Breakfast: My Favorite Meal of the Day

Breakfast, I'm into it.  I'm also a morning person, so it's possible these two things are related.  I believe in two things:  1) eat breakfast & 2) either eat the same thing every morning or rotate through 2-3 set options.  I'm a rotator, mostly because my breakfast needs change depending on whether or not I work-out in the morning.  

I don't want to make this all about calories, but I know, like me, a lot of you track your food on MyFitnessPal.  My daily calorie goal is 1,500 & I use 200 - 300 of that on breakfast.

This is my standard breakfast.  It's good on cold mornings & it keeps me full on days when I forget a mid-morning snack or have a late lunch.  I use whatever berries are at the store that week.  In the winter months, I use jelly instead of fresh fruit.  In the summer, I'm likely to swap the oatmeal for Fage Greek Yogurt.

1 packet Trader Joe's Organic Oats & Flax Instant Oatmeal, 150 calories
1 tbsp Trader Joe's Organic Raw Walnut Halves & Pieces, 75 calories
Fresh strawberries, 9 calories
2 cups coffee (not pictured), 5 calories
Total calories:  239

I love waffles, but quit eating them until recently because I wanted to eat them slathered in butter & syrup.  Turns out, I like them just as much with peanut butter & jelly.  And I only need one waffle, not two.  The grapefruit is a new addition.  I'm into it.  For lower calorie days, I only eat half the grapefruit.

1 Van's Totally Natural Waffle, 75 calories
1 tbsp Skippy Natural Peanut Butter, 95 calories
1 tbsp jelly, 20 calories
1 whole Ruby Red grapefruit, 97 calories
2 cups coffee (not pictured), 5 calories
Total calories:  292

This is my favorite breakfast.  I only eat it once or twice a week & I save it for the mornings where I do a hard work-out.  You know, like a 3-mile run & a 90 minute swim.  Those days.  Do I need cheese AND avocado?  Nope.  Do I do it anyway?  Yep.

There are smarter, lower calorie ways to eat this:  no cheese (DUH); no cheese & only 1/4 avocado; or half a Laughing Cow wedge & 1/4 avocado, which you can mix together & spread on the tortilla (it's really good that way).

1 La Tortilla Factory - Soft Wraps Mini Fiesta, 50 calories
1 egg, 70 calories
1/8 cup, shredded cheese, 55 calories
1/2 avocado, 114 calories
2 cups coffee with splash of Silk Vanilla Almond Milk, 5 calories
Total calories:  294

COFFEE TAWK

Let's talk about coffee.  When I first starting using MyFitnessPal, I was using 40 calories a day on half and half.  I needed those 40 calories for other things, like cheese & avocado, so I switched to skim milk.  But the skim milk didn't really doing it for me.  I now use Silk Vanilla Almond Milk.  I don't count it in my calories because it's 90 calories per 1 cup serving & I only use a splash.

LINKS

Below are two articles I read online this week that spotlight the balance between self acceptance & weight loss.  They're not long & I highly recommend reading both.  The fist article includes this life-changing sentence, "Just refuse to think of life in "fat bad" and "skinny good".

Question, The Frenemy

My friend SKB pointed out this awesome quote from the second article, "People who do manage to keep significant weight off, tend to share common habits:  They weigh themselves regularly, limit variety in their diet, eat breakfast, and exercise roughly one hour every day".

Why Keeping Weight Off, Not Losing It, Is The Real Victory, Vogue