Meal Ideas for Breakfast

Can you believe another week has flown by? We have been working towards better health together for over a month now!  How has it been going? Have you been able to make the small changes to your diet that we have discussed?  I hope so! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Over the past month we have discussed the importance of breakfast and the nutrients that it should provide. I started off by giving you an outline of where your breakfast calories should come from. I gave you specifics on how much carbohydrate, fat and protein is recommended for most people at breakfast. We discussed the importance of fiber and calcium and the sources of food that provide them.

Now I am going to give you some specific examples of healthy breakfast meals. The color coding helps you to see which items you can trade out.  I am going to give you some ideas for meals at home and on the go.

1 serving of Fruit= 15 grams Carbohydrate:

Small apple/Clementine/15 grapes/10 cherries/half of a small banana /half of an orange or grapefruit/1 cup of berries/small peach or plum/any fruit that is the size of a tennis ball or can fit into a tennis ball

2 servings of high fiber Starch/bread = 30 grams Carbohydrate and >4 grams Dietary Fiber:

1 cup of high fiber cereal (more than 4grams fiber/serving)/1 cup of oatmeal cooked/1 pre-packaged of high fiber oatmeal (more than 4 grams fiber/serving)/2 slices of whole wheat toast/ 1 bagel thin/1 sandwich thin/1 whole wheat English muffin

1 serving of milk/dairy (preferably fat free) = 15 grams Carbohydrate:

8 oz cow’s milk/6 oz yogurt/ 8oz soy milk/8oz almond milk

1 Fat serving if you did not consume any from your dairy source (preferably mono- or poly- unsaturated) = 5 grams of fat:

2 tsp of peanut butter/6-10 nuts/2 TBS light cream cheese/2 pecans or walnuts/1 wedge of light laughing cow cheese

Meal Option #1:

1 cup of berries (blueberries/strawberries/raspberries/blackberries)

1 packet prepackaged High Fiber oatmeal

Fat Free Yogurt or Greek yogurt

6-10 almonds in the oatmeal

Meal Option #2:

1 small apple (size of a tennis ball)

2 Slices of high fiber bread – toasted

8 oz glass of fat free milk

2 tsp of peanut butter

Meal Option #3:

Small Clementine

2- 100% whole wheat sandwich thins

1 slice of 2% cheese melted on the sandwich thins

Meal Option #4:

10 cherries

1 cup of high fiber cereal

8 oz of Fat free milk or 1% milk

Meal Option #5:

½ grapefruit

1 whole wheat bagel thin

6 oz fat free yogurt

2 TBS of low fat cream cheese

Meal Option #6:

McDonald’s Egg McMuffin with no cheese

Apple Dippers

Meal Option #7:

Chick-Fil-a Yogurt Parfait with granola