What to eat for breakfast to prevent cravings and lose weight

The definition of breakfast is A meal eaten in the morning, the first of the day.

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day.

The best breakfast time is right when you get out of bed.

And in many countries, you’ve got a wide variety of options for what to eat for breakfast.

Some are healthy; some are not.

To help you get started, here’s a book you can buy with easy breakfast ideas for busy mornings.

In this blog post, I’ll show you why you should eat breakfast, which healthy choices you have, and how it will prevent you from having cravings later in the morning and why it’s a tremendous weight loss technique.

There’s more to it than just the calories.

1. Should I eat breakfast?

The short answer is YES. However, consuming breakfast doesn’t directly let you lose weight.

A study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared three groups to each other. One group was told to eat breakfast before 10 AM, one group was told not to eat before 11 AM, and one group was the control.

They found that there was no specific weight loss in the breakfast group compared to the other groups. They didn’t say what to eat for breakfast to lose weight. That means that they might not eat a healthy breakfast and they eat breakfast that increased their cravings during the day.

Also just looking at weight loss by consuming breakfast is not enough.

Eating breakfast does have more benefits than just losing weight.

In another study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they also compared two groups where one group did eat breakfast, and the other group didn’t.

They found that in the group that did eat breakfast the activity level in the morning increased. That means that people that eat breakfast are more active in the morning. Also, the participants that ate breakfast didn’t consume more calories during the entire day than the group that didn’t eat breakfast.

Another study conducted among students found that student that eat breakfast where more alert and happier than the ones that didn’t eat breakfast.

It shows that there are more reasons to eat breakfast than just losing weight.

If you take the opportunity you breakfast gives you and are more active in the morning you can lose weight by eating breakfast.

It could also make you happier. That’s always good!

But what and how much should you eat for breakfast?

That’s what I’ll show you now as well.

To help you get started with breakfast, I selected a great book you can buy here with 75 easy and healthy breakfast recipes. That way, eating breakfast will be healthy and easy.

And after breakfast, you’ll have to eat regularly to prevent cravings. I’ll show you how this works now.

2. How many calories should I eat for breakfast

A study in 2013 shows that consuming a big breakfast (700 calories) was more effective on losing weight, blood pressure, insulin resistance, and cholesterol levels than consuming a smaller breakfast but a bigger dinner.

In this study, the participants were also at a calorie deficit of about 500 calories, which is something to take into account. If you want to lose weight, you should also consume fewer calories than you use.

However, the 1400 calories in this study is a bit too radical in my opinion and are probably not sustainable. In this study, that means that breakfast consisted of 50% of their daily calorie intake.

A typical eating pattern will consist of about 1600-1800 calories for the woman daily if you want to lose weight. That does, however, depend on your height, weight, and activity level.  Therefore I think that consuming 700 calories for breakfast is fine in a healthy eating pattern.

It’s not only important how many calories to eat, but also the distribution of these calories.

The most used and arguably, the best distribution is a Mediterranean style distribution.

This means:

• 55% of carbohydrates
• 30% fat
• 15% protein
• > 30 gram of fiber

That’s based on an entire day. For breakfast, studies show that a high protein breakfast reduces evening cravings and improved satiety.

In this study, the breakfast consisted of 40% protein on 350 total calories for the entire breakfast. The rest of the breakfast consisted of carbohydrates (40% and fat (20%) and 6.1 gram of fiber.

If we break this down in grams for our 700 calorie breakfast it will come down to this:

• 70 gram of carbohydrates
• 70 gram of protein
• 16 gram of fat

It looks like a lot of carbohydrates but doesn’t forget that not all carbs are bad for you.

Only sugar is, but not all carbohydrates are sugar.

Fiber is also known to reduce satiety and cravings.

But there is more to it than just the right macronutrients to reduce cravings.

There is also a lot of psychology involved.

For example:

My wife eats a low calorie, carbohydrate-rich breakfast.

But doesn’t feel cravings 2 hours later.

That’s because she doesn’t expect to eat anytime soon.

Cravings and feelings of hunger also have a lot to do with expectations and learned behavior.

I do not eat a high-protein breakfast myself.

I show you later what I eat for breakfast.

