3 Breakfast Mistakes That Are Killing Your Fat Loss (How to Fix It) | #370

If you don't have a strategy for breakfast, if you don't have a strategy for what you're eating, what you're drinking first thing in the morning when you wake up, then odds are you are slowing down your fat loss progress. You probably heard the quote where it says, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? We all have heard that. Is that true? Maybe, in some instances, and in some instances it's not. And today what I wanna do is I wanna give you my best breakfast strategies, and I also wanna break down the most common breakfast mistakes people make that screw up their fat loss goals and their weight loss goals. Because I do think if you have the wrong approach to this, it can backfire on you. And if you're brand new to the Ransom Bodies Project, I wanted to welcome you and let you know you're in the right place. Like my goal is to just give you actionable, real life principles in order to make your weight loss, fat loss, muscle building, health goals easier to follow through on. Because at the end of the day, the question is, can you actually do this sustainably and consistently for long periods of time? So many people are so focused on these short spurts of their life when it comes to fitness. They're so focused on the next 60 days or the next 90 days, or like, this is my goal for this month. What about the five year goal? Like if you don't have a five year vision for your health and your fitness, you're missing out big time. Because it's less about getting fit and more about staying fit. So if you're not like in the realm of, hey, I wanna do this long term, I'm in this for the marathon, not the sprint, then you will burn yourself out. And I know for a lot of people, when it comes down to breakfast specifically, I wanna first address the camp that's like, I'm not hungry in the morning, I don't wanna eat breakfast. That's the first camp, first group of people I want to address. So I think when it comes to fitness and weight loss, you have to break free of this mindset of, I'm hungry so I eat, I'm not hungry so I don't eat. Your entire life, you've eaten and not eaten based off of your body's cues, your body's signal to your brain. So if your body signals, I crave this food, I'm hungry for this food, I eat it. And when your body also sends a signal, I am full because we just ate, I don't eat. Now that you're in the realm and the game of body transformation, because you're not just here to lose weight, you're also here to build muscle and just get healthier overall. Now I have to reprogram and retrain my brain that I need to eat when I don't feel like eating, and I need to learn how to not eat when I do feel like eating. That right there, my friends, is something nobody tells you and no one talks about. And it's hard because maybe, let's say you're 40 years old right now, maybe you're in your 50s, you have spent decades doing this. This has been your eating pattern and eating habit. I eat when I'm hungry, I don't eat when I'm not hungry. And now you learn about macros. You're like, oh, okay, I gotta eat all this protein. I gotta eat these specific calories. And so you try to change your eating patterns and eating habits, and all of a sudden, you're like, whoa, I'm really full, and now I have to eat more food? That doesn't make sense. I'm trying to lose weight. That doesn't make sense. Your brain can't comprehend it. Why can't your brain comprehend it? Because you've been programmed your entire life to eat when you feel like eating. This is called intuitive eating, by the way. So there's a term for it, intuitive eating. If you're someone who is very serious about transforming your body, you can no longer intuitively eat. All that means is I can no longer allow my body to dictate when and how much I eat the food. The thing that dictates how much I eat and when I eat is my numbers, my macronutrients and my calories. Like, that is it. So if I get to the end of the day and I already hit my calories and I'm still hungry, then I don't eat. If I get to the end of the day and I have more calories and protein to hit, then I gotta eat. So you have to break free of this mentally. Now, this is gonna take time to break free of. This isn't just something that you're just gonna magically shift your perspective and renew your mind on overnight. You have to work at this day in and day out. So when you're like, I don't feel like eating breakfast in the morning, I want you to ask yourself that question, first and foremost. Okay, do I not feel like eating simply because I'm used to intuitive eating my entire life? So maybe there's something I have to break free of. Now, do you have to eat breakfast in the morning? No, you don't have to. You can still see great results by not eating breakfast, not eating until 12, by intermittent fasting. But I do believe, from my experience working with over 1,000 people over the past eight years, most individuals would benefit from having some source of protein, some source of nutrients in their body before 12 p.m. And so the first mistake people make when it comes to breakfast is they start their day with carbs only. So they start their day with a piece of toast. They start their day with cereal. They start their day with only oatmeal or something like that. They start their day with just a piece of bread or a croissant or a bagel. These things can screw your entire day if that's how you start your day. I wake up in the morning, grab a bagel, grab coffee, that's it, that's all I have. Just carbs, primarily carbs for breakfast. Or I wake up in the morning and I go to Starbucks. I get myself a Starbucks latte and then I