Everyday Systems

Hi all,

Ok, as some of you may have seen from my daily check-in, I am not a big breakfast eater. I was just wondering if anyone could give me some breakfast ideas? I don't like to eat cereal in the morning because the milk doesn't always like me that early. The same with "heavy" foods. I occasionally like scrambled eggs, or oatmeal but I don't want to eat that every day. I guess I am just concerned that toast is not really a "meal", and that maybe it is putting too much bread into my day. (Not that I am worried about carbs or anything )

Anyway, just thought I'd throw out a request for breakfast ideas. Thanks!

Hi doulachick, I'm with you. I don't usually eat until lunchtime. I eat again at dinnertime, and that's all I eat on an N day.

But if I were to have breakfast more often, it'd be a smoothie made of soy milk, frozen bananas, peanut butter, and/or whatever fruit I have in the house. Especially during the summer.

If I did that, I'd probably have to reduce the size of lunch, and I'm not in a hurry to do that.

doulachick, my suggestion: LEFTOVERS. It's my mainstay to give me variation from eggs. I deliberately usually cook extra of whatever protein I have for lunch or dinner, so I can have a piece of chicken or fish for breakfast the next day.

I used to be a no-breakfast person. Then for a while I tried to eat "healthy" by having oatmeal most mornings. But now I swear by a protein breakfast. Another advantage of leftovers is how quick they are to prepare. Eat cold, or just a couple of minutes in the microwave to reheat. Great for those of us night people who put off getting out of bed until the last possible moment.

Plain yogurt or cottage cheese with a tiny bit of honey and some berries or museli or granola mixed in? I find that yogurt doesn't bother me like milk does.

Whole grain toast with hummus and tomato?

Another vote for soymilk. 90% of the time my breakfast is cereal with soymilk. I'll occasionally have yogurt, fruit, or oatmeal... or, of couse, leftovers (especially pizza.) It's not uncommon for me to have a fruit smoothie either, though oddly they tend to be less filling than just eating the piece of fruit.

Another good milk substitute is almond milk. I use that ALL the time now. Very benign stuff.

Peetie

I used to drink a smoothie every day for breakfast -- yogurt, a little milk, a banana, and frozen fruit straight from the bag (I used to vary between strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.) Sometimes I used soymilk or added some nutritional yeast or flax oil.

This usually kept me going for quite a while, and also jump-started my daily veggie/fruit intake with 2 servings at the start of the day.

I have a grilled cheese with 9 honey wheat pretzel rods. It holds me until lunch. On Sundays I don't have time to make it so I have a bowl of cereal and I'm hungry in an hour. By the way, I make the grilled cheese with light bread and 2% cheese slices and buttery spray on the outsides of the bread and I cook it on the George Foreman. It's great!!!

I try to include protein and some sort of complex carb. Some of my breakfasts include:

Quiche--I always have a quiche in the fridge so that all I have to do is cut a slice and heat it in the microwave.

Smoothie--protein powder, oat milk, frozen berries, and plain yogurt blended, plus whole wheat toast

A cup of ricotta cheese topped with fresh or canned fruit, plus whole wheat toast topped with peanut butter

Hard-boiled egg, string cheese, whole wheat toast (or crackers), a piece of fruit

HTH!
Nancy in PA

I most often have a piece of toasted mestemacher black bread with cheese. French Raclette is very nice. Also good with it are cashews and a little bit of something green.

Another common one for me is cereal, whole milk, and a lot of fresh fruit cut in.

With a little bit of spin, dinner leftovers (which you should have more of now that you're doing no seconds) can make good breakfasts too.

My breakfasts aren't huge, but I never skip them.

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
Meat (ham, bologna, salami, whatever) and cheese sandwiches.
Cheese (hard or spreadable cream cheese) sandwiches.
Bagels.
Muffins.
Toaster waffles or pancakes with fruit.
I used to have pop tarts, but not any more. Maybe on a weekend.

I usually have any one of the above, plus a piece of fruit (if I remember). I don't eat much at breakfast, except on the weekends when breakfast slides into lunch and I combine the two meals. Its enough to keep me going until lunch. I have found the meat & cheese sandwiches let me go the longest without hunger pains.

I'm not much of a cereal person - I really dislike milk, especially after its been soaking with cereal bits. Plus, most cereals are too dry to eat on their own - except the really sugary ones, which I've always considered more of a snack or candy than a breakfast food.

