Breakfast

They say it’s the most important meal of the day and personally it’s one of my favorites. I always eat breakfast – its just a matter of when. By that I don’t mean eating “breakfast” at noon – I mean eating before or after my workout depending on the morning. If I workout early (7 or 8 am) I like to wait and eat after, but if I workout much past 9 I’ll eat beforehand. This is something I had to experiment with to discover what works best for me and you should to. Personally, I don’t like to eat to soon before running but also don’t like to lift on an empty stomach so I make my breakfast decisions day by day, but I always do eat breakfast.

This breakfast here is a post-work out breakfast. All my breakfasts follow a similar template but differ slightly depending on how hungry I am and what I’ve done or will do that day exercise wise. Breakfast is the first fuel you put in your body so you want to make sure it’s high quality and appropriate quantity. The biggest mistake you can make is feeding your body sugar and junk in the morning, this will only cause you to feel sluggish and increase sugar cravings later in the day.

Here you can see a simple breakfast, it has a mix of protein, fats, carbs and minerals not to mention some of my favorite foods. My breakfast always includes a protein source (almost always eggs), a healthy carb (lately oatmeal) and a fruit. This being a post-workout breakfast I added some bacon for extra protein and fat to help me recover.  But you’ll notice I didn’t pig out on bacon as it is one of those delicious foods that is not very filling for it’s caloric intake, meaning consistently over-eating it is not a great idea. I don’t sugar my oatmeal, rather I add a drop of honey for sweetness and antioxidants, again just be careful not to overload on this. And of course some fruit for micronutrients.

As I mentioned, eggs are a staple of by breakfast routine. This is because I find them both yummy and filling. 1 egg contains 6+ grams of, 5 grams of healthy fat, and 0 grams of sugar and carbs, and vitamins/minerals such as omega-3 fats, vitamin D, vitamin A and vitamin E. Eggs can get a bad rep for cholesterol content  (one large egg has roughly 213 mg of cholesterol which is about two-thirds of the recommended daily limit). But recent studies have found that high blood cholesterol does not come from eating cholesterol as much as it is a result of diets high in saturated fat. In fact eggs even contain disease-fighting carotenoids that may reduce risk for blindness in adults and enhance memory. When at home I fry my eggs in a using coconut-oil spray to keep any added fats out. At school I opt for the fried eggs or the hard boiled eggs over the scrambled eggs as often the scrambled are not made from actual eggs and it’s harder to measure portions when just scooping up scrambled.