go, ooh, that muffin looks good. The Starbucks got all those treats. They got the nice little display going on and you're like, I gotta grab myself one of those things. Not a good recipe for your mornings. And the reason is you spike your insulin without giving your body any protein or fat to balance it out. So it's not that carbs are bad in the morning, it's that carbs by itself and the wrong type of carbs can cause you to crash later on in the day. So it leads to energy crashes potentially and cravings potentially mid-morning, like around 10 a.m. Let's say you have a bagel or a donut at eight o'clock, seven o'clock in the morning and then boom, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock comes around, energy levels drop, cravings go up, and this can also cause you to overeat later on in the day. So the reason why I even start this off with like, hey, you have to fuel yourself properly in the morning, in my opinion, is because what I've found is that for most people when they don't do this, like most people that have the struggle of late night snacking or late night eating, like let's say that's you. Eight o'clock comes around, nine o'clock comes around and you're just like, I just want a piece of chocolate, I want a piece of cake, my cravings are through the roof, but it's only at night. A lot of those cravings that people experience in the nighttime are rooted in a lack of morning eating or just bad morning eating in general. And so one of my favorite antidotes for overcoming late night snacking, late night binging, late night eating, et cetera, is morning eating. So front loading your day with the right stuff. So instead of just eating carbs and sugar for breakfast, you need to have some type of protein source. If you're gonna have carbs, so it's okay to have carbs for breakfast, it's just you need to make sure if you are having carbs, you're having carbs with protein. So if I am gonna shoot for oatmeal, maybe I do oatmeal and I put a scoop of protein powder in there. If I am gonna have cereal for breakfast, not a big deal, but maybe I have a scoop of protein, a shake, I do make a protein shake, I pour the protein shake over my low sugar cereal, now I'm getting protein combined with carbs. Maybe I wanna have a bagel for breakfast, cool, there's nothing wrong with having a bagel or English muffin for breakfast, but you have the English muffin with eggs and egg whites, or you have the English muffin with Greek yogurt. So it's not just the carbs itself that are bad in the morning, it's the carbs alone. But when I combine carbs with healthy fats, carbs with healthy protein, I'm good to go. And I think in terms of how much protein should you get, like if you can wake up in the morning and get 40 to 50 grams of protein before, for noon, you're going to set yourself up for success. It's going to benefit you more than it's going to harm you. And here's the thing too, if you're on a body transformation journey, odds are you have a high protein goal right now. You probably have to eat 150 grams of protein plus per day. If you skip breakfast, which there's nothing wrong with skipping breakfast, but if you do skip breakfast, you might have a more difficult time hitting the protein goal than you would just hitting the calories. So yes, you skip breakfast, cool, you're doing intermittent fasting, you eat from 12 to 8, sweet, awesome, you're within your calories, good for you. But for a lot of women specifically, what I found is they have a really hard time hitting 150 grams of protein plus per day if you skip breakfast. So I think if someone is like, oh, I don't like eating breakfast in the morning, okay, just have something that's high in protein, that way you can still hit the protein goal because it's not just about calories, it's also about the macros, which you can miss out on. So that's mistake number one is only eating carbs for breakfast. Mistake number two is skipping breakfast for the purpose of saving calories. So you're doing intermittent fasting but not necessarily tracking. So you wait till noon and you're like, cool, I'm on an intermittent fasting journey. Now I do think intermittent fasting works for some people. I don't think it's something that is bad and you should not do it. I think you should just assess and make sure it's right for you because for some people it's not, for some people it's great. So the thing with intermittent fasting is the way that intermittent fasting works and why it's effective, because it is effective, is if you only eat within eight hours, six hours or four hours, that's your eating window, what are the odds you eat less calories? They're high. They're higher if you eat within a 24-hour window. But if you eat the same amount of calories in an eight-hour window that you do within a 24-hour window, you actually lose the same amount of weight. That's what the studies have shown when we're talking about weight loss specifically. So I'm not talking about intermittent fasting just for health benefits or all the other stuff that they talk about, but this conversation right here is for weight loss specifically. When weight loss is taken into consideration, if I eat 2,000 calories between 12 to 8 or between 2 PM to 6 PM, whatever your eating window is, versus eating 2,000 calories in a 24-hour eating window, both people will lose the same amount of weight when we are talking about weight loss specifically. So I don't want you to intermittent fast for the purpose of, oh, it's going to make me lose weight faster. Intermittent fasting doesn't make you lose weight faster. It just helps you stay in a calorie deficit because you only have four hours to eat or eight hours to eat. But as I mentioned, the caveat here is if I do intermittent fasting, cool, I hit my calories but am I able to still hit my protein? That's the real question. Most women specifically, and men too, most people really, really struggle hitting their protein goals. So from my overall experience, I think if you have a calorie goal and a protein goal to hit, eating only in a four-hour, six-hour, or even eight-hour window can be really hard to do. Is it impossible? No, it's not impossible. You still can absolutely do it, but it does make it hard. It does make it hard. So the reason why this backfires for a lot of people that skip breakfast is you skip breakfast and let's say you're not very strategic with it. You don't have a plan. So you just kind of eat whatever at 12, maybe you eat a salad or whatever. So you under-eat for lunch because you're super busy and then you don't really eat too much because you're working throughout the day and then you get off work and now your brain can't stop thinking of food. So for some, it does backfire and you end up eating more because your cravings just go through the roof after 5 p.m. And so eating breakfast, the thing is like eating breakfast doesn't mean you lose control. It means you're taking control. So one of my favorite things about eating a good breakfast and instead of skipping breakfast to save calories is if I get 50 grams of protein before noon, I feel great mentally. I'm like I'm on the right track versus when I don't, I'm like I feel behind. You know, it's like when you skip workouts, this is just the way my brain works and how I think of it. If I don't work out Monday and Tuesday and I'm starting my first workout of the week on Wednesday, I feel behind. I like starting my week off, I work out literally Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then let's say I need to take Thursday off or take Friday off, I can do that. I have the flexibility to do that because I'm ahead of the game. So I like being ahead of the game versus behind. And then I'm going to talk about some of my favorite breakfast options to eat as well that you can really use, especially if you're someone who doesn't like eating breakfast, like you don't have an appetite for it. The third mistake is letting coffee alone be your breakfast. So you're like, oh, I get coffee and cool. So only having coffee is okay. But if you have coffee and it's like a latte and it's like sugar, it kind of goes back to the first point I mentioned, only eating carbs for breakfast. So maybe you're like, oh, I just have coffee in the morning. I'm doing intermittent fasting. I'm not going to eat until 12. But your coffee is loaded with sugar. It's loaded with milk, right? It's not just coffee itself. Now I might also experience some crashes later on in the day or craving increase because I didn't fuel my body properly. So coffee suppresses hunger artificially. So what happens for some people is you only have coffee and you have sugar with it, like a lot of sugar. I'm like, you're loaded up on a latte. And this also can feel like a meal. So you have coffee and caffeine is an appetite suppressant. So you're not as hungry, which is cool. But you have the coffee plus the sugar leads to crash. So one of the easy fixes to this is if you're like, I like having coffee in the morning. Here's something that I like doing that I recommend all of my clients to do if they're like this. You add protein to the coffee. So that's another option you could do is you have coffee and you're like, I don't want to eat anything. I don't have time to prepare anything. Have your coffee. Put a scoop of protein powder in there. Now here's something that's important to note. Some protein powders will not mix with hot coffee. So I'll be very careful with that. But if you do iced coffee, for example, very, very, very easy thing to do. Another hack that I love and it's so tasty is you can make a coffee protein shake. Let's say you get cold brew, like a smoothie. You get cold brew and then you get chocolate protein powder or vanilla protein powder or whatever and you blend up a shake and you just mix it all together. It tastes very good. So that's a really easy way to combat this. So I'm flavoring my coffee with protein powder, not sugar, and I'm getting my protein in with a protein shake and then I'm also getting my coffee in. So it's a really, really good thing to do. It's also a great pre-workout if you do that as well. Now how do you fix this problem? You haven't eaten breakfast in years and you're like, all right, I want to eat breakfast. I know it's causing me to miss my protein goals. What are some options? I want to share five of my favorite breakfast options to have when you're short on time because I think that's the hard part for most people. It's time, you don't feel like eating, etc. So I think the first thing is some type of Greek yogurt combination. You cannot go wrong with this. You cannot go wrong with having Greek yogurt with a protein powder when you wake up in the morning. This is the easiest way to get 40 or 50 grams of protein in. So you get Greek yogurt, you add a scoop of your favorite protein powder, you add some berries, you mix it all together, you can top it with honey. I don't care. It tastes bomb. Very easy to make. That will take you less than 60 seconds to make. So don't tell me you don't have time to eat breakfast because you can whip that up very quickly. The next thing is let's say I love eating carbs. I love my muffins. I love my bagels. Cool. Like I mentioned, have eggs with egg whites plus the bagel or plus the avocado. So I don't just have carbs, but I have protein, preferably 30 plus grams of protein and the carbs and healthy fats with it. Awesome. So you can make an omelet. You can have your English muffin. You can have the bagel, just add some carbs with it. The next thing you do is let's say you like having oatmeal. You can make protein oats. So you see the theme here, protein, protein, protein. So I have protein oats. So I make my oatmeal. I put a scoop of protein powder in it to flavor it. I mix it all together. Yummy. Very tasty. One of my favorite things to do. How do I like making oatmeal? I like doing this. Doing oats with a fat-free Fairlife milk. I will just microwave it takes me two minutes in the microwave. Very easy. You don't have to do it in the microwave, but that's how I like to do it. Cause I am very short on time in the morning. I will take it out of the microwave. I'll put my protein powder in it. I will stir it together, chop up a banana. If I want to chop up some apples, if I want to yummy, yummy. And my tummy tummy. All right. The next one is a protein smoothie. This is my most common breakfast that I have personally. I get strawberry banana, frozen blend. Put a scoop of protein powder in there, blend it all together. And I have a strawberry banana protein shake in the morning. Very good. You could do so many versions of smoothies. I don't care what version you do, but a smoothie is a great option for breakfast in the morning. Another option is cottage cheese. So if you can implement some cottage cheese, so something I'll do to get, like, if I want to get 50 grams of protein in for breakfast, I'll do a smoothie with cottage cheese, fat-free, Fairlife milk, and protein powder. And that's 50 grams of protein that I just got in. So easy. And then the last thing you can do, if you're someone who's like, I hate eating breakfast in the morning, I don't have an appetite, add protein powder to your coffee in the morning. Or even just have a half a scoop of protein powder for a protein shake. I think that's another option too. So you're like, I don't, I just cannot eat eggs in the morning. Like that just sounds like the worst thing ever. Cool. Have half a scoop of protein powder. That's it. Half a scoop of protein powder in your coffee, just half a scoop of protein powder and like a little mini protein shake just to get ahead of the game on your protein goals. That's it. That's it. Like it's really, really easy. And then as you progress, then you can increase to one scoop and more if you need to. So in order to break free of this trap of intuitive eating, I have to start small. And remember starting off your day strong is a fat loss cheat code. Because when you do this, especially when it comes to protein, you're going to have less cravings typically throughout the day. And a lot of people's cravings they experience is because they're nutrients deprived, they're deprived of protein. They don't give enough protein and they don't really get a good meal in until later on in the day around dinner time. So go get your breakfast on. I hope this helped. And I think the last thing I want to add is when you do find a breakfast that you like, just literally stick with that. Don't make it complicated. Don't wake up in the morning and ask yourself, Oh, I wonder what I should have for breakfast today. Just eat the same thing because most people are very busy in the morning and that's how I am. So because of that, I don't want to think about and sit there and look at my fridge for five minutes. Like, Hmm, am I going to have oats? Am I going to have a smoothie? Am I going to have cottage cheese? Am I going to have this? No, no. I'm just going to eat the same thing every day. And the same right now, what I'm eating is so the way that my eating works is I'll just eat the same thing until I get sick of it and I'll change it every couple months or so. Right now, my kick is a strawberry banana protein shake with protein powder and some cottage cheese. And that's 50 grams of protein that I get in and it's absolutely delicious. In a couple months, I might change it, but for now I'm not. So try this out. I hope this helps. Um, I hope this gave you some insights and everyone's different too. So some strategies work well for some people and others work good for other people. So my homework for you is to experiment, to figure out for yourself what works best for you. Maybe it's having a full blown massive breakfast, making eggs. Awesome. Maybe it's making something little and just adding some protein powder to your coffee. Awesome. The thing, the strategy that's going to work the best is the one that you could actually follow. So if you could follow it, if you see yourself doing it longterm, then it's going to work for you. It's going to work great. If it's something that doesn't work for your schedule, for your body, you're like, Oh, when I eat this food, I don't, I feel tired. Okay, cool. Then don't eat it. Don't eat it. I feel like you're like, I eat this. I feel like throwing up. Then don't eat it. You know, I do what works for you. Do what you can do consistently. That's what's going to lead to the best results. Have the best day of your entire life. Thank you so much for tuning in. There's two ways you can support the podcast. This has been helpful for you at all. A way. Number one is you could follow the podcast either on Spotify or you can subscribe to it on Apple. And that's a no cost way for you to support way. Number two is you could leave the podcast, a genuine five-star review. Anywhere that you listen to it, either on Apple podcasts or on Spotify. That really means the world to me when you're able to do that. So the podcast can reach new ears and new listeners have the best day of your entire life. God bless. Thank you so much for tuning in. Peace.