Most days I will have egg, toast, and orange juice. Sometimes, just for variety's sake, I will mix it up, and have orange juice, egg, and toast. This morning it was Cheerios with vanilla soymilk. On the weekends, it's often an omelet, but I also like French toast or pancakes.

Ever had a baked potato sandwich?

Toast 2 pieces of bread. Nuke a medium potato. Slice the potato lengthwise into planks. Put ketchup or bbq sauce or whatever you like on the bread, then add potato planks and put together as a sandwich. This'll hold you til lunch!

Just have a piece of fruit and a few tablespoons of plain yoghurt and maybe a handful of walnuts or LSA (ground linseed, sesame and almonds).

Its better to have something to get your metabolism firing in the morning.

Now, according to Natural Hygeine, the body has three different 8 hour cycles. From noon to 8pm, we are in the aquisition phase, and that is when we should be eating. From 8pm-4am we are in the digestion phase, where we shouldn't eat, as our food taken in is being..digested. Then from 4am until Noon, we are in the elimination phase, where we shouldn't eat, as that is not our bodies focus. So they recommend if you must eat in the morning, that you only ingest fruit, as it is high water content, and most fruits (other than bananas which take twice as long) leave the stomach in 20 minutes or less when not conbined with any other foodstuff.

When I was on the natural hygeine diet, I only had one BM a day, around 6am, and between 11am and 1pm at some point a switch would flip and I would find myself very hungry.

but...it's a tremendously hard diet to follow, and not practical for the real world, as it has very stringent food combining disciplines (starches and proteins must not mix, fruit musn't be mixed with any other food, etc). While I followed it I felt great, but it was just too dar hard to maintain for more than 6 months.

I think I'll just eat my regular three meals a day. :0)

Interesting as this discussion has been, I think Kevin officially gets the last word here.

Thanks for all of your ideas everyone! I will sift through them and consider...well, most of them... (just kiddin' Deb!)

It's not that i don't want to eat in the morning, i'm just usually not that hungry and anything heavy just doesn't sound good (or sit well for that matter). I would eat leftovers, but i usually eat those for lunch!

Thanks again!

Hi Deb - why did you edit out your posts? I always like reading your ideas, and it didn't seem like you and Kevin were really having a fight... maybe there was more going on than I realized.

No, no fight there.. Just didn't feel like leaving them up...
I realized they were just too confusing... Basically all I was trying to respond to, only, was the comment from Prodigals post about waiting so long to eat food, as it related to how our bodies should process food, in the best of all worlds... Oh well.. It just felt like I was becoming a big Traditional Chinese Black Sheep... I'll still post those ideas, but maybe just on my thread... this way people can choose to read them or not...
I'm a sensitive soul I guess.... But that stuff is what I've been very engrossed in these days... I sometimes forget how confusing it was to me, even, when I was learning it.. Now it's like breathing to me... I'll probably wind up taking up accupuncture once Richard is in high school and can handle himself without me around all the time...
So the simple version is "We should be hungry in the morning and we should have the most Stomach energy between 7-9..." By 7-9pm we have the lowest energy for digestion in the 24 hour clock model....
That's all folks... No contradiction about eating three meals, and nothing that contradicts NoS...
Thanks for writing Ariel! I know you be my girl!!!
Love,
Deb

Hey Deb, so what does it mean if you aren't that hungry in the morning? Could it be that a person isn't doing something right in the evening? I really am wanting to know, if you want to share. I'm not usually hungry in the morning, but i did notice that if i have a lighter dinner, or i don't eat after dinner (the dreaded evening snack), that i am hungrier in the morning. It must all be connected, huh?

doulachic wrote:Hey Deb, so what does it mean if you aren't that hungry in the morning? Could it be that a person isn't doing something right in the evening? I really am wanting to know, if you want to share. I'm not usually hungry in the morning, but i did notice that if i have a lighter dinner, or i don't eat after dinner (the dreaded evening snack), that i am hungrier in the morning. It must all be connected, huh?

You answered your own question I think. Because you had a light dinner or didn't snack after dinner you were more hungrier in the morning. But Deb might know of another reason. Its all very interesting Deb so please post.
I think that we shouldn't be eating anything about 2 hours prior to going to sleep anyway. I'm so guilty of snacking right up until bedtime and then all that food just sits in my tummy probably being turned into fat.
I think that if we agree that breakfast is important then you should maybe just have a piece of fruit on its own.

No disrespect intended, Deb.

Of course not Kev!!! We tight babe
Love,
Deb