5 Quick and Healthy Breakfast Ideas

As a family on the run early in the morning, it sometimes may be a challenge to sit down and eat a healthy, wholesome breakfast before work.  If this is familiar to your lifestyle and you desire something functional and healthy, then you are in luck.  Eating breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day.  When you wake up in the morning, you have just gone through a six to eight hour fasting and your body needs to replenish nutrients for the day ahead.  In addition, eating unhealthy food early in the morning destroys your blood glucose for the day, causing big insulin spikes which cause tiredness and fatigue while storing more fat in the body.  Some people skip breakfast as a way to “jumpstart” their diet to lose weight, but actually skipping breakfast plays a negative toll on weight loss goals.  Simply put, you have to eat breakfast; skipping it is not a choice from here on out.

Consider your daily routine before work.  You may get shower upon getting up, get the kids ready and/or the spouse, and then head out the door.  Pretty efficient to start, but if your net step involves grabbing a “healthy” egg sandwich at Starbucks with a skinny Latte, then you have some room for improvement.  Listed below are some fun options for a healthy, fast breakfast to incorporate into your daily routine before work to ensure you get the most important meal of the day.

5 Quick and Healthy Breakfast Ideas for the Busy Household

1. Healthy Breakfast Burrito Bowl. Living in the southwest means we are lucky to be able to eat burritos whenever we want.  Rather than getting a burrito on the run at a fast-food place, try preparing burrito bowls ahead of time and freeze them.  One bowl takes 2 eggs (whole or egg whites work), black beans, salsa, cheese, and a plastic disposable bowl [1].  When you wake up in the morning, pop one in the microwave and you are ready for a fast, healthy, and easy breakfast option that takes two minutes.
2. Healthy Quinoa Quiche. This is a way to get your fiber in early in the day and it takes little time to prepare.  Prepare the quiches before the work week starts and refrigerate your weeks’ worth of meals.  Using cooked quinoa, eggs, zucchini, spinach, cheese, and pepper, quiches make an easy option and take little time to prepare.  For fewer calories, use half the cheese in the recipe or use fat-free cheese.
3. Healthy Ham and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich. These can be prepared ahead of time or can be frozen.  Using cooked egg whites, a slice of cheese, Canadian bacon, and whole wheat English muffins, wrap each sandwich in a paper towel and package in a sandwich bag, and freeze [2].  When you are ready to eat, peel the sandwich in half, microwave until hot, and grab and go.
4. Healthy Homemade Granola. This is the easiest and probably the healthiest of the options listed.  Using granola, you can package meals two days ahead of time [3].  Simply package in a plastic container and mix with yogurt when you are ready to eat.  Add dried berries or whole berries to compliment the flavor.  Store them in a mason jar to easily store and eat from on the go.
5. Healthy Breakfast Cookies. Prepared using mostly oatmeal, these cookies are loaded with fiber and zero flour [4].  Prepare about two weeks of cookies so that when you are headed out the door in the morning, you grab two to three cookies and a homemade sugar-free coffee to make your day starting out in a great way.  Consider skimping on the chocolate chips in this recipe if you are looking to save more calories and consider using your favorite flavored protein powder in the recipe to add to the nutritive value.

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