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If you want to lose weight, or you just want to get healthy, then you should re-think breakfast.  So many of my clients tell me that they don’t like breakfast or just don’t have time for it and this may be your story as well and just like I tell them I’m going to tell you; even if you are exercising every day, you could be sabotaging your plans by skipping breakfast! And, if you do eat breakfast every day, you may be choosing the wrong foods. Here are 5 healthy breakfast tips to make that first meal of the day a healthy one.

1) The most important thing I can tell you is to try to Never Skip Breakfast: This is number one on the list of healthy breakfast tips for a very good reason! You may think you’re shaving calories off your day by missing breakfast, but it just leaves you more likely to snack on unhealthy foods throughout the morning. Above this, breakfast kick-starts your metabolism, making your body work harder to burn off calories from the meals you eat through the rest of the day.  It is called breakfast for a reason and the word is derived from two words put together Break and Fast.  It literally means to break the fast from the time you eat dinner until the next morning.  You should try to eat at least an hour or two after rising in the morning.

2) Avoid Sugar: Many people wrongly assume that all breakfast cereals are healthy and reach for them on a daily basis as the way to start their day. This is far from the truth: many of them are overloaded with sugar and have empty calories. This can lead to weight gain and energy spikes that will leave you feeling sleepy by lunch time.

3) Don’t Drink Too Much Juice: Although fruit juice is good for you, this doesn’t mean that it’s free from calories. The sugar in fruit juice can cause an energy spike, so stick to a small glass if you must have it dilute it with water.  Eating the fruit is far better to drinking the juice as the whole fruit has fiber and is digested slower, thus giving you less of an insulin rush.  My advice is to drink a glass of warm water with fresh lemon squeezed in it.  This has two benefits 1) it helps to flush your liver and 2) it will help make you feel fuller.

4) Consider breakfast as premium fuel for your body: Think of breakfast as a kick-start for your day, and start with healthy foods that’ll give your body the energy you need. This means avoiding fast food and fried breakfasts that’ll leave you feeling sluggish at work.

5) Include A Few Super foods: Super foods are ingredients known to greatly decrease your risk of developing a range of diseases. Thankfully, many of these are perfect for breakfast. Here are a few top ingredients to get you going: oats, green tea, yogurt (Greek), berries, nuts and seeds. Even if you only have a handful of these ingredients, it’s a good way to make sure you get something healthy into every day.

If all these healthy breakfast tips seem a little complicated for you when you frequently find yourself rushing around in the mornings, remember to plan ahead. The fastest and the healthiest breakfast solution I tell my clients is to make a smoothie that isn’t loaded with calories and one that has some protein and add some of the super foods mentioned above.  I love to through in some chi seeds or some flax-seeds.

My go to breakfast smoothie:

1 cup alkaline water
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk or coconut milk
1 handful frozen organic strawberries
1/3 cup organic frozen blueberries
1 scoop complete shake mix
2 TBSP organic flax seed
1 handful kale (if you have hypothyroidism you need to cook your kale first) or just omit it
Blend  and enjoy Michele Broad NP-C