Healthier Breakfast Habits

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• 9 Misconceptions About Healthy Eating Habits
• 7 Energy Boosting Habits for Career Women
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Full Episode Transcript:

Healthier Breakfast Habits

Hi, welcome to the podcast. Let’s talk about breakfast. I get asked about this sometimes, so I thought I would cover it in a podcast episode.

Specifically, healthier breakfast habits. It will benefit anyone who currently eats breakfast and feels like they do not have healthy breakfast habits.

This will benefit anyone who currently eats breakfast and feels like they do have healthy breakfast habits, because you’ll learn a little bit more than you already knew.

This will also benefit anyone who currently does not eat breakfast.

That being said, I’m going to start out by saying breakfast is not for everyone. Some people don’t feel hungry in the morning.

My son, Ryan, actually feels a little bit nauseous sometimes early in the morning and certainly doesn’t feel hungry, so he really needs to wait until more like mid-morning to have something to eat.

If you’re one of those people that just aren’t very hungry in the morning, don’t force yourself to eat breakfast. What you could do is try eating a little bit something and see if it makes you feel better. For example, more energized in the morning.

Or if you find that you end up being more tempted by the doughnuts that someone brought in to work at the office midmorning if you haven’t had any breakfast, then maybe try having a small breakfast at home, so that you’re not quite as hungry and tempted by midmorning and feel like you want all the doughnuts.

Before I dive into those healthier breakfast habits completely, just a little bit of news.

For the next couple of months, we are going to be doing Ask Kate. This is free written coaching where you can ask me anything and I will help you with anything that you are struggling with your eating habits, weight loss, mindset, motivation, any of it.

Written coaching is where you type in something that you need help with and then I respond back with my coaching or with my response. My response is not just a quick one liner, you actually get coaching from me.

So, over the next few months every other week I will send out an e-mail opening up Ask Kate and the first five people to submit their thing that they need coaching on, I will provide the free written coaching back.

You’ll receive an e-mail notifying you that your question has been answered. Just open the e-mail and click on the link provided to view the response. It is all confidential.

I’m limiting it to the first five for now, but that may change. Actually, I answered more than five this first time around, so go ahead and submit yours, even if you feel like you might not be one of the first five. I’m going to vary out the email send times, to give people in all different time zones a chance.

In order to get the invitation to get the free coaching, you have to be on my e-mail list. So, if you’ve signed up for the free class or you’ve signed up for weekly tips, that means you are on my e-mail list and you will get those invites every other Wednesday.

If you want to be on the list to get those invitations and you are not already, just sign up for the free class or the weekly tips.

You’ll see both of these on the episode page or if you’re listening from your favorite podcast listening app such as apple podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, pod chaser et cetera, you can just click on the episode description for this episode and sign up with the link there.

Alright, so onto healthier breakfast habits. The things I just mentioned were not actually going to be part of the episode today, but I started talking and realized that I really just wanted to be clear on those things.

Okay so, the first of the healthier breakfast habits is to make it easy for yourself to develop an actual habit by getting a couple of things out ahead of time to make it easier in the morning for yourself.

As a busy career woman, you’re probably scrambling to get out the door to get to work, or to go into your home office and get on a zoom call. This makes it really easy to not have healthy breakfast habits. When you’re in a rush, you’re more likely to make less healthy food decisions.

So, making it easy to do the behavior of eating breakfast in the morning, or eating an intentionally healthier breakfast in the morning, by placing a couple things out on the counter ahead of time, will absolutely help.

If you’re a coffee drinker, you’re probably already in the habit of getting the coffee maker prepared ahead of time. You can do the same thing with your breakfast food.

If you eat oatmeal, then get out your bowl and spoon and container of oatmeal the night before, so that it’s ready to go in the morning. It takes all of about 30 seconds to do the night before, and then the next morning having those things on the counter will serve as a visual reminder and make the behavior easier to do.

When it comes to building any habits, having some sort of a trigger or prompt and making the behavior easier to do helps to actually form the habit. It helps your brain actually go through with the sequence of events.

And you keep doing this over and over again, you’ve got a habit. Especially if there is a reward mixed in there. If you’re making breakfast easier for yourself and you’re noticing that you’re feeling less rushed, this can be a reward. Rewards like this make it more likely that you’ll form a habit as well.

If you’re thinking, “well I’m not going to remember to put out the bowl, the spoon the oatmeal, the cereal, the fruit” whatever it is that you normally eat for breakfast in the morning, you can write yourself a nice little note and leave it on the kitchen counter or in a place that you’ll see in the evening.

You could even set an alarm on your phone so that it reminds you at a certain time in the evening to get those few things out.

Of course, you’re not expected to remember to do this every single day. You’re a human, so that’s why you need to just do that little reminder. Super easy. Set an alert on your phone, have it go off every day or leave a note in a convenient spot to remind you.

And then just do it. Easy as that. That’s where a little bit of self-discipline comes in. Just a tiny bit.

Another of my healthier breakfast habits is to schedule a little bit of time in the morning to eat at home rather than stopping along the way to get a less healthy breakfast, or worse eating in the car.

I was guilty of eating in the car for years period I would eat usually three pieces of toast slathered in peanut butter in the car on the way to the hospital.

I would end up cleaning crumbs from the front seat a couple of times a week, I would be mindlessly eating the toast with the peanut butter along the drive, so not really enjoying it and certainly not paying attention to if I needed all of that for breakfast. I did not. Because if you think about it, that breakfast was probably about 800 calories.

No one needs an 800 calorie breakfast unless it’s Michael Phelps or similar. He probably eats twice that for breakfast for his morning swim training.

And the other thing about eating while driving is that it’s not safe. You’re not paying attention as fully to what’s around you as you should be. You’re focused on eating, and not getting the food all over the car. And you’re not doing either of these very well either. Trust me, like I said, I’ve been there. It’s just not worth it.

Imagine if you hit someone because you were not paying as close attention to driving because you’re eating? That would be awful and you’d regret it for the rest of your life.

Also, with eating while driving, you’re certainly not focused on enjoying the breakfast as much as you could be.

You’re certainly not focused on your stomach and if you’re actually satisfied, so there’s a chance that you could end up eating more than you really need. And if you’re trying to lose weight, you don’t want to be eating more than you actually need.

So, carve out a little bit of time every morning, so if that means setting your alarm clock for five or 10 minutes earlier to eat breakfast at home and not while driving or while sitting at your desk, then do it. It’s well worth it.

You’re not gonna miss that 5 to 10 minutes of sleep. I can tell you it’s not going to do anything negatively to your energy levels or health if you get 5 or 10 minutes less of sleep. So hitting that snooze button, doesn’t actually do anything for the benefits from sleep.

And make sure you actually sit down in the kitchen to eat your breakfast. Taking five or 10 minutes to eat your breakfast sitting in a chair, enables you to pay attention to your food, pay attention to your stomach, and take a little time for yourself before you start your work day. It’s not asking too much.

The third of the healthier breakfast habits goes along with this. Eat breakfast without distractions period I know it’s tempting to scroll social media, check emails, and read while you’re eating, but try not to do it.

Listen, I’m guilty of these as well. If you’re in the habit of doing this leave your phone and your book or whatever it is in a place that’s not the kitchen. Just for that 5 or 10 minutes. Once you do this a few times, you will see how nice it is.

When you then have awareness of how nice that is, that will be a reward for you, so it’ll encourage the new behavior.

So, keep the phone and the reading material away. Even if it’s on the kitchen counter, but out of reach, that’s better, but I wouldn’t even put that temptation there. Because it’s easy enough to just get up and grab it if it’s already been a habit for you.

Alright, now on to a little bit more as far as what to eat and drink. The next of the healthier breakfast habits is to try to mix carbohydrate and protein and healthy fat if you can.

So a good example would be, oats with peanut butter on top. That’s my breakfast of choice. You have your carbohydrates, you have the protein that’s in both the oats and the peanut butter, and you have the healthy fats in the peanut butter.

Another example would be a piece of fruit as a carbohydrate, which also has lots of fiber which is fantastic, plus some eggs with a slice of avocado or two on top. The eggs have a good amount of protein in them and the avocado is considered very healthy fat. And I’ve read avocado makes your skin nice and smooth and moisturized. I’ve noticed that anytime I eat avocado, the next day the skin on my face looks more moisturized and softer.

So, these are just a couple of examples. Carbohydrates are great for quick energy, and protein and fat are great for a little bit longer lasting energy.

Your brain actually needs carbohydrates to function at its best, so having a little bit in the morning is perfect. Your body of course needs all of these macro nutrients, so the more that you can get in the morning, the better.

Meaning, if you can eat a carbohydrate, with some protein and healthy fat, this is more advantageous than just eating carbohydrates or just eating protein for breakfast.

Another of my healthier breakfast habits is to hydrate. When we sleep, we’re doing a lot of breathing and this exchange of air actually causes you to become dehydrated because you’re breathing out a lot of moisture from your body. And unlike during the day when you’re doing the same thing, you’re not hydrating while you’re sleeping.

So, you’re getting dehydrated just by breathing. That’s why you wake up in the morning with a dry mouth and potentially even a mild headache from being dehydrated during the evening.

An easy way to fix this is to drink water. You don’t have to go and chug to tall glasses of water right away, but certainly it is helpful to make sure you drink at least a glass of water either before or with breakfast.

Also, when you’re dehydrated, your body can actually misinterpret this as hunger as well. So, if you hydrate right after you wake up and well before you eat breakfast, then when you’re eating breakfast, the hunger that you’re experiencing is more likely to be true hunger and not mixed up signals from dehydration.

Another of the healthier breakfast habits that I wanted to discuss is to try to avoid the breakfast foods that are just pure sugar and flour.

Examples of this would be doughnuts, pastries, store bought muffins. Store bought muffins are usually pretty high in sugar, compared to if you decided to bake muffins at home and you’re in control of the ingredients.

I’ve actually been making some muffins on occasion for weekends when we meet our friends to go running. If I make them, I’ll do it on a Friday evening, so we have a quick, delicious breakfast that energizes us before our runs. Plus it’s a bit of a treat since it’s different than the usual oatmeal with peanut butter.

I’ve really been digging the muffin recipes that I’ve been finding on the Real Food Dietitians website. They have fantastic zucchini muffins and oatmeal blueberry muffins that are pretty darn healthy for muffins. They’re delicious too. They have just the right amount of mild sweetness, without feeling like a dessert. And a shout-out to my good friend Pam for introducing me to them.

So that’s what I have for you on healthier breakfast habits. Don’t forget to take advantage of the Ask Kate free written coaching while it lasts. You’ll receive an e-mail opening the coaching up every other Wednesday, so be sure you are on my e-mail list for that.

Thanks for listening, take care and I’ll talk with you soon.