Experimenting With Breakfast

Some people find that night eating is the hardest challenge of the day. Other people want to snack all afternoon (learned from after school snacks?). Others nibble through the day and use all their points/calories/whatever in a big blowout meal for dinner.

I’ve become aware that I am none of those people. I like to eat all morning long, particularly on week days. I think it’s because I really am not a morning person and resent getting up at 5:45am when I’d rather snuggle in bed with Tessie. I eat a perfectly reasonable breakfast at home but still find myself snacking through the morning – more than just my planned snack, and usually those extra snacks have been pretty empty of any kind of nutrition. The salty ones are very tasty even if they are empty, though.

My best friend Phyllis and I were talking about our common problem of being morning eaters and decided that one approach to dealing with it is to deliberately shift our food intake. We know we’re going to eat more then, so we might as well make sure what we eat is better for us than the crap we’ve been grabbing. Muffins and chips and bagels and cookies don’t have the nutrition we need.

I’ve been in a rut with my breakfast, or rather a series of ruts. I need something easy and fast that doesn’t require me to think very hard so when I find a combo that works, I tend to eat it for weeks and months on end. My current choice is a banana with 2% Fage yogurt, a few craisins, and a squirt of honey, often with a Kim’s Light Bagel.

Unfortunately, my tummy isn’t totally happy with this. I have pills I have to take with food in the morning and I’m getting queasy which is not a good thing. So I’m rethinking back to what I’ve had in previous breakfast routines when the pills were less problematic. Those have included steelcut oatmeal and Vive cereal with a banana, and occasionally Kashi blueberry waffles with sugar free syrup. But those don’t stick with me long.

So I’m considering having cottage cheese, which I absolutely despise but which is full of protein. The fact that I despise it is a bit of a drawback but I have a little tub of Friendship 1% whipped cottage cheese that’s supposed to taste pretty good. Add some fruit with it and it should be okay, at least for an option. And I bought some real Thomas’ cranberry English muffins and had one today with the yogurt. It tasted yummy and I also didn’t get queasy, so that bodes well.

The next trick is to figure out snacks to bring with me to work to keep me from raiding the vending machines for something to fill the empty place. I know it’s not really physical hunger as much as some kind of emotional hole being filled but for right now, I need to make sure the things that I do put in my mouth are better for me than Snickers bars or Fritos.

So my project for the week is to experiment, both with breakfast food and with morning snacks, that will leave me feeling satisfied by the time I get through lunch. I’d rather use up a bunch of points in the morning on healthy, balanced food and eat less later in the day, since the crazy-making time is definitely between 6am-noon.

The things you learn about yourself.