POWER UP THE DAY WITH A BETTER BREAKFAST

People who regularly eat breakfast have lower rates of type 2 diabetes and are less likely to develop heart failure over their lifetime than those who don’t. Prepare it yourself at home. A fortified breakfast is fine, especially if mixed with low fat yogurt help to meet the levels of key nutrients such as B12, C and folic acid. To find upper limits go to http://www.iom.edu/ and search for “Dri Tables”)

Breakfast boosts your energy and improves cognition, memory and problem-solving skills. “It gets the brain going,” says Christine Gerbstadt, M.D., M.P.H., RD., a physician and nutrition consultant in Sarasota, Fla. That’s because it swiftly replenishes the blood’s circulating level of glucose, which is depleted overnight and serves as the brain’s most immediate source of energy.

Besides providing a mental and physical jump-start, breakfast is a nutritional cornerstone for the day. Other breakfast standards, including eggs and citrus fruit, contribute various vitamins plus folic acid, which might protect against bone loss and colon cancer. Skipping breakfast deprives you of an opportunity to get those nutrients and increases the chance that you’ll reach for less-healthy options later in the day, when you’re too hungry or busy to eat sensibly.

Ideally your breakfast pantry should be eaten the first hour of two of the day and get up to 25 percent of the total daily calories from the meal and include a mix of protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats and keep you fuller and more satisfied than just a meal of carbs. A University of Massachusetts study found that people who often ate out in the morning were more likely to be obese than those who didn’t. Consuming too many carbs makes the body beg for more of its complete needs. Oatmeal can be soaked and then cooked with milk adding raisins, dried cranberries, slivered almonds or chopped walnuts. If you’re watching your waistline eggs for breakfast helps lose weight because it reduces the chance of overeating later.