But if you need a little more help, in the beginning, to reduce cravings consuming a high-protein breakfast is your best option. Also, you should avoid sugar.

Now you know how many calories you need for breakfast and how to distribute these calories, it’s time to show you a few healthy breakfast options that you can choose.

Read more: Why we need carbs, protein, and fat for a healthy lifestyle

3. What to eat for breakfast and what not to eat

There are many breakfast options available around the world. Some are good; some are not.

Now I’ll show you how you can use the previously gained knowledge to prepare a healthy breakfast.

Not everybody likes all the options, but that’s not a problem. Pick the one that you feel most comfortable. It’s no problem eating the same breakfast every day.

I do that myself both with breakfast and lunch.

So let’s start with the exact breakfast I eat every day.

Brown bread breakfast

Your first option is brown bread breakfast. Brown or whole wheat bread is a healthy option with all the right nutrients.

It’s my breakfast of choice.

Below you can see the exact breakfast I eat every day:

I’ve calculated the number of calories, sugar, protein and fat through a google search. When I put this breakfast into myfitnesspall, it say is contains 685 calories. Also, the amount of carbs and protein differ. That shows that counting calories is not an exact sience. You should use it as an indication and not as exact numbers that determine your succes.

As you can see, it’s not the high protein breakfast that should reduce cravings.

If you want to eat a high protein breakfast, you can change the chocolate sprinkles with a slice of ham, an egg of an omelet.

Then It would look like this:

As you can see this adjustment reduces the number of sugars and increases the amount of protein, but it still doesn’t get you anything near the 70 grams of protein you should eat for a protein-rich breakfast.

If you want to achieve this, you should go for a yogurt-based breakfast.

Yogurt for breakfast

Yogurt is a dairy product, so for people that are lactose intolerant, this is not an option. For all that are not lactose intolerant, It’s probably the best option for a protein-rich breakfast.

It’s perfect for people that have a hard time eating in the morning.

I would recommend low-fat yogurt because it consists of less fat and more protein. Especially the low-fat Greek Yogurt.

But be careful:

Read the label for the amount of added sugar.

Many low-fat yogurts are sweetened to compensate for the lost taste caused by removing the fat.

It’s better to add some fruit of a teaspoon of sugar yourself. It lets you control the amount of sugar in your breakfast.

Also, adding a banana or some berry’s are an excellent way to sweeten your yogurt.

Fruits also contain a lot of fibers, which is the only healthy thing yogurt misses. You can also add Granola to your yogurt to make it an even better breakfast choice.

Also, with picking the right granola package, it’s essential to read the nutrition facts on the box. Many contain too many sugars because they are artificially sweetened. Usually, the more expensive ones are healthier ones.

This yogurt for breakfast is a healthy option:

As you can see, a yogurt-based breakfast contains fewer calories. That is why it’s a relative protein-rich breakfast. It includes a relatively large amount of protein.

Also, your body processes the sugars from the banana differently than the refined sugars in many other products.

Another breakfast that is good for people that have difficulty to eat in the morning is breakfast oatmeal.

Breakfast oatmeal

Oatmeal is another popular breakfast option.

Oatmeal is low in calories and added sugars but rich in fibers and protein.

It’s the perfect 300 calorie breakfast.

You can even add additional ingredients to increase its nutritious value.

It will prevent you from getting hungry quickly after your breakfast and reduce your daily calorie intake. It’s a much better option than eating cereal for breakfast because cereal contains twice as much calories and sugar.

If you persist, however on eating cereal, maybe because you like it so much, then Barbara’s Bakery Organic Honest O’s Cereal is your best option.

That’s why oatmeal is a much better option. But you have to pick the right one because they’re not all good.

This oatmeal breakfast is a healthy option for you and a great start of the day:

It’s easy to prepare a meal and also easy to eat for people who struggle with eating in the morning.

As you can see, this breakfast is high in fibers and low on fat and calories.

It’s perfect for busy people who still want to live a healthy life.

Read more: How many calories do I need to lose weight | calorie deficit

Now I want to hear from you

Did I convince you to start eating breakfast and lose weight?

And which breakfast do you like the most?

Leave a command below to help others who struggle with eating breakfast or share healthy recipes to help others.

Let’s make the world healthy again!