Many moons ago, breakfast was not my thing. It was hard for me to wake up and eat breakfast before school. People would tell me, “But breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”
I feel like you either eat breakfast or you don’t.
You have two different people.
You have people like me who wake up not feeling hungry and have to be up a few hours before even starting to feel that hungry feeling. Then, you have people like my husband and son who are ready to eat as soon as their feet hit the floor out of bed. It has always amazed me that I can make them a larger breakfast, and they will eat it within 5 minutes after being awake. How are stomachs that awake yet? Haha.
When I first started losing weight over five years ago, I knew to make it stick; I had to start just making small changes at a time. With MANY nasty eating habits, I believed that breakfast was my biggest issue. I decided to start with this. I remember buying the breakfast essentials drink, and that’s how I started. I thought it would at least give me some nutrients to start my day. Vanilla was my favorite! After a few weeks of consistently drinking one each morning, I started getting hungry sooner.
Let’s back up to six years ago when I never ate breakfast. I’d wake up and go about my day — about 10:30-11 a.m. I’d start to get really hungry, but it would get so close to lunchtime that I would make myself wait to eat. So, by 12-12:30 p.m., I was starving! This caused me to overeat at lunchtime. Carrying out whole chip bags with a sandwich loaded with mayo, a tasty cake, and some kind of fruit helped me feel like it made everything else OK to eat. So, I wouldn’t be overly hungry by dinner because I ate so much for lunch. For dinner, I ate moderately, but by bedtime, I was starving again because I didn’t eat much at dinner. So, that caused me to eat ice cream and more chips probably about five nights out of seven days a week at bedtime. I knew that if I could change breakfast first, it would snowball into each meal, making it better.
That’s exactly what I did. After weeks of my breakfast essential drinks, I started adding a banana. Then, that caused me to have an English muffin with peanut butter some mornings, which snowballed into wanting something salty, which made me try turkey bacon. Everything just kept snowballing, including making my lunches healthier and not binge eating at night. All because of eating breakfast. This took years of practice and learning more about macros and the benefits of protein, fats, and, yes, carbs!
I still don’t wake up and eat right away. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. But I eat breakfast between 7:30-8:30 a.m. and I even have a morning snack at work mid-morning, which consists of high protein Greek yogurt and berries for fiber. I don’t drink breakfast essentials anymore. I learned more about protein back then and started drinking and eating more protein for breakfast. Back then, I believe they only had around 13 grams of protein in them. Now they make breakfast essentials with high protein, around 18 grams, but I started using a powder that gave me 25+ grams of protein and kept me full for much longer. I was a work in progress, investing in my knowledge to help me learn to keep weight off.
As the months went on, breakfast started to excite me. I’d lay in bed at night and plan my morning breakfast. Would I have oatmeal with protein powder and scrambled eggs? What about just a protein shake with half of a banana? Turkey bacon with egg, cheese, and a 100-calorie English muffin sounded good, too, but what about an omelet with 1/3 cup of ham with fresh fruit?
My breakfast pallet had really expanded, and it was exciting to me!
I love cereal, but I only allow myself to have one bowl a week, typically on Saturday mornings, and I measure out my serving. Cereal doesn’t keep me full for long, but man, I love a bowl of Reese’s Puffs, Fruity Pebbles, or Frosted Flakes. Having a bowl a week has not hurt me but has allowed me not to feel deprived in any way.
I could now eat breakfast not only for breakfast but also for lunch or dinner! Breakfast was not even a thing for me, and now it is my favorite meal of the day because it keeps me on track! So many yummy breakfast foods that are fuel and energy for our bodies to kick start our day, and it literally takes me less than ten minutes to make most of my favorites.
That one change in my life has made such big changes, snowballing old habits into new habits. Another thing that has changed my life is a word called consistency. Consistency makes all the difference in the world! We will talk more about that next week, and I’ll share more of my quick, easy breakfasts with you.
Breakfast in 12 minutes: Omelet & Oats
First, cook two slices of turkey bacon. Aldi has the best with their “Never Any” brand!
Turkey bacon doesn’t take long to cook at all.
While that’s cooking, prep your Quaker Oats quick one-minute oatmeal. Pour 1/4 cup in a bowl with 1/4 cup of water, but don’t heat yet. (I add one scoop of vanilla protein powder for sweetener & protein.)
Next, scramble and season one or two eggs. It’s up to you how big you want that omelet.
As soon as the bacon is done, cook your eggs in a well-greased pan. When it looks like the bottom of the egg is ready to flip, flip’er like a pancake. While the bottom of the eggs finish cooking, top with the cooked bacon and a slice of American cheese, laying it all off to one side of the egg.
Start heating your oatmeal at this point.
When the egg is finished cooking, flip half the egg over the top of the bacon and cheese, omelet style.
Grab a mug of your favorite morning beverage and some fresh fruit, and you are breakfast ready with 47 grams of protein (protein powder and two eggs) with 539 calories for all this. Enjoy!
