crackers and fresh grapes.
Fresh fruit and yoghurt
Greek yoghurt includes twice as much protein as a regular yoghurt. Choose a low fat yoghurt an add mixed nuts with fresh fruit such as strawberries.
Smokes salmon bagel with cream cheese
Toast a halved bagel and cover with low fat cream cheese. Top it with salmon, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of black pepper.
Toast options
Using imaginative toppings for your toast can make a morning snack which is healthy and tasty.
Try one of the following combinations on wholemeal toast:
- Grilled low fat mature cheese with marmite
- Hard boiled egg with mashed avocado
- Peanut butter with banana slices
Healthy Smoothies
By adding fresh, frozen or tinned fruit to your morning smoothie, you could include it as one of your five a day.
Here are some tasty ideas for a healthy smoothie:
Berry smoothie: add apple juice(100ml) and low fat natural yoghurt (40g) to a banana and frozen forest fruits or summer berries (140g). Blend to the required consistency.
Oats and banana smoothie: Two table spoons of oats blended with ripe bananas and semi skimmed or soya milk (100ml)
Green smoothie: mango slices (40g drained), peach slices (40g drained), frozen spinach (40g) and a banana. Blend with 200ml of water.
Other quick breakfast ideas
Quick omelets: Add chopped lean ham, spinach leaves and a beaten egg to a bowl. Microwave for one minute until the egg is set.
Two-minute porridge: Use a microwave to create porridge quickly. Simply add the oats and semi skimmed milk into a bowl and heat on full power for 2 minutes. Use dried fruit or nuts as a tasty topping.
Banana in bagel: Toast a halved wholemeal bagel with a mashed ripe banana spread between.
The healthy full English
The full English breakfast is not a meal recommended to be enjoyed on a regular basis. But if you do fancy a fry-up on a weekend, there are ways to make it healthier.
Bacon: Try using turkey rashers as a lower fat replacement for bacon. Bacon is high in fat and cholesterol but if you can’t live without it, simply cut of the fat and grill rather than fry it.
Eggs: Poaching or scrambling your eggs with semi-skimmed milk are both healthier alternatives to frying. If you can’t resist a fried egg, use rapeseed oil to fry it rather than other oils. Rapeseed oil is lower in fat than sunflower oil and olive oil.
Beans: Choose baked beans that are served in a low salt and low sugar sauce.
Mushrooms and Tomatoes: Grill your tomatoes and mushrooms instead of frying as they
will not lose any taste but you avoid the added fat.
Toast: choose wholegrain bread and toast it rather than fry it. Use low fat spread.
Hash browns: Bake these in the oven rather than opting for a shallow fry.
If you replace the traditional full English breakfast with these healthier methods, you can eat nearly half the calories in a sitting.
Typical calorie count of a full English breakfast: 585cal
Total calories of a healthier full English: 318cal
Follow this link for Healthier meal ideas.