Photo Credit: Natalie Dee
Apparently September was Better Breakfast Month. Who knew? Just so you don’t get caught off guard, November is listed as the month for Pancreatic Cancer Awareness, National Novel Writing, Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness and National Homeless Youth. If you can write a novel about a homeless youth suffering from pancreatic cancer which gets misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s (wacky hijinks ensue!) then you’ll have all your bases covered. See, I’m good for something!
Anyhow, not being idiots nor living under a rock, you all know by now that eating a hearty breakfast is one of the biggest health tips out there. However, new research offers some ways to tweak the meal to make it even better.
First surprise of the day comes to us via a Venezuelan study: Eat More! Dieters in this study ate half of their 1200 daily alotted calories for breakfast. The result was more weight lost and more weight kept off and less hunger than dieters who ate a smaller breakfast and less overall calories. Their 600-cal breakfast contained, “a cup of milk, turkey, cheese, two slices of bread, mayonnaise, 1 ounce of chocolate candy, and a protein shake.” Being American, this doesn’t sound like “breakfast” to me but when I was in Europe, this was pretty much what everyone ate for breakfast. Minus the protein shake. (We will, for the moment, ignore the fact that 1200 calories is a ridiculously low allotment and my heart really goes out to that second group who got even less. Man, dieting sucks.)
Second surprise tip comes from the same study: Eat More Carbs! The dieters that ate the bigger breakfast ate more total protein and carbs than the lower-cal group but they also ate a higher percentage of carbs as the control group was on a “traditional low-carb diet.”
The second study from Purdue, with an inexplicably tiny sampling of nine overweight men, highlights the importance of adding the extra calories to the first meal of the day. When the men added more calories through protein to their breakfast, as opposed to breakfast or lunch, they felt fuller longer and had an easier time sticking to their diet the rest of the day.
All of which is not to say that the nutrition myth “don’t eat after 5 p.m.” or any of the other silly variations on that theme are true. A calorie is still a calorie and your body will process it the same whether at 3 pm or 3 am. The difference, I think, comes in setting the metabolic mood for the day. (Um, yeah, I just realized how weird the phrase ‘metabolic mood’ sounds.)
In my own life, I have found this to be true. When I eat my typical breakfast of lumberjack proportions, I seem to have fewer sugar cravings and less problems with the munchies at night. The problem for me, however, is thinking that far in advance. I sometimes still fall into the mindset of “saving” my calories for later, especially if I am going to a dinner or party later on. Inevitably this backfires as by the time I get to the party I’m starving from eating lightly all day and then I go crazy with the cheez-whiz (apparently I attend very low-brow parties).
My philosophy fall in line with the “eat like a king for breakfast, a servant for lunch and a pauper for dinner.” This is important to me for my kids as well. I always make them a home-cooked breakfast and it is often our largest meal of the day. I guess we’ll see when they get older and the therapy bills start rolling in if this works for them or not.
Things also don’t go well for me if I try and restrict carbs at breakfast time (love it when research backs up what I’m already doing!). I think that was one of the biggest problems I had on the primal diet. I just need my carbs in the a.m.
Behold my breakfast today:
1 cup cooked steel cut oats (1/4 cup dry)
1 egg with 2 whites (go freaky chicken!)
1 cup blackberries (Picked ripe in Seattle and frozen – do you know blackberries just grow wild there? Like you don’t have to pay for them or anything! Sure you run the risk of a dog peeing on your fave bush or growing a third head from eating the ones too close to the railway lines but hey, that’s why we wash our produce right?)
2 apples (Don’t judge me, it’s apple season here and if you have never had a fresh Minnesotan honeycrisp then you don’t know heaven. I can put down a 5-lb box in a single day and I make no apologies for that. We have freakin’ cold winters here people, they owe me with the apples!)
1/4 c walnut halves (Yeah I’m too lazy to chop them)
By my estimation that’s about 580 calories. And I loved every bite of it. (For the love of little green apples, did I really just write one of those this-is-what-I-eat posts?!?)
So, what did you have for breakfast this morning? What’s your philosophy about the a.m. meal?
I tend to just have a very large bowl of Honeynut Cheerios for breakfast. Then, for lunch I have 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and if I have it on hand, 2-3 pieces of turkey bacon. I find that this keeps me going through the long lunch till dinner hour with less snacking. However, snacking for me is a problem after dinner. What to do?
I just have a quick request – more personal essays please! I look forward to reading those every time I visit your site.
I am so on board with this & you! I try to eat more earlier & even though I am a mini meal person, my carbs get less as the day goes on & so for the amount of mini meal food.
Since I work out at crazy hours, I actually have two breakfasts at different times. One right after the workout & another when I get up again after a couple more hours of sleep. Put the two together & I have a pretty decent breakfast consisting of healthy carbs, protein & fat but more carbs then I would include in a late in the day mini meal… or I try to make it work out that way. Sometimes the hormone & monthly sidelines that ! 🙂
As for that 1200 calorie per day, I work out hard to avoid that & hope with aging, I don't have to go there if I can keep being active like I am now.
As for those honeycrisp apples, they are so expensive here when I do see them but I buy one here & there because they are so good!
