Kick Start your Weight Loss with 10 Breakfast Tips and avoid Hunger, Impatience and Boredom!

1. Spice up your breakfast. Hopefully, most mornings you’re having a cooked breakfast with some protein and cup or two of chopped-up non-starchy veggies. (Don’t have time to chop up in the morning? Pre-prepare them at night.)
2. Have you tried adding some spices? One favourite is Tumuric powder. Some add a little chilli. These spices can certainly increase satiety – helping you feel fuller for longer.
3. Another flavour enhancer is fat! Try cooking your breakfast protein with some butter or coconut oil. Again this adds to satiety. Now there’s two reasons people are scared of cooking with fat – calories and cholesterol. But, there’s growing debate on both sides.
4. Although fat has more calories per gram, the statement that weight loss is all about “calories in versus calories out” is a gross simplification. We prefer to say it is all about how YOUR body uses calories or stores calories. This is probably different for each person. There’s also growing debate that fat (in the absence of carbohydrate or sugar) does not stimulate fat storage.
5. There’s also growing debate about saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet versus cholesterol in your blood. Most people don’t realise that cholesterol is vital to human health and especially for hormonal health. Your liver makes most of the cholesterol in your body, especially if you don’t eat much. Make sure your watch the two part series on this debate on ABC Catalyst show on Thursday 24th and 31st October.
6. Spice up your breakfast with variety – not too much and not too little. For some, eating the same breakfast every day works for them. But many others get bored and want at least 4 different breakfasts. Think about at least 4 hot breakfasts and one or two cold breakfasts. Each hot breakfast could be based upon meat (beef, lamb, pork, chicken, haloumi cheese or fish) stir fry, or eggs. Your cold breakfast might use a high-speed mixer with green veggies, seeds, nuts, protein powder, ice and water.
7. Be warned that too much variety can stimulate your appetite. Have you ever gone out for a large smorgasbord or buffet breakfast? The sad truth is that the greater the variety, the more people (and that means you and me) eat.
8. Experiment with some herbal and green teas at breakfast. You can have them hot, or make them and chill them over ice.
9. Experiment with friends and family. Agree to do a breakfast swap. One day they’ll come over to your place for breakfast but arrive early enough to help you make it. The next week you go to their place. Make sure that you only use the main ingredients that are allowable on your eating plan. Even better – meet for a walk first and then start the cooking.
10. Let’s finish with “Impatience”. This is when we don’t leave enough time to eat slowly and savour our food and enjoy the company – or even the peaceful solitude. There’s a biological reason for eating slowly. It takes at least 20 minutes for food to start being processed through your gut, into your blood stream and elevating your feeling-good/feeling-satiated hormones and receptors. If you rush you food you’ll be much more likely to over-eat. Also… for most of us we have to endure some stress during the day – even rushing for that bus or dealing with kids and traffic. And so, it makes sense to start the day as calmly as you can.

Bonus tip: Eat breakfast and all meals with a fork and not your fingers. This will keep your intake of starchy carbohydrate down and help you eat at a slower pace.

P.S. Don’t forget to watch the ABC Catalyst show to hear the debate. Let us know your thoughts.