What is the Best Breakfast for Weight Loss?

I’m sure you have heard it over and over, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”  This is true, especially if you want to lose weight and gain muscle.  It is also one of the meals that clients tend to sort of “take or leave” or eat what they shouldn’t be.  This will definitely have an effect not only on your weight loss but how you feel throughout the day as well.

As with all my clients, every time I see them I will ask them randomly what they ate and for what meals….just to make sure everyone is on the same page.  When someone says that they skipped breakfast or they ate something wrong then it is very irritating and shows their whole commitment to the weight loss process.  I will ask them questions like, “why did you skip it?”  or “why didn’t you eat what you were suppose to?”  Then I sit back and brace myself for the blah, blah excuses.

Listen.  Breakfast is the one meal of the day that there should literally be no excuse on why you mess it up.  You are at home, with a fridge full of good food to eat.  The excuse that they never had enough time to eat it is another crock of garbage.  It takes under 5 min to cook some eggs and eat them, or have leftovers from the night before.  One thing you must wrap your head around if you want to lose weight is that you must plan ahead for what you are going to eat and when.  You should know what you are going to eat and when you are going to eat them and plan accordingly.  If you think that you are just going to cook something every time you have to eat or “wing it” you are setting yourself up for failure.  When you cook, cook a lot, then put it in containers and you will make the whole weight loss process super easy.  It’s when people are hungry and don’t have anything to eat that they fall off of their diet.

So why exactly is breakfast so important?

1. Your body is in a catabolic state from being fasted overnight.  This will cause your body to break down muscle tissue for protein, thus reducing your metabolism.
2. What you put in your mouth first in the morning sets up your neurotransmitter production for the day.  These chemicals have a great impact on how you feel and your cravings.
3. If you eat the proper breakfast it severely blunts cravings throughout the day and makes following a weight loss diet much, much easier.

It is important though that you know what to eat for breakfast to not only lose weight but also to feel your best.  The traditional breakfast foods like cereal, toast, orange juice, etc. are totally out.  For people who need to lose weight it is pretty safe to say that they cannot eat carbs.  This is basically 80% of the population.  The best breakfast that a person can have is meat and nuts.  I learned this trick on one of my interns with top strength and conditioning coach Charles Poliquin.  It might seem weird at first but once you get into it you will not believe how good you feel after.  How much weight you lose and how much energy you have…with no cravings!

So some examples would be:

• chicken breast with almonds
• buffalo patty with walnuts
• steak and cashews
• salmon and pecans

You get the idea.  Very simple.  Meat must be lean and not processed.  Which means you should be cooking it yourself.  That’s why when you make supper it is a good idea to make extra for the next day as well.  Remember always rotate your protein and nut sources.  For anyone that doesn’t know protein is anything that runs, flies, or swims.  Eggs are also a good source of protein as well and can be substituted for meat in the breakfast.  I have noticed that meat does make a person feel better though.

So let’s finish this off in saying that by eating the right breakfast it will make the whole weight loss process much, much easier on yourself.  If it is easier then you have a much, much higher rate of success, and that’s what it’s all about!