You know that you need to eat better and that includes having a healthy breakfast. You know the studies that have shown over and over that a healthy breakfast can help you lose weight and that you will be healthier overall. Even if you eat a heavier, carb laden breakfast early in the morning, you will eat less over the course of the day. So, what is a healthy breakfast then? How do you choose the right foods that help fuel you up and get you ready to face the day?

Think about it: you, in your effort to lose weight are missing meals and using smaller portions of the foods that you are eating. You mistakenly believe that if you stop eating at some arbitrary time during the day, you will manage to lose weight faster. Actually, you are sabotaging your weight loss efforts that way. The body is a remarkable piece of machinery. It runs on the fuel that you give it- the better the fuel, the better the body runs. If you don’t feed your body/machine, though, it stops working correctly. Thinking that starvation is imminent, the body will shut down the metabolism so that every single morsel of food you put in your mouth, regardless of what it is, will be held onto and stored as fat. Your body is not burning food for energy and you gain weight.

Now, think about the time that you choose to stop eating all foods. Whether it is four p.m. or eight p.m. or even ten p.m., you are likely going hours without any food in your system. If you are skipping breakfast, you are likely to try to coast into the lunch hour without any fuel in your system. What is a healthy breakfast? Regardless of what you are eating, it is your fuel, your energy source.

Here is a typical day without eating breakfast at all: you wake, moan and groan and hit the snooze button. You grumble, drag your way to the shower and then dress. You get into your car and head to work, foggy thoughts keeping you distracted. You think about grabbing something from a fast food drive thru but remembering your weight loss goals, deny yourself. Turns out, that might have been a better idea for you. You choose not to so you get to the office and sit at your desk, staring at the vending machine. Two hours into your work day, you are there, mindlessly punching buttons. Feeling a little better, you head back to work but by lunchtime you are starving again. You choose horrible foods, in large amounts. What is a healthy breakfast? It may well be your key to staying on track for the entire day.

What is a healthy breakfast? You choose the foods you eat. Mix it up if you want. Make sure that you have food in your system before you head out the door and you will feel better, you will make better choices and you will be lighter for it in the long run.