Eating a morning meal is a healthy habit if you’re watching your weight.Made in Mexico: It doubles as a sweet and spicy dessert. A dish to start your day with a kick.Morning meal is a healthy habit if you’re watching your weight. Here’s why: research shows that regular breakfast eaters tend to be leaner and dieters are more successful at losing weight—and keeping it off—when they eat breakfast. What’s more, people who typically eat breakfast also get more fiber (more on why this is important later), calcium, vitamins A and C, riboflavin, zinc and iron—and less fat and dietary cholesterol. Perhaps it’s because they often eat cereal, which is fortified with vitamins and minerals, and fruit, which is naturally nutrient-rich.

fitnesslines-com-breakfast

TOMATO, ARTICHOKE, AND FETA FRITTATA

1 egg
1 egg white
Cooking spray
1/4 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup canned artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 tsp chopped shallot
3 Tbsp crumbled feta cheese
1 slice whole-grain bread, toasted

Whisk together egg and egg white. In a skillet misted with cooking spray, cook tomato, artichoke, and shallot for 2 minutes over medium heat. Reduce heat to low, and add eggs. Cover, and cook 3 minutes, until eggs are firm. Top with feta. Serve with toast.

Raspberries

A cup of raspberries delivers a whopping 8 grams of fiber (that’s more than double what’s in a cup of strawberries and about the same amount in a cup of some types of beans). What’s so great about all that fiber? Recent research in the Journal of Nutritionsuggests eating more fiber as a way to prevent weight gain or even encourage weight loss. Over the course of the two-year study, the researchers found that boosting fiber by 8 grams for every 1,000 calories resulted in about 4 ½ pounds of weight lost.

SCRAMBLED EGGSADILLA

1 whole egg plus 1 egg white
2 Tbsp chopped green pepper
2 Tbsp chopped red onion
1 8-inch whole-wheat tortilla
1 oz Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
2 Tbsp chunky salsa

Scramble eggs with pepper and onion, and fold into tortilla with cheese and salsa.

Oatmeal

Oatmeal can help you lose weight in two ways. First, it’s packed with fiber and it keeps you feeling fuller longer. Second, a recent study in the Journal of Nutrition reported that eating a breakfast made with “slow-release” carbohydrates—such as oatmeal or bran cereal—3 hours before you exercise may help you burn more fat. How? Eating “slow-release” carbohydrates doesn’t spike blood sugar as high as eating refined carbohydrates (think: white toast). In turn, insulin levels don’t spike as high. Because insulin plays a role in signaling your body to store fat, having lower blood sugar levels may help you burn fat.

EGGS ‘N’ GREENS

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 cups spinach
1 egg
1 Tbsp Sriracha sauce

Add half the olive oil to a heated skillet, sauté mushrooms and spinach, and remove to a plate. Add remaining olive oil to the skillet. Crack egg into the pan, and cook sunny-side up. Add egg to vegetables. Drizzle with Sriracha sauce.