Top 3 Reasons to Start Your Day with Protein
Consuming morning protein helps keep your hormones balanced, increases your metabolic rate, and energizes your day
Start your day with a protein-rich, low-carbohydrate meal to maximize the rhythm of cortisol, leptin, and insulin
A high-protein breakfast can help your blood sugar remain low for up to four hours.
By contrast, starting the day with refined carbs sends your blood surging—and quickly crashing, leaving you feeling tired and hungry.
Protein also keeps you feeling fuller and more satisfied after your morning meal. A great, healthy source of protein is greens! Why? Because greens are one of the most absorbable sources of protein that contain high amounts of minerals and amino acids. You can get protein from blended or juiced greens like spinach, Chinese cabbage, peas, broccoli and asparagus.
To start your day with protein, you can add 3-4 types of veggies into a green smoothie, blended with a high quality plant-based protein powder for a protein double whammy.
The highest sources of protein come from lean meats, fish, nuts, seeds, legumes and eggs. The most absorbable protein generally comes from fresh, whole foods.
Highest in protein?
The humble edamame, contains around 18.5 grams of protein per cup, while a 3.5 ounce piece of wild-caught salmon typically contains around 22-25 grams of protein.
A morning smoothie with green protein sources and chia seeds with optional protein powder is the ideal way to start the day (even better is protein powder with amino acids!). This combination will cut down on food cravings late in the day and after dinner.
Animal protein sources are the most bioavailable, meaning they have the best absorption and a more complete amino acid profile than plant sources.
The reason that it’s important to avoid the carbs in the morning and start the day with protein is because of the cortisol peak that generally occurs during the early morning hours.
Cortisol’s job is to jumpstart your metabolism for the day. Part of that job involves breaking down muscle in order create new glucose (a source of energy). If within an hour of getting up you consume protein, then your cortisol is going to feed off that new, readily available protein (especially if it’s in amino acid form as you would have with greens) and break that down into sugar instead of breaking down muscle.
So, to avoid the morning breakdown of muscle from cortisol, eat protein within the first hour of waking.
In his book, The 4-Hour Body, Tim Ferriss recommends eating 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of getting up. Now this is an extreme example, but in the book Tim talks about his father, who saw a 23-pound weight loss in 2 months, but only 6 pounds the second month. When he started consuming 30g of protein in the morning within 30 minutes of waking “to restart fat-loss”, he dropped another 19 pounds in one month. While I don’t recommend that high of weight loss in one month, you get the idea how protein upon waking can really help jumpstart metabolism!
What does 30 grams of protein look like?
Five whole, large eggs
150g of sausage
One cup of cottage cheese
3-4oz of tuna
Five cups of lentils
Try this high protein sausage and egg lentil salad recipe which packs about 22 grams of protein per servings and is delicious!
A quart of green juice with a scoop of protein powder and some chia seeds is more than 30 grams of protein. Its a great way to kick off your day and will help you feel full longer. MindBodyGreen has a great post on high protein snacks that are vegan and keto as well.
8 Benefits of Protein for Breakfast
Good protein sources turn on metabolism and stabilize hypoglycemia later in the day, up to 30% increase for 12 hours.
High protein breakfasts help to suppress hunger over a 24-hour period.
Morning protein prevents leptin fluctuations later in the day. Morning carbohydrates throw off your leptin cycle and cause an earlier than usual rise followed by a rapid decline. This leads to cravings after dinner, especially for carbohydrates.
Morning protein enhances the production of growth hormone.
Early morning protein enhances glucagon production which blunts excess insulin and decreases insulin resistance.
Cortisol’s role is to create new glucose from storage. If you eat protein, it’s used as fuel rather than breaking down your muscle.
Protein in the morning can reduce leptin resistance (reduces sensitivity or failure of brain receptors to responds to leptin which helps to suppress appetite)
Meals which only consist of proteins eaten on an empty stomach provide a larger increase in the production of growth hormones and insulin than meals with protein, carbohydrates, and fats. A protein meal also lowers the production of cortisol. This was discovered by endocrinologists at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany in a human study. They also found a breakfast consisting of pure amino acids caused a significant growth hormone peak
I hope you enjoyed this reminder to eat more protein in the morning!
Now go figure out how to start your day with a protein boost for tomorrow, and see if it makes a difference in how you feel throughout the day.
References
Mastering Leptin by Byron Richards and Mary Guignon Richards; and The Leptin Diet by Byron Richards.
The addition of a protein-rich breakfast and its effects on acute appetite control and food intake in ‘breakfast-skipping’ adolescents. HJ Leidy and EM Racki, Department of Dietetics and Nutrition; University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), Kansas City, KS, USA International Journal of Obesity (2010) 34, 1125–1133
Stubbs, RJ, Van wyk, MC, Johnstone, AM, Harnoron CG Breakfasts high in protein fat or carb: effect on within day appetite and energy balance: Eur J Clinical Nutrition 1996 Jul;50(7):409-17.