Eating enough of these foods for breakfast can really help you control your weight and blood sugar!

Have you ever had this problem: you ate breakfast, but soon after, you started to feel extremely hungry! Why is this happening?

Scientists have found that if breakfast does not contain enough protein, people will get hungry quickly, which may lead to excessive energy intake throughout the day, making it easier to gain weight.

What is going on?

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Not eating enough protein for breakfast

There may be 2 hidden dangers

Insufficient protein intake for breakfast may cause two problems: one is that it leads to increased energy intake throughout the day and a poor dietary structure; the other is that it is more likely to gain weight.

1

Not eating enough protein for breakfast will increase your energy intake throughout the day

Researchers from the University of Sydney spent 13 months tracking every meal of 9,341 middle-aged people, focusing on whether they consumed enough protein for breakfast and the impact of protein intake on subsequent meals. They eventually published their observation and analysis results in the international journal Obesity.

Researchers divided the daily diet into three time periods (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and analyzed the relationship between each meal like monitoring. After statistics and analysis, they finally found:

The high protein ratio of breakfast leads to low energy intake and high intake of healthy foods throughout the day;

If you don’t consume enough protein at breakfast, you will consume more high-energy foods such as saturated fat, sugar, or alcohol throughout the day, resulting in high energy intake and low diet quality.

In other words, if you don’t eat enough protein for breakfast, your body will think you are “starving” and will prompt you to stuff your mouth with high-energy foods, even if you have three large meals afterwards. Scientists say this is a “protein leverage effect” – the protein debt you incur in the morning will be replenished later in the day. [1]

2

Not eating enough protein for breakfast can make you fatter

Increasing the proportion of protein in breakfast will not only reduce energy intake throughout the day, but also help overweight people lose weight and body fat faster. Researchers recruited 57 overweight teenagers and divided them into three groups to test the effect of breakfast on weight:

● Group 1: Eat a high-protein breakfast every day (about 35 grams of protein)

● Group 2: Eat ordinary breakfast (such as bread, cereal)

● Group 3: Skipping breakfast altogether

Image source: Reference [2]

The results of the experiment showed that during the 12-week observation period, the teenagers who insisted on eating a high-protein breakfast (containing about 35 grams of protein) every day automatically "ate" about 400 calories less (close to the amount of a full meal), and lost an average of 0.4 kilograms of pure fat. The most obvious effect was even lost nearly 1 kilogram. However, the teenagers who ate a normal breakfast or skipped breakfast not only did not lose weight, but their weight actually increased quietly. Some of them even showed the phenomenon of "the hungrier they were, the more they wanted to eat snacks." [2]

How much protein is enough for breakfast?

Protein digests slowly and gives a strong sense of fullness, which is beneficial for controlling weight and body fat. In addition, according to a review on high-protein diet and insulin secretion published in Physiological Reports in 2023, protein promotes the secretion of insulin by pancreatic B cells, which helps lower blood sugar, so that blood sugar does not fluctuate greatly after a meal. [3] It can be seen that adding a certain proportion of protein to breakfast is beneficial for stabilizing blood sugar.

So, how much protein should we consume for breakfast to meet our needs? Let's read on.

According to the latest version of the "Dietary Nutrient Intake of Chinese Residents", the recommended total daily protein intake for adult women is 55g, and for men is 65g. Considering that breakfast accounts for 30% of the whole day, a qualified breakfast should include at least 16.5g and 19.5g of protein for women and men respectively.

However, if you want to achieve the effect of weight loss and blood sugar control, this ratio must be increased. Different studies have different experimental amounts of protein, but they are basically above 25g. Therefore, a breakfast protein of about 25g will be more effective in controlling appetite and helping weight loss. [5]

Image source: Australian National Science Agency

Want to pair with a high-protein breakfast

You can do this

The question is: How can we eat breakfast to reach the amount of more than 25g?

First of all, we need to know which foods are rich in protein. These foods can be used as breakfast alternatives, and then different types of these foods can be combined to ensure that we consume 25g of protein per breakfast while taking into account the diversity of our diet.

1

Common high-protein foods

Milk, eggs, meat, fish, beans, and grains all contain a lot of protein. Although the protein in beans is plant protein, it has a high digestion and absorption rate and is a high-quality protein.

Based on the breakfast habits of Chinese people, we have summarized several types of high-quality protein sources, and you can combine them according to your needs.

