If you want to lose weight, you should start the day with a good breakfast. Three ingredients in particular keep you full for a long time and thus support weight loss.
Avoiding food too rigorously during a diet puts stress on the body. This can be a hindrance to losing weight.
This is because the stress hormone cortisol is released, causing a rise in blood sugar and the release of insulin. This means that sugar enters the cells particularly quickly and is stored as fat – especially around the stomach.
This process can be suppressed by eating breakfast regularly. And with the right ingredients, losing weight can be supported particularly effectively. The prerequisite for this is that there is a negative calorie balance.
Beans: Important source of protein
“Legumes like beans are the perfect package of proteins, fiber and carbohydrates,” explains Dr. Libby Mills, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
If you don’t like the idea of a hearty British breakfast with beans, bacon and eggs, there are a variety of other options for integrating this valuable source of protein into your breakfast.
The expert’s suggestion : For example, beans can be mixed into an omelet or used in a vegetable rösti. They even work well in smoothies. A hummus spread made from chickpeas and white beans is also particularly rich in protein – and a great change from cheese and jam on buttered bread.
Nuts: Provide healthy fats
Nuts are full of unsaturated, healthy fatty acids. They are also very rich in protein and fiber.
A study conducted in 2019 found that subjects who consumed a small portion of nuts (14 grams) daily lost weight overall over a period of four years.
The big advantage of nuts is that they keep the blood sugar level constant for a relatively long time and thus prevent you from getting hungry again shortly after breakfast and then reaching for snacks to bridge the period until lunch.
So: Nuts in granola or nut butter as a topping in porridge are absolutely welcome.
Lots of fiber: Green leafy vegetables
Green leafy vegetables like spinach have plenty of vitamin C, which can not only reduce inflammation but also lower blood pressure. Magnesium also reduces the stress hormone cortisol.
Nutrition expert Mills once again points out the valuable fiber in green leafy vegetables: “The fiber has a prebiotic effect. This means that they support the good bacteria in the intestinal flora. Otherwise, an excess of bad bacteria in the gut can lead to health problems. This can also mean weight gain.”
Salad for breakfast?
So even if you haven’t considered salad options as a breakfast option until now, a change in thinking in this regard could benefit both the intestines and belly fat.
Otherwise, creative alternatives are also possible here: for example, an omelette filled with spinach, a colorful sandwich with smoked tofu, rocket and cress or a green smoothie with banana, cinnamon, oat flakes and leaf spinach.