Delicious Healthy Breakfast Foods for Weight Loss

Mix up your morning meal and try these 5 healthy breakfast foods that help you lose weight.

Eating breakfast is a healthy habit, especially if you’re watching your weight. Regular breakfast eaters tend to be leaner and people are more successful at losing weight—and keeping it off—when they eat breakfast. What’s more, people who eat breakfast typically get more of some important nutrients, like fibre and vitamins.

A healthy breakfast should be balanced and deliver a mix of protein, complex carbohydrates, fibre and healthy fat to keep you full and fuelled up for your day. Read on to find out some of the best foods to eat for breakfast to help you lose weight and why they are so good for you.

1. Raspberries

A cup of raspberries delivers a whopping 8 grams of fibre (that’s more than double what’s in a cup of strawberries and about the same amount in a cup of some types of beans). What’s so great about all that fibre? Eating more fibre as a way to prevent weight gain or even encourage weight loss. Boosting fibre by 8 grams for every 1,000 calories resulted in about 4 ½ pounds of weight lost.

2. Oatmeal

Oatmeal can help you lose weight in two ways. First, it’s packed with fibre and it keeps you feeling fuller longer. Second, eating a breakfast made with “slow-release” carbohydrates—such as oatmeal or bran cereal—3 hours before you exercise may help you burn more fat.

How? Eating “slow-release” carbohydrates doesn’t spike blood sugar as high as eating refined carbohydrates (think: white toast). In turn, insulin levels don’t spike as high. Because insulin plays a role in signalling your body to store fat, having lower blood sugar levels may help you burn fat.

Related article: 13 Fruits to Eat for Weight Loss

3. Yogurt

Protein is naturally filling and takes longer to digest than simple carbohydrates. When people drank a whey protein drink, they lost about 4 pounds more and about an inch more from their waists over 6 months and felt less hungry than people given a carbohydrate shake instead.

When given extra whey protein you gain less weight and body fat and more lean muscle, even when calories are the same. Whey protein is found naturally in yogurt and other dairy.

Save calories—and unnecessary sugar—by choosing plain yogurt. Add fresh fruit for sweetness.

4. Peanut Butter

Nuts are also among the top 5 foods that promote weight loss. That’s probably because peanut butter and all nuts and nut butters deliver a good dose of healthy fats, fibre and protein—all satisfying nutrients. Nuts used to get a “bad” reputation for being high in calories and fat.

And while nuts and nut butters are calorie dense—2 tablespoons of peanut butter has just under 200 calories, 7 grams of protein and 2 grams of fibre—they’re also nutrient dense and help you build a satisfying breakfast.

Try spreading tablespoon or two of peanut butter onto whole-wheat toast (another “slow-release” carbohydrate) or adding nuts or nut butter to your oatmeal (another “slow-release” carb) for a balanced meal.

5. Eggs

One large egg has 6 grams of protein and 70 calories. Compared to carbohydrates and fat, protein keeps you satisfied longer. People who eat eggs for breakfast feel fuller longer and lose more than twice as much weight as those who get the same amount of calories from a bagel for breakfast.

And while just eating egg whites will help you save calories, you’ll also lose half the protein (about 3 grams is in the yolk), which helps make eggs a powerhouse choice for breakfast. Plus, the yolk is rich in healthy nutrients, like calcium and eye-protecting antioxidants—lutein and zeaxanthin.

Yolks are a significant source of dietary cholesterol. But dietary cholesterol isn’t such a heart-health villain anymore and for most people eating one whole egg daily is fine.