Meat and eggs⬇️

Staple food⬇️

Drinks⬇️

2

High protein breakfast, you can combine it like this

Early morning cooking version:

You can cook a bowl of hot noodles, put a handful of longxu noodles (100g), beat a poached egg, add mushrooms and shredded carrots, sprinkle with green onions and some seasonings, and finally put a few slices of braised beef on the noodles.

Protein = 1 bowl of noodles (10.5g) + 1 poached egg (6g) + a few slices of braised beef (14.1g) = 30.6g

Image source: AI production

"Lazy" Quick Version:

• Sauce meat bun: 1 piece

• Oatmeal with milk: 1 bowl, 2 scoops of instant oatmeal, pour in milk, microwave for 1 minute

• Instant Dried Tofu: 2 small bags

• Cherry tomatoes: 6-8 pieces, to supplement vitamins and dietary fiber

Protein = 1 braised pork bun (10.5g) + 1 bowl of oat milk (9.9g) + 1 bag of instant tofu (5.3g) + 6-8 cherry tomatoes (1.3g) = 27g

Image source: AI production

Late-rising convenience store version:

• 1 egg and ham sandwich

• 1 latte

• Oden fish balls

Protein = egg and ham sandwich (10.9g) + medium latte (9.9g) + 1 skewer of fish balls (4.6g) = 25.4g

Image source: AI production

The above recommendations are for protein combinations, but for breakfast, you should not only eat enough protein, but also eat a rich variety. A nutritious breakfast should usually include 4 types of food:

① Cereals and potatoes: such as steamed bread, flower rolls, rice, etc., mainly provide carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals, and are the most economical source of energy;

② Meat and egg foods: such as eggs, pork, chicken, beef, fish, etc., mainly provide fat and protein and a variety of vitamins and minerals;

③ Milk and beans: such as pure milk, yogurt, soy milk, etc., mainly provide high-quality protein, vitamins and minerals;

④Fruits and vegetables: such as tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, apples, bananas, etc., mainly provide a variety of vitamins and minerals.

Moreover, it is important to consume enough carbohydrates for breakfast to provide sufficient energy to the brain. Therefore, children and office workers who mainly work with their brains should eat more staple foods.

Seeing this, is anyone already wondering whether their daily breakfast meets the standards?

Starting from tomorrow, don’t just eat a bun or a fried dough stick casually. Eat your breakfast well. Maybe you will slowly find that your appetite starts to become "reasonable", and those stories of "afternoon tea binge eating" and "regret for eating too much late at night" will be rewritten.

Finally, you are welcome to share your breakfast in the comment section, so that we can encourage each other!

References

[1]Grech A, Sui Z, Rangan A, Simpson SJ, Coogan SCP, Raubenheimer D. Macronutrient (im)balance drives energy intake in an obesogenic food environment: An ecological analysis. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2022 Nov;30(11):2156-2166. doi: 10.1002/oby.23578. PMID: 36321270; PMCID: PMC9828743.

[2] Leidy HJ, Hoertel HA, Douglas SM, Higgins KA, Shafer RS. A high-protein breakfast prevents body fat gain, through reductions in daily intake and hunger, in "Breakfast skipping" adolescents. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2015 Sep;23(9):1761-4. doi: 10.1002/oby.21185. Epub 2015 Aug 4. PMID: 26239831. [3] Yanagisawa Y. How dietary amino acids and high protein diets influence insulin secretion. Physiol Rep. 2023 Jan;11(2):e15577. doi: 10.14814/phy2.15577. PMID: 36695783; PMCID: PMC9875820.[4]Weigle, DS, Breen, PA, Matthys, CC, et al. . (2005) A high-protein diet induces sustained reductions in appetite, ad libitum caloric intake, and body weight despite compensatory changes in diurnal plasma leptin and ghrelin concentrations. Am J Clin Nutr 82, 41–48.[5]AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL SCIENCE AGENCY.Is breakfast protein the secret to weight loss?https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/News/2018/January/Is-breakfast-protein-the-secret-to-weight-loss[6]Chinese Nutrition Society. Dietary Reference Intake of Nutrients for Chinese Residents (2023 Edition). People's Medical Publishing House, 2023.[7]Yang Yuexin. Chinese Food Composition Table 6th Edition Volume 1[M]. Peking University Medical Press, 2018.[8]Yang Yuexin. Chinese Food Composition Table 6th Edition Volume 2[M]. Peking University Medical Press, 2019.

Planning and production

Author: Li Chun, registered nutritionist

Reviewer: Zhang Na, Associate Researcher, Peking University School of Public Health

Planning丨Zhong Yanping

Editor: Zhong Yanping

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin