Salad for breakfast?! Why not? Maybe a better question is, “why would you even want to consider having something other than the traditional cereal/fruit/yogurt/toast/coffee type starter to your day?”

For one, many of the breakfast foods we’ve come to rely on because they are fast and well, “breakfast foods,” are nothing but sugar bombs that cause blood sugar to soar, insulin to flood in, and fat burning to stop. Cereals, toast, muffins, scones, flavored yogurts, (they are full of added sugar) and the like are contributing to the midlife nation’s expanded and expanding waist line as well as setting more and more women up for diabetes and syndrome X. Some of those listed can be tweaked just a bit to remain in your morning routine but others just plain have to go if you want to manage your energy and your metabolism.

What must go? Bagels-yes even whole grain ones, have a half and make sure you’ve got some protein with it like peanut or almond butter, cheese, sliced turkey or chicken, plain yogurt. Same goes for whole grain bread.

Scones, muffins of all kinds and that includes the low fat, banana blueberry, carrot, walnut etc. Low fat is guaranteed to be high in sugar and no matter the ingredients, unless it’s a mini muffin it’s a sugar bomb.

Cereals of all kinds are loaded with sugar, even the “healthy” ones. We were not designed to eat processed grains but cereals are a staple of the diet and promoted by many health agencies as the perfect way to start your day. I beg to differ. Even the one cereal most of my clients who eat cereal say they bought because it was the best choice–lots of fiber and no sugar–guess again. Kellogg’s All Bran Original lists these ingredients along with the banner on the front announcing the 10 grams of fiber in every serving: Wheat bran, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, malt flavoring. The rest of the ingredients are preservatives and vitamins. (The vitamins would not have had to be added back in if this were a true whole grain cereal.) Add a small banana (1 cup sliced)  to the suggested half a cup serving and your sugar grams go from 6 grams for the cereal to 24 grams total with the banana. Pour on some low fat milk–good because of the protein content which helps balance out the rest–your “healthy” breakfast is now providing you with a total of 60 grams of carbs and 24 grams of sugar! That’s assuming you only eat one half cup. Most people don’t measure their cereal, they put in a bowl what looks like “enough.”

If you can switch your fruit to blueberries or strawberries, your cereal to oatmeal–not the instant kind–or unsweetened muesli you’ll be cutting back on the potential for low energy, mood swings, weight gain, and disease by lowering the sugar hit by half.

Salad may be a bit of a stretch. I didn’t wake up this morning and say, “wow, let me have a salad for breakfast.” Since I had to create the salad for this month’s newsletter though, once it was done and I was hungry, it became the perfect fit. It was loaded with antioxidants, fiber, protein, and some fat in the dressing. Since I made the dressing I know it had no added sugar. The best part? It was delicious and filling.

I’ll be posting other breakfasts ideas to take you beyond the cereal bowl. For now, read some labels, ditch the white starchy old stand bys and treat yourself to something delicious like an egg or two or a fresh berry and yogurt smoothie. We midlife babes have got lessen out sugar load. It’s not only aging us and keeping us puffy, it’s adding to the wrinkle thing. I’m not sure which is more motivating. What say you? Leave a comment and let me know what your breakfasts consist of.