How this one simple change to the way I make breakfast helps me to eat healthier

Breakfast is my least favorite meal. I often have no appetite in the morning and struggle to eat more than a few mouthfuls. My brain runs with a skeleton crew until I’ve had my coffee and even when I go to bed with the best intentions to eat a healthy breakfast, when the morning rolls around my bleary mind is barely able to wrap itself around the idea of making a slice of toast and jam, let alone actually making it.

I used to make myself a bowl of oatmeal packed with berries and seeds, eaten while going over my emails, but since getting a dog who demands to go out right away, my breakfasts have become more rushed and I've had to prioritize speed over nutrition.

It's meant I get a more pronounced energy crash around mid-morning and am hungrier for lunch earlier.

I needed a more nutritionally complete breakfast that worked with my faster pace of morning and didn’t require much brainpower to make. So, I decided to try making my oatmeal the night before and having it as overnight oats.

I entered all my ingredients into Yazio app to get a breakdown and the breakdown of my earlier breakfast.

Compared to two thick slices of white toast with butter and jam, the calorie count is roughly the same (379 calories for the toast) but the fat content is lower (19.1g) and the protein content has risen by more than half (5.2g).

Overnight oats recipe

Why I like this recipe

It’s quick

Obviously, the solution to my problem needed to take seconds to prep.

I try to leave my kitchen ready for the next morning—coffee pot full and ready to go, counters clear, dishes done—so it makes sense that I was just reaching for a slice of bread to put in the toaster rather than trying to remember everything to put into my oatmeal.

The overnight oats require the same number of actions as making toast, even if I heat them up, which makes me far more likely to reach for them.

It’s got some protein

Chia and flaxseeds are powerhouses of protein with 17g and 18g of protein per 100g, respectively. Of course, they’re quite high in calories too (486 per 100g for the chia, 534 for the flax) so I didn’t want to put loads in my oats, but enough to boost the protein content to a respectable amount.

I tend to rely on meals later in the day to hit my protein goals, but any improvement on my previous breakfast of toast and jam was a win.

It’s high in fiber

No more mid-morning crash. Fiber is a great weight loss tool because it keeps you fuller for longer, according to a study in the Journal of Nutrition.

We’re supposed to eat 25-30g of fiber a day, so should be aiming for 5-10g per meal, with a little extra from snacks. My overnight oats have a tidy 6.1g of fiber per serving.

In contrast, the fiber content of my two slices of toast was a dismal 1.8g—no wonder I was getting hungry so quickly.

You can eat it hot or cold

In summer, hot breakfasts aren’t my idea of a good time, but they feel like the height of luxury in winter. It’s another reason why I had relied on toast.

It takes a couple of minutes longer, but you can dump out your overnight oats into a saucepan on a medium heat, stirring it regularly to prevent it from sticking to the bottom. When it starts gently bubbling, it’s ready.

It's got a better type of fat

Don’t get me wrong, I love butter, especially when it’s locally made, got big salt crystals in it and is of a color where it could be mistaken for cheese.

However, saturated fats aren’t great for our health, particularly when from animal sources, and eating too much can be a one-way ticket to heart disease, according to the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Chia and flax seeds are pretty high in fat (31g and 42g per 100g, respectively) but these are mostly unsaturated fats, which are actually pretty good for us, helping our bodies absorb fat-soluble vitamins like D and K. This type of fat can also lead to positive outcomes for heart health according to a study in Nutrients journal.