The Breakfast Of Champions
 

THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Nutrition News
December 2002
By: Alycia Winn, RD

Fast food has taken over meal preparation for many of us. Luckily our several of our fast food chains have adapted by making heart healthy options to choose from, or are we so lucky? Guess again! The average Dunkin donuts bagel with light cream cheese has 530 calories and 18 grams of fat; the reduced-fat blueberry muffin contains 450 calories and 13 grams of fat (4 less than the regular) 8 grams (2 more than the regular) of which are artery clogging saturated. Both of these options have more calorie and fat than the 2 donuts that you try to refrain from eating: Just a little food for thought.
It has been said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. There have been many studies that confirm this statement and a few that haven’t found a significant difference in mental or physical functioning. Breakfast is exactly what the name implies, it is intended to break the fast. Your body has not had any fuel since dinner the night before, this is often 12 hours or more. Now ask yourself would you not eat for that long while you were awake? The fact of the matter is that breakfast is a meal that can be jam packed with vitamins, minerals and fiber. This makes what people eat for breakfast a very important issue.

People find that a good whole-grain breakfast cereal gives the most "bang for your buck" as far as breakfast is concerned. It’s a complete breakfast all that you have to do is add milk and maybe a bit of fruit to give a burst of nutrition with protein, carbohydrate and fiber to get you through the morning.

Who says you have to have toast or cereal for breakfast? Why don’t you heat up some leftovers as your morning meal? Pizza, casseroles, pasta with sauce, sandwiches or soups and stews. No preparation involved for this, just pop it in the microwave and you are good to go. Not only is this a quick idea but, it keeps you from wasting food you might usually throw out.

Adding a healthy breakfast to ones daily menu can help with weight control by causing you not to over-eat at lunch or make unhealthy choices that contribute to health problems such as obesity, heart disease or high cholesterol. However, you will most likely not find this breakfast through a drive-thru window, you find it in your own house.

Will eating breakfast help you to lose weight? Not necessarily, that depends on the person, what and how much you are eating and how active you are. Studies have shown that people who started eating breakfast that would usually skip it found they made more healthy choices for the rest of the day and ate smaller amounts than before.

Having time for breakfast seems to be the biggest obstacle, so listed below are some quick breakfast ideas that you are sure to love!

Grab-n-go breakfast

Cold whole grain cereal with skim or 1% milk
Add fresh fruit or cereal (like raisin bran or low-fat granola) to plain low fat or no fat yogurt
½ cup of low-fat cottage cheese in a cantaloupe or a honeydew melon or with any fresh fruit
Spread 1 Tbs of peanut butter on to whole-wheat bread and wrap it around a banana
Try a breakfast burrito with egg whites or egg beaters in a whole wheat tortilla and salsa
Try a smoothie, blend ½ cup of plain low fat yogurt, orange juice with ½ of a frozen banana and a few frozen strawberries
Spread 2 tbs of hummus on a whole wheat pita pocket