Worst Breakfast Foods and Best

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of eating breakfast. Studies show that people who take time for a morning meal consume fewer calories over the course of the day, have stronger cognitive skills, and are 30 percent less likely to be overweight or obese. Beyond that, people who skip breakfast are more likely to drink alcohol and smoke, and they’re less likely to exercise.

But just because breakfast is the most important meal of the day doesn’t grant you permission to go into a feeding frenzy. But that’s exactly what many of the country’s most popular breakfast joints are setting you up for, by peddling fatty scrambles, misguided muffins, and pancakes that look like manhole covers.

These foods are loaded with unhealthy fats, added sugars, and refined carbohydrates, which catapult your blood sugar, sap your energy levels, and tell your body to store fat.

To help you avoid the morning mishaps, I searched out the good, the bad, and the greasy, and uncovered some of the worst breakfast foods in North America. I Have presented a sampling of the worst offenders below and some of the best.

Worst Side Dish
Burger King Hash Browns (large)
620 calories
40 g fat (11 g saturated; 13 g trans)
1,200 mg sodium
60 g carbs

Yes, you’re ingesting more than a meal’s worth of calories from a side dish, but the real cause for concern here is that these little potato cakes pack seven times more trans fats than you’re supposed to eat all day! Until BK learns to cut out the partially hydrogenated oils, avoid encounters with potatoes of any kind at that fatty food joint.

Worst Pastry
Cinnabon Classic Cinnamon Roll
813 calories
32 g fat (5 g trans fat)
117 g carbs

You wouldn’t start your day with three brownies, would you? As far as your body knows, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing if you wake up with this cinnamon-swirled disaster area. In fact, because Cinnabon offers no healthy alternatives, you’ll have to invite friends (or enemies?) to share the risky roll, or steer clear of Cinnabon altogether.

Worst Combo Meal
McDonald’s Deluxe Breakfast
1,360 calories
64 g fat (22 g saturated)
2,325 mg sodium
160 g carbs
49 g sugars

With four vehicles for refined carbohydrates (biscuit, hash browns, hotcakes, syrup), this “deluxe” disaster will send your blood sugar soaring. Why blow nearly an entire day’s calories under the arches, when a perfectly satisfying Egg McMuffin will save you more than 1,000 calories?

Eat This Instead!
McDonald’s Egg McMuffin with coffee
310 calories
12 g fat (5 g saturated)
820 mg sodium
30 g carbs
3 g sugars

Worst Omelet
IHOP Big Steak Omelet
1,490 calories
(No additional nutrition information available)

IHOP doesn’t provide nutritional information aside from calorie counts, but with a boatload of steak, a bucket of cheese, and handfuls of hash browns, this omelet’s fat and sodium numbers are surely just as appalling.

Eat This Instead!
IHOP For Me Garden Scramble
440 calories

Q: I know eating breakfast is important for weight loss, but what should I have? Whole grains or protein? —Sandra McPhail (Calgary)

A: The perfect breakfast has three parts: produce, whole grains and protein! This morning trio helps with weight loss by helping us feel full and fight cravings. I consider a healthy breakfast a "prevention" meal, because it prevents you from overeating and over-snacking throughout the entire day. Although we know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the International Food Information Council, only half of us eat breakfast every day.

Research on breakfast shows that cooked cereal, such as oatmeal, might actually be your most filling choice. If you choose to go the hot cereal route, a packet of plain instant oatmeal is as healthy as the long-cooking stuff and has only 100 calories per packet and 3 grams of fiber. Add a few tablespoons of chopped nuts for protein and some fresh fruit. Two of my favorite oatmeal toppings are chopped almonds and blueberries. If the plain oatmeal isn't sweet enough for you, drizzle on 1 teaspoon of honey or pure maple syrup.

And if you're just not feeling the cereal vibe, here are some additional breakfast suggestions that contain the three diet-friendly ingredients:

• Top 2 pieces whole-grain toast with 4 ounces low-fat cottage cheese and 1 sliced peach.
• Top 1 whole-grain English muffin with 2 eggs scrambled with 1 cup chopped vegetables.
• Top 1 whole-grain waffle with 1 1/2 tablespoons of peanut butter and 1 small sliced apple.

As Dr Laura would say "Now go take on the day"

Burn More Calories in Less Time

The way to shape up fast is no secret. Weight training will sculpt and build lean muscle, which (unlike fat) burns calories on its own; cardio (brisk walking, biking, jogging, etc.) will shed the fat hiding those defined muscles. I'm a cardio fan from way back, but who wants to slog away on a treadmill in a dull gym, going nowhere fast (or slow, as the case may be)? Not me! Especially when you can spend less time and get better results.

The secret is intervals. Study subjects who spent just 20 minutes mixing sprints with jogging lost three times the fat off their legs and butt in 15 weeks, compared to those who jogged steadily for 40 minutes, research from the University of New South Wales in Sydney finds. Intervals may spark fat-mobilizing hormones, and they amp your cardio capacity so your future runs will actually feel easier.

I like relaxing runs, but if you do the same slog every day, you can suffer from what's sometimes called "postman's syndrome"—named for those who do the same walk every day and yet their bodies never change. Your muscles become so efficient at a movement over time that if you do it day after day and eat the same way, you never overtax your system and burn more calories to lose weight.

The answer is to mix up your cardio either by changing your workout around or adding speedy bursts—meaning intervals. Intervals can be fun if you approach them right. Each one represents a mini goal—finish the 1-minute sprint, complete the 2-minute cool down, and so on. I feel more pumped up doing this and never get bored. Now put on those running shoes and lets go.

What does self-image have to do with weight loss? What role does the subconscious play?

How can your self-image affect your success in following your diet?

In our subconscious mind we all have a particular self-image. It may be an image of a fat person that needs to lose weight fast, or of an unsuccessful person, or maybe a very attractive confident one.

That image has a representation attached to it, a picture that pops-up in our minds whenever we say the word “I”. The picture that appears to us in our minds does not necessarily equal reality. It actually matches the belief we have about who we are in our deepest subconscious.

If you have an image of a ‘fat’ you running through your head, how would you attract the desired ‘thin’ you, into your life? That image in our mind of the way we look, weight and external appearance determine what we project into the world.

Research shows that 80% of our behavior is affected by our subconscious. And that, together with our belief system, determines our results.

If you perceive of yourself as fat in your subconscious, the law of attraction will attract into your life that fat image time and again.

Changing the personal image you have of yourself to an image of a thin, healthy successful one, will help you become healthy and reach the weight you really want fast.

The change has to begin in your subconscious.

If you want to succeed in losing weight and maintain the change in you, you have to start with changing the self-image in your subconscious mind into a successful, healthy, and happy, worthy person.

This image will help you lose weight faster and easily keep it off for good.

Now close your eyes and start creating your new self.