Interesting stuff. I try to limit my calories in the morning and afternoon because late afternoon and evening are when my cravings are the strongest. Maybe if i did this they wouldn't be. But I am afraid of losing that "wiggle room" of extra calories that I save for my evening crave attacks.
I try to eat 5-6 meals a day, the first 2 being the largest. My husband doesn't like to eat breakfast, so I'll make something tasty he can't resist (chopped fruit with vanilla yogurt), and 3 hours later I eat breakfast round 2.
You had me at carbs!
Never an early morning eater, I try to make sure I at least get some protein before 10:00 a.m. Soy yogurt, an egg (preferably boiled or basted)OR a Kashi bar. That's usually followed up with granola, Kashi cereal and/or fruit a couple of hours later.
Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day to eat…but I always bring a tupperware of plain yogurt, with berries and flaxseeds (or walnuts). It makes my early morning classes easier when I have something to eat during it, since I usually don't have time before class. I should also probably eat more regularly, but it's so easy to be busy running around, and forget that you haven't eaten since noon, even though it's 8pm….I need to start packing snacks again.
Also, I do think I should perhaps eat before going to the gym in the morning, but I feel (probably mistakenly) that it's easier to run or swim with nothing in my stomach….
That sounds like an awesome breakfast. I am loving fresh fig season and have been throwing those in my oatmeal.
hey charlotte! I had weetabix!
is cheese whiz a real thing????!!!
love lizzie xxx
Im so like you are with the big breakfasts.
this morning I ate about what you did (ok minus the apples. we still on grapes here in TX :)) and yet, since I didnt sleep well last night (thank you child) am fighting adding CORN to the list.
colorful corn.
of the CANDY VARIETY.
I used to eat very, very little for breakfast, lunch, and throughout the day. I'd say I consumed probably 50-75% of my calories/fat at dinner and after! Craziness, now that I look back on it. I was always SCARED to have a big breakfast, but now I embrace it! I have pretty much the same thing every morning – a bowl of warm oats with a banana and PB. I feel more satisfied and honestly, I now eat a small dinner and am usually okay with just one snack after dinner.
I tend to eat a carb-heavy breakfast (oatmeal and nuts, usually), but not one that covers half my daily caloric intake!
In my personal experience, there's a fine line between eating a good breakfast that will keep me full, and just eating an excessively huge breakfast. I think we all have to find what works best for us and go from there!
Can I come to your house for breakfast? I still haven't gotten into a good routine when it comes to making the choice between blogging or getting ready for work…. blogging won yesterday, so I missed out on breakfast altogether.
Sigh.
My parents have blackberries growing wild on their property, so I grew up with the blackberries coming for free; when I first saw them in a grocery store, it seemed strange.
I don't like big breakfast (unless it's the weekend and I've been up for a while by the time I get around to eating). I'm just not hungry first thing in the morning – I actually had to train myself to eat any breakfast at all. This morning I had about 1 cup of Nature's Path Optimum Slim with a sliced peach and unsweetend vanilla almond breeze. That'll keep me going til lunch just fine.
My typical breakfast includes some combo of whole grains, dairy and fruit. In the summer, it's plain, low-fat yogurt with Kashi GoLean and seasonal fruit (berries or peaches). In cold weather, it's hot cereal (I've just discovered Bob's Red Mill Organic High Fiber Cereal), 1% milk, and an apple, sweetened with cinnamon, clove, allspice, and maple syrup.
And to wash it all down? Decaf coffee with half-and-half.
I've recently been diagnosed with endometriosis, and my research of dietary management options suggests going both gluten-free and dairy-free. I don't know what that will mean for my breakfasts.
When I was little, I didn't like breakfast foods. I always ate breakfast, but it was either spaghetti-Os, Lipton Cup-o-Soup, or baked beans (elementary school) or Mueseli (high school).
A couple years ago, I switched from cheerios to protein shakes (three kinds of fruit, water and protein powder) and loved it. Until I started (recently) being starving about an hour after breakfast. So I've been eating oatmeal with fruit and nuts baked in and a cup of greek yogurt on the side (about 450 calories).
Definitely not my biggest meal of the day (doc says my minimum for breathing with my activity level is 1700 a day, with a target of about 2500). I went to see a nutritionist and she told me that likely the reason I was feeling so hungry all the time was that my proportion of carbs to protein was off. Regardless that I was eating whole grain carbs, the proportion was too high and I needed to add more protein into my diet. So I'm looking for creative (and easy and fast) ways to change up my breakfast. Because I know for certain that I'm not cooking eggs every morning (it's damn hard to clean that pan and I only do dishes once or twice a week). Maybe I'll cook eggs in one big batch and eat leftovers…does that work? Or are eggs like pork and best eaten fresh?
I have found in the past that I was trying to save my carb calories for later, but adding just a slice of whole wheat bread to my breakfast made a big difference in my eating throughout the day… Lately it's been a lot of scrambled eggs with mozzarella and cottage cheese with mandarin oranges. So a lot of protein… but I do find that the eggs make me feel sickly full for a few hours, which keeps me from snacking before 10.
I am the total contrarian 🙂 I don't know if it's just an adaption or an advantage? I'll let you know in 20 years 🙂
FTI: I passed on your message, and Calorielab is rolling again 🙂
I usually have some kind of oatmeal concoction or something featuring eggs for breakfast. Years ago, I used to skip breakfast and have very large lunches and dinners (and lots of snacking in between that led to me being 264lbs by the time I was 20 years old). Now breakfast and lunch are my biggest meals and dinner is usually pretty light.
My typical breakfast tends to vary between two set plans and my mood. On one, I have 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with a tablespoon of peanut butter, a hard boiled egg, and water or V8 Splash juice. Another, I'll have a 4 or 5 egg omelet with smoked ham and swiss cheese in the middle, a piece of dry whole wheat toast and either water or V8 to drink.
I am definitely a big breakfast eater. I usually get around 400 calories for breakfast. My 2 favorites are 2% greek yogurt with thawed (previously frozen) berries and a little honey topped with granola, ground flax, and fresh strawberries; and oatmeal made with skim milk and mixed with almond butter and some heated up frozen berries. It keeps me so full and happy and definitely in control of my eating.
I'm another 2 breakfast person-especially today. (who booked that 8 am dentist appointment, then let me sleep in?? -looks in mirror- oh nevermind).
I always eat a carb-heavy breakfast 2 hours before hitting the gym. This is steel-cut oatmeal, berries, some soy milk.. and eggwhite in the oatmeal. YUMMITY.
Today I quickly grabbed 2 hard-boiled eggs as I was feeding the dogs, shoving them out to pee, and rushing to the dentists. NOW I get my oatmeal.
I usually don't eat breakfast. Ever. GASP! But after consuming a sleeve of thin mints between 9pm and 4am (I was exhausted and went to bed early at 9:30, but was wide awake from 1-4am), I had 1 cup of dry Cheerios chased with an 8-oz can of Red Bull. Now if that's not the diet of a champion, I don't know what is.
Truth be told, I've been really good the last few weeks about trying to exercise again, and some portion control. I hadn't had chocolate in almost two weeks; I was due. Too bad I went overboard. I guess it's better that I ate the Girl Scout Thin Mints rather than a box of Samoas or something else. Oh well. Back on the wagon today.
Oh, and on the subject of yogurt, I just can't eat it. I'll take it in a smoothie, but I can't just lick it off a spoon. I love food too much to, in my opinion, waste a meal try to survive on a tiny plastic container of slightly-turning dairy. I don't care how much fruit you put in it; will not happen.
-Joshua
The Technical Parent
Between waking and lunch, I usually eat about 200-250 calories in the form of either greek yogurt/protien bar/oatmeal and a piece of fruit. I don't find eat more at breakfast beyond what I do makes me eat any less throughout the day because the fiance and I eat together, and it takes significant restraint to eat any less than usual even if I stuff myself in the morning. I cannot see on a 1200 calorie diet even attempting to eat that big of a meal – I would get so angsty by the end of the day…
I just discussed this in 3 meetings with parents, teachers & students! It makes a HUGE difference. My usual is an apple & peanut butter, or fruit & yogurt with almonds and flax & chia seeds. When I add a piece of whole grain toast or a wasa crispbread it changes my WHOLE DAY. I would never have believed it until I tried it. Calorically, it's less that 100 calories different, but I don't have the afternoon crash that I thought was normal.
Usually it's oatmeal and blueberries or toast with tahini and a banana or a giant smoothie. Up until recently I didn't eat breakfast (precious sleep time gone to waste!!) but I'm finding it keeps me more alert and helps keep my appetite in check. I have trouble with the small supper thing…it's the one meal a day I have time to cook what I like, so it's usually gooooooood.
This morning I had steelcut oats mixed w/ egg whites, coconut butter, cinnamon, skim milk and some shredded coconut.
Normally I try to get in some sort of good carb and a healthy dose of protein. Hmmm, I never usually eat more then 300 calories at breakfast and now I am curious to see how my eating day would go if I bumped it up to 500 or so …
A turkey sandwich on light WW bread is prob my favorite breakfast. I'm a student who is blissfully allowed to sleep in somewhat so my breakie only needs to hold me over for about 3-4 hours, so I usually only go for something in the 200-250 calorie range. I try to have at least 15 g of protein from that with 4 g fiber. Another combo that I think is absolutely perfect to get in protein/fiber/vitamins/blah is to mash up some sweet potato and add cinnamon and vanilla protein powder. that is a power breakfast.
I guess I'm the odd one: If I eat a "normal, balanced" breakfast (even 500 cals' worth) I'm starved an hour later. Bizarre. So I have two smoothies totalling about 450 cals (one with greens and a little protein, and the other prot/fruit/PB)…spaced throughout the AM, that allows me to be full in the AM, and have as late a lunch as I want. If I have an early lunch, I really only need one of the shakes.
Trust me, I've tried to be normal, but it's not in the cards for me!
I eat more and more for breakfast as I become more fit and stronger. I love the phrase "metabolic mood." I'm going to start using it instead of saying that I'm hungry. "My metabolic mood is low."