Breakfast help?

maryashley · Post by **maryashley** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 2:49 pm

I have been struggling with eating good breakfasts on NoS. I used to tend to have a cup of coffee.. an hour later, some fruit.. maybe a cereal bar.. Kind of a "breakfast grazer." Mostly I tended to wait and have a large "brunch" and then snack through the lunch hour and on to dinner.. and then dessert / possible grazing afterwards.

So clearly I'm trying to define meals better and my biggest problem is breakfast. I'm not that hungry when I wake up and mostly just want coffee.

What do you guys eat for a sensible, relatively fast breakfast? I like savory (eggs, cheese, toasted things) over sweet but have been trying to not go hog-wild with carbs. I still feel like I'm shoving food down my throat when I don't really want to.

Breakfasts this past week, all of which include a cup of coffee:

Yogurt
Single-serving oatmeal packet and apple slices
Hard boiled egg
Clif bar

What else do you guys use to make up a breakfast meal?!

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 5:34 pm

I rarely eat breakfast, but when I do it's one of the following:

toast and seasonal fruit
oatmeal (infrequently, it's not my favorite)
toast and 1 or 2 eggs cooked in whatever style appeals to me that day
smoothie (1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup Greek yogurt, 1 cup berries)

osoniye · Post by **osoniye** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 6:36 pm

I like to have coffee and then eat breakfast a bit later when my stomach has had a chance to wake up.
I like to have - a banana, 2 scrambled eggs and a heaped half cup of leftover broccoli or cauliflower heated in the same pan with spices.
-a cup of greek yogurt with 8 oz or so of chopped fresh fruit
-hash browns and a small bowl of chili, if I'm not in a breakfast food mood.
It doesn't matter to me if lunch is just a few hours later. That's just me. Then after a plate of lunch, I'm pretty much fine till supper time.

Eeyore · Post by **Eeyore** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:25 pm

I usually do yogurt w/ either trail mix or nuts and a banana. Sometimes the banana ends up going with lunch though..

ALