How to maintain a healthy breakfast for busy athletes

Athletes are often time-poor and so it can always be challenging to establish a healthy breakfast routine – especially when you are running to fit in training before starting your day. Does this sound familiar?

Breakfast should always contain carbohydrates for fuelling, protein for muscle recovery and some other nutrition boosters like fibre, healthy fats and antioxidants for optimal health and to help recover from training. In the rush of the day it can be hard to think of all these things for your nutrition on top of getting to school or work on time after training.

Below are 20 ideas for breakfast depending on your athlete schedule.

8 ideas for when you have preparation time on the weekend to make brekky for the week

1. Individual containers of bircher or overnight oats made with milk and yoghurt and grated apple and topped with fresh fruit
2. Breakfast frittata: Base of sweet potato, filled with onion, grated zucchini, cherry tomatoes, ham, baby spinach with cheddar or feta cheese on top – cut into slices ready to serve
3. Zucchini and corn slice – cut into slices and put one per container to grab
4. Savoury veggie muffins and grab a milk based coffee for extra protein boost
5. Chia pudding made with light milk and topped with mixed berries and natural yoghurt
6. Bran and date muffins with high protein yoghurt tube
7. Breakfast snacking lunchboxes: 2 Boiled eggs (which can be boiled and put back in the fridge for up to a week), grapes or banana, 2xslices of cheese, cherry tomatoes, 10-12 almonds
8. Smoothie bags – add chopped banana or berries + 1tbs oats + 6-8 almonds + ½ cup spinach leaves to a freezer bag. Take bag out of the freezer and dump all in a blender with preferred milk or water and blend. – try a different fruit and vege combo to mix up flavour during the week

4 brekky suggestions you could grab and go if you miss your prep time

1. Musashi protein powder with milk in a shaker and an oat based muesli bar
2. Breakfast Biscuits with a large coffee and piece of fruit
3. High protein yoghurt tube and punnet of blueberries or strawberries
4. Medium tin of baked beans plus piece of fruit or cherry tomatoes

8 ideas for when you have time to make breakfast in the morning to take with you

1. Sourdough Toasties: Ham, cheese, tomato, avocado and rocket
2. Breakfast wraps: Grainy wraps with tomato relish, cheese, eggs and baby spinach
3. Smoothies: Frozen banana, blueberries, cacao, milk, yoghurt, nut butter, Musashi protein powder and ice
4. Peanut Butter wrap with banana and cinnamon plus glass of milk
5. Fruit salad, muesli and high protein yoghurt
6. Avocado toast with freshly squeezed lemon and cheddar cheese slices or crumble feta
7. Sourdough fruit bread with ricotta and honey and slices strawberries
8. Porridge sachets (grainy ones are best) of which you can add hot water/milk and microwave, top with fruit and crushed nuts