Every balanced meal should include some form of protein—including breakfast, which should serve as a way to boost your energy in the morning and start your day off on the right foot. And especially if you’re trying to lose weight, lean proteins oftentimes make the best options. This type of protein is low in saturated fats and calories, making it a great addition to your plate that can pack in nutrients without loading your meal with excessive calories.

However, many of the most well-known lean proteins include options like chicken, turkey, and even legumes, which most people don’t associate with breakfast. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t many delicious lean proteins that work perfectly on your breakfast plate! To learn more about some of the best options out there, we spoke to dietitians Trista Best and Catherine Gervacio. They told us that egg whites, cottage cheese, and yogurt are all great choices. Find all of their expert insight below.

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1. Egg whites

Eggs are certainly a breakfast staple, whether you like ’em scrambled, poached, or as part of a protein-packed omelet. And if you really want to kick things up a notch as far as weight loss benefits go, Best recommends opting for egg whites, which can keep your breakfast as low-calorie as possible while still containing a good amount of protein.

“Egg whites can be a great way to cut down on the fat of a traditional egg-based meal while maintaining a lean source of protein,” she says, noting that this allows you to “cut down on calories from 71 to 18, while only losing 2 grams of protein.” Meanwhile, the fat content “drops from 5 grams in an entire egg to zero when only eating the egg whites.” That’s perfect!

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2. Cottage cheese

Don’t sleep on this nutritious dairy product! This underrated breakfast food can do wonders for your health, especially if you’re trying to lose weight. Best tells us that “a half-cup serving of cottage cheese can provide around 13 grams of protein.” We had no idea! Plus, this tasty, versatile food is “relatively low in calories,” coming in just around 80 calories per serving.

Additionally, Best points out that cottage cheese offers up a healthy dose of calcium, phosphorus, selenium, and vitamin B12. “These nutrients play important roles in bone health, immune function, and overall health,” Best assures us. Nice!

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3. Yogurt

Parfait, anyone? Yogurt doesn’t only serve as the perfect base for nutritious nuts and berries; it’s also an amazing source of protein and gut-healthy probiotics. “Yogurt is probably one of the most popular breakfast choices for those who want to lose weight because of its protein and probiotics content,” Gervacio says.

This protein-packed breakfast food, she notes, is amazing for your gut health because it “has millions of good bacteria to improve digestion by balancing out the microflora in the gut.” These probiotics, Gervacio says, “are known to aid in the release of the hormones peptide YY (PYY) and peptide-1 (GLP-1) known to reduce appetite. Increasing the release of these hormones may burn more calories and fat.” Amazing!

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The bottom line

Adding lean protein to your breakfast is one of the most important things you can do to support healthy weight loss. And when it comes to choosing the best options out there that are as tasty as they are healthy, take the advice of the experts: you can’t go wrong with egg whites, cottage cheese, or yogurt.

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