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You know that breakfast is incredibly important, but when it comes to picking and choosing foods on a hectic morning, making the most of your first meal of the day isn’t always a breeze.
Some of the most classic breakfast foods also happen to be high in sugar and processed carbs. And instead of fueling you for the day and giving you the nutrients you need to absolutely slay work and everything on your to-do list, they can weigh you down.
This is the one high-carb breakfast doctors say you should stop eating because it slows your metabolism.
Sugary Refined Carbohydrates
Don’t let clever marketing tactics fool you: a number of traditional breakfast foods you may think of as healthy starters to your day are actually sugar-filled refined carbs that have been processed and stripped of essential nutrients like fiber, which actually will fill you up.
As you can probably guess, this is the breakfast category where you’ll find foods like pancakes, waffles, doughnuts, croissants, and even most cereals.
A diet that is high in sugar is bad for your health AND your weight loss goals.
“A higher carb intake may increase dangerous blood fats known as triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein or “bad” cholesterol,” study author Mashid Dehghan, PhD, an Investigator in the Nutrition Epidemiology program at the Population Health Research Institute and Senior Research Associate in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, explained to Reader’s Digest.
The big problem with filling up on foods that are high in sugar is that these empty calorie foods are usually void of important nutrients like protein, vitamins, and minerals, and raise sugar levels, while throwing your hormone levels out of whack.
According to studies, when you blood sugar stays elevated for long periods of time, which is called hyperglycemia, it promotes insulin resistance, which can cause weight gain.
You may be tempted to forego carbs altogether in favor of a high-protein breakfast like eggs, which is perfectly healthy and a great idea.
But eliminating all carbs doesn’t have to be the solution and isn’t always preferable, according to health experts.
“Our study does not support a very low carbohydrate intake (e.g. below 50 percent of caloric intake), and moderate intakes (e.g. 50-55 percent of caloric intake) are likely to be more appropriate than either very high or very low carbohydrate intakes,” Dr. Dehghan told Reader’s Digest.
Excellent healthy carb breakfast choices include low-sugar bran cereals and oatmeal — just be sure to choose rolled oats or steel-cut oats and not pre-packaged flavored varieties that can be loaded with sugar.
