Getting a head start on the day should be a priority for all of us. Regardless of how badly we slept the night before or what’s planned for the day ahead, we should always strive to start the day off right. That being said, what we eat for breakfast could really make or break the day so it’s important to choose a meal or just a single food that’s going to a positive effect.
One important part of choosing a great meal to start off the day is making sure it fits with our diets. If you’re on a specialised diet that says no dairy, no carbs or simply no breakfast at all in the morning it can be hard to find the motivation to choose a food or drink that will help you start the day off right.
In this article, we’ll take a look at seven of the best foods to eat that will kickstart your day without making you feel bloated, too empty or lacking in energy. Take a look below.
Eggs
There’s a good reason behind eggs being just about everyone’s go-to breakfast food and that’s their ability to keep you full and increase your protein intake right off the bat. If you make eggs the first meal of the day you’ll see a myriad of benefits that go beyond just helping you grow muscle. Eggs are high in B vitamins, helping with mood improvement, reducing anxiety and helping provide motivation when we need it most – in the morning.
If you’re someone who finds that you are a little too sluggish or slow to wake up in the morning, then eggs will certainly help you out. Studies have shown us that eggs don’t only help with brain development in children, but they also help to stimulate the brain and improve memory retention in adults. This gives you the vital boost you need to start the day and get going with all of those important activities you have planned.
Lastly, a single egg is just 72 calories, with the majority of these calories coming from protein and fat. This means you’ll have slow releasing energy throughout the morning, rather than a short burst from coffee or sugary cereals.
Fatty Fish
Another great food that should certainly land on your breakfast menu is fatty fish which can include tuna and salmon. These are perfect for kick-starting the day as they’re filled with your essential omega-3s and also plenty of protein. These nutrients will certainly keep your full until lunch, ensuring you’re more productive by staying focused on work and not your next snack.
You’ll also find that fatty fish are packed to the gills, quite literally, with D vitamins that aren’t found in too many other breakfast foods. These D vitamins come in most helpful in the morning as we’re still waking up and need a mood booster. Vitamin D is known to have benefits beyond just bone health and they boast an ability to regulate mood and fight depression which helps us out with those morning blues.
Aside from their omega-3s and D vitamins, salmon and tuna are both fantastic for heart health and reducing your risk of cardiovascular issues.
Watery Fruits
If you don’t already know, one of the things that make waking up each morning the most difficult is dehydration. Far too many of us are going to sleep without being properly hydrated and that means we’re waking up with those god awful dry lips and hangover headache – even if we haven’t had any alcoholic drinks. This is where watery fruits come to the rescue. They’re a sweet, vitamin-filled and an easy to eat breakfast food that will pull our hydration levels back up.
Our top picks for breakfast fruits are watermelon, strawberries and grapefruit. All of these fruits are more than 90 per cent water, making them the most effective at filling us up with water in the mornings and getting our brains ready to start the day.
A final point to remember about fruit is that it’s still a healthy carb. That means you’re filling your daily carbohydrate intake with a healthy source and throughout the day your body will be pulling energy from fruits, rather than processed sugars. This gives us sustained energy in the morning that lasts a few hours, rather than a half hour sugar rush followed by a crash.
Powdered Green Tea or Matcha
Here comes the perfect solution to those pesky diets that tell us to skip our breakfasts. Matcha powder is going to give you a great dosage of antioxidants in the morning but also access to the highest caffeine content of all the green teas. The biggest perk of matcha powder comes in the form of extremely slow releasing caffeine and its effect on the body in the morning.
Drinkers of matcha green tea will have a strong, long-lasting caffeine hit that lasts almost the entire workday. After a correctly brewed cup of Kenko Matcha, you’ll be able to expect your caffeinated state to last anywhere from four to six hours. This will certainly give you plenty of help waking up in the morning.
Matcha also comes with a whole suite of vitamins and antioxidants that help add to a well-rounded diet. The powder even contains EGCGs which tell our body to burn fat and speed up its metabolism, so if you’re looking to shed a few extra kilograms this year, a matcha powder beverage in the morning will certainly help you do that.
Oats or Porridge
Beyond porridge’s proven ability to reduce cholesterols levels, it’s also great at providing sustained energy without a crash. As a great source of complex carbs, porridge is going to give your body a hard-to-digest, fibrous meal and that means staying energised and full for a whole lot longer. You might want to avoid flavoured oats though, as you’ll be getting an energy kick from their high sugar content which will have you crashing by the time you get to work.
What’s more, is that oats are extremely calorically dense. From just a single cup of oats, you’ll be consuming over 150 calories made up of protein and carbohydrates. This helps to make oats a balanced food and if you choose to add some berries, you’ll be getting one of the most nutritious and healthy breakfasts possible.
Finally, oats are packed with essential vitamins and minerals, so you’ll be getting plenty of magnesium, manganese, phosphorus and iron too.
Dates
An often forgotten daily kick-starter are dates. As these fruits are often dried or dehydrated they are calorically dense which means they’ll give you plenty of energy for hours on end. You’ll also find that dates are high in fibre so they’ll definitely keep you from unwanted or distraction snacking throughout the day.
Considering that dates aren’t a common breakfast snack, you might want to consider adding them to a morning smoothie or adding them to a bowl of cereal. They’ll give you a pleasant, rich fruity taste and also help out with upset or sore morning tummies by drawing more water into the digestive tract.
The nutrients found in dates are where some other major perks start to appear. After eating just one hundred grams of dates, you’ll be giving your body massive amounts of fibre, protein, healthy carbs along with 20 per cent of your daily potassium. You’ll also find more than 10 per cent of your magnesium, copper, manganese and vitamin B6 in one hundred grams of dates which essentially makes them a great tasting multi-vitamin breakfast snack.
Unsweetened Greek Yogurt
Last but certainly not least on our list is sugar-free Greek yoghurt. Unlike flavoured and heavily sugared yoghurts, you can rest assured that your Greek yoghurt is unsweetened, filled with protein and will work as a great base for some of our other foods listed above!
One of our favourite things about Greek yoghurt, beyond its ability to taste great with anything, is the fact that its fibre and protein levels are so high. Most people who regularly eat Greek yoghurt for breakfast aren’t peckish at all until lunchtime. That said, if you’re looking to lose some extra weight, certainly add a Greek yoghurt-filled breakfast to your diet.
A number of studies have also shown us that Greek yoghurt has the ability to lower blood sugar, cholesterol and even reduce blood pressure. This, of course, will have a dramatic effect on how well you feel each and every day.
