I have been wanting to share what I have been doing as far as food goes on my new journey on this page for quiet a while. Right at the beginning of January when I decided to buckle down and start living in a healthier way, my diet was pretty healthy and I lost about 15 lbs right away. Well, while I worked on my gym schedule and getting more consistent with working out my diet started slipping a bit. I was doing my best to work 4 days a week at the gym into my schedule and to be 100% honest, I just got a little lazy with meal prep for a while there. My weight was staying at the same weight and was just not budging. I was obviously getting frustrated, but knew I needed to clean up my diet even more to see results again. I took to some friends for advice and was able to come up with a nice meal plan that works for me. I don't want to dedicate a whole post about that, because I have done that already. What I did want to do is break down each meal, explain what I am personally doing, why this works for me, and give some examples and/or tips. Today I am starting with breakfast.

I used to be a pretty light eater in the mornings. Back in my teenage years I hardly ever even remembered to eat breakfast in the mornings before school. I think that was a huge issue for me to be honest and why my weight got so out of control. As a friend of mine pointed out, breakfast really should be your biggest meal of the day. If you eat a big breakfast, it will keep you going and will be burned into energy throughout your day (rather than a big dinner where you are pretty much settling in for the day and do not need as much energy). 

I started making myself have a big breakfast about two months ago. Quite honestly it was pretty hard to do at first because I was not used to eating that much so early. My goal was a breakfast between 500 and 600 calories. I tend to be right in that range, but if not it is usually in the high 400 range. I am always full when I finish and that is usually a good sign. The main reason for that is because it holds me over completely until lunch time. Typically I used to start feeling my stomach growling by 10:30 am, and I usually eat my lunch around noon. The fact that I am no longer hungry before then makes me less prone to snack between these two meals. Snacks are important too in my opinion, I will write a post about that in the future, but the timing and amount of snacking you do is crucial as well while trying to lose weight. 

There are plenty of great ways to have a big healthy breakfast that are fairly quick to make. I typically give myself about 20 extra minutes in the morning before I have to go to work, but I know not a lot of people do this. Most of the breakfasts I make, however are fairly fast to make and you can multitask as well. Here are a few examples:

Oatmeal with Fruit and Something Sweet: Oatmeal is great because it really is a blank canvas. What I have been doing is cooking up one serving of oatmeal (typically only takes about 5 minutes). While the oatmeal cooks, I slice up some fruit to top it off with and warm something up to drizzle on top. One of my most recent concoctions is oatmeal with fresh peaches and melted cookie butter drizzled on top. I know, suggesting cookie butter probably sounds crazy to you. It is by no means healthy, but the way I look at it is as long as it fits in your calories, is measured by the serving size, and you don't eat it all the time, it is fine. Allowing yourself something sinful like that will make you less prone to cheat and eat half of a jar of it later on. Another great example of an oatmeal combo would be oatmeal, sliced strawberries, and melted peanut butter on top. Really there are plenty of combinations to choose from.

High Protein Pancakes with Eggs and Fruit: Have you ever heard of Kodiak Power Cakes? Probably the best store bought pancake mix I have ever tried and it is a very healthy option. These pancakes have a good amount of protein, are made with whole grains, and typically only have around 200 calories a serving. I will make up a serving of these, scramble up 1 whole egg with 2 egg whites, and add some sliced fruit to the plate. Add a tablespoon of pure maple syrup on top of the pancakes and you are still well in the calorie range.

Yogurt, Fruit, and Granola Parfait: This has been my go-to breakfast as of lately. Mostly because summer is probably the best season for fruit. This breakfast is probably the easiest since there is no cooking involved. Just some chopping and measuring and that's it. I think the best part about this one is that it is very versatile. I have been trying to cut out dairy where I can, so I have been using coconut milk and nut milk yogurts when making these. Try to use plain yogurt regardless to the type it is as this will cut the amount of sugar. The granola has been fun too. I have been trying the different flavors of paleo granola that our Whole Foods sells in bulk as well as some ancient grain granola from Trader Joe's. The fruit can be anything you like as well. Peaches are great this time of year so those have been my go-to, but berries are great this time of year as well. I wanted to share a picture of the different combos I have been having here.

I hope those examples helped at least give you an idea of breakfasts you can make on your own! Get creative and make something that you know you will love to eat and look forward to having in the morning. Having a big breakfast has been working wonders for me and I highly suggest it to anyone trying to eat right. I would love to hear some suggestions from any of you if you have them as well!

I will follow up this post eventually and share a new post based on the other meals of the day as well. I also look forward to writing a blog about my personal experience working with a personal trainer as I just started weekly sessions this past Thursday. There are a lot of fun things coming up that I have in store for this page here, so hang tight and as always, thank you for reading!