5 Brunch Mistakes To Avoid

Having brunch instead of breakfast and lunch can be a great way to save a few calories when you’re dieting. Many people get fooled into thinking they need a huge breakfast to kickstart their day and boost their metabolism, but they often find themselves feeling hungry again by lunchtime, and so end up grabbing something from the vending machine, hitting the work canteen, or dashing to the nearest takeout restaurant for a calorie-filled, dieting-disaster meal.
 

 

Having brunch can be an excellent alternative — but if you make the same common mistakes that so many others fall for, you may be taking a step back, rather than forward. What can you do to make sure that your brunches help you on your path to dieting success and weight loss goals?

1. Choose Calorie-Free Drinks

This is an easy one, and a really simple way to save calories. Just make sure that all your drinks contain either no calories – or are as close to zero calories as possible. Plain water is your best choice, especially given the fact that most people fail to drink enough water, but you could also go for tea or coffee. Herbal teas are high in antioxidants, so you might want to consider going for green tea, red bush tea, or ginseng for a bit of a change. These teas have also been associated with a boost in your metabolic rate, which can help increase your fat loss.

If you usually have coffee, you’re absolutely fine to stick with that, but just ditch the sugar. If it’s not sweet enough for you without sugar, then a small pack of sweetener, or a tablespoon of sugar free syrup can help. Adding milk to your tea or coffee also boosts your daily calorie count, so you may want to revisit that. Also, if you’re particularly inclined, you can have diet sodas, as they’re calorie free, but it depends whether you can stomach them that early in the day!

2. Skip the Condiments

Condiments just add unnecessary calories, so you’re best off avoiding them. Most of the time you’ll find that you don’t need them anyway, and just add them out of habit. If you can’t do without them though, look for low sugar versions of your favorites, such as low sugar maple or chocolate syrup, or go for a naturally low calorie alternative, such as a tomato salsa, or hot sauce.

3. Pick Protein

Instead of high carb items, choose high protein ones. Protein helps keep you fuller for longer, and is “thermogenic”, which means it takes the body more time and energy to break it down, so burns more calories during the digestion process. Lean sausages and bacon are a good bet – the higher quality the better, so get free range, organic, or grass fed if possible. Or you can go for the classic – eggs. A couple of poached, scrambled or boiled eggs is an ideal protein hit.

4. Avoid Buffets

Eating brunch at home is easy, as you can control portion sizes. If you’re going out though, try to avoid all you can eat restaurants and diners, as it’s easy to get carried away. If you can’t avoid them, just make sure you stick to one plate of food.
 

5. Skip Fruit

Fruit is good in moderation, but the calories can quickly add up. If you want some fruit, have some mixed berries, and apple, plum, kiwi fruit or bowl of melon. These are much lower in carbs than things like bananas, pineapple and dried fruit.

Hopefully that’s given you some ideas of how to turn your brunch from an all out dieting disaster, to a healthy, calorie-controlled, tasty start to the day.