Care to join me for breakfast?

January 31, 2011 kevin Men's Health, Nutrition, Weightloss

Breaking news in today’s New York Times: If you eat a huge breakfast, you grow huge yourself. All the news that’s fit to print? Hardly. C’mon fellas, you can do better than that.

But still, breakfast is an important meal, and we should all be paying more attention to it. Simply eating breakfast regularly cuts your risk of obesity by 78 percent! A Purdue University study showed the eating more protein at breakfast helps people avoid overeating for the rest of the day. Another study in the International Journal of Obesity showed that eating two eggs instead of a bagel every morning allowed dieters to lose 65 percent more weight over 8 weeks.

So let’s get a healthy start in the morning, rather than the crazy one the NYT is spilling ink over.

I’m not going to make this too complicated, because who has much time first thing in the morning?Instead, let me give you some great quick-and-easy options, and you can choose among them. The key thing: Promise me you’ll eat breakfast, or you’ll spend the entire day filling that emptiness in your belly with foods you should be avoiding. Fill that void early, and for a long time, by eating protein, fiber, and fat within an hour of your wake-up time. To add a touch of sweetness, choose whole fruits or berries instead of fruit juice; you’ll cut calories and add fiber. Suddenly, the wait for lunch got a lot shorter.

THE LEAN BELLY PRESCRIPTION WAKE-UP ALL-STARS

2 eggs, 2 strips of bacon,

1 slice of whole-wheat toast

__________

Fruit smoothie (1/2 cup

blueberries, 1/2 banana,

2 tablespoons peanut butter,

2 tablespoons whey powder,

1 cup milk, and 1 cup water,

blended until smooth)

__________

Whole-wheat English muffin,

toasted, with almond butter,

plus a piece of fruit

__________

Any whole-grain cereal with more

fiber than sugar (check the label;

Kashi GoLean and Post Grape Nuts

qualify), milk, and berries

__________

Cooked steel cut oats, milk, raisins,

slivered almonds, and cinnamon

__________

Cooked quinoa, milk, a pat

of butter, blueberries or

raspberries, and toasted walnuts

__________

A fried egg on a toasted English

muffin, with a slice of Canadian

bacon and a slice of Swiss cheese

__________

Omelet (or scrambled eggs)

with ham, onions, mushrooms,

and spinach, with a slice of

cantaloupe on the side

There’s more where this came from, in fact. Much more. Click here for suggestions to see you through delicious days of losing weight, feeling better, living (and loving) longer.