Burn More Fat with These Breakfast Foods

You can give your body a little fat-burning advantage by including items like these in your morning meal: eggs, yogurt, and whole-grain cereal.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day if you're trying to control your appetite and lose weight, but these three items in particular have been credited with extra fat-burning and pound-dropping powers in recent studies.

How They Help Burn Fat

Eggs: When people on low-calorie diets ate two scrambled eggs with toast and jam for breakfast, they lost 65 percent more weight than the dieters who started their day with a bagel and cream cheese. The protein in eggs probably helps control appetite, so people eat less. (Try this quick recipe for super-satisfying scrambled egg burritos and start reaping the breakfast benefits.)

Yogurt: Calcium and other helpful compounds in yogurt may help stop fat storage and turn up fat burn. In one study, obese people on reduced-calorie diets lost 61 percent more fat overall -- and even more belly fat -- when they ate three 6-ounce servings of yogurt every day. This was compared with the people who had no yogurt in their diets. (Short on time? Make this yogurt-enhanced Cranberry Muesli recipe the night before.)

Whole-Grain Cereal: Research shows that people lose more belly fat when they replace refined-grain foods with whole grains. All the appetite-controlling fiber they pick up in the process probably accounts for the slimming effect. Plus, whole grains can help control blood sugar and lower blood pressure, and they can even reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers. (Are multigrain foods just as good? Read this before you go grain shopping.)

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Dairy augmentation of total and central fat loss in obese subjects. Zemel, M. B. et al., International Journal of Obesity 2005 Apr;29(4):391-397.

Egg breakfast enhances weight loss. Vander Wal, J. S. et al., International Journal of Obesity 2008 Oct;32(10):1545-1551.

The effects of a whole grain-enriched hypocaloric diet on cardiovascular disease risk factors in men and women with metabolic syndrome. Katcher, H. I. et al., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2008 Jan;87(1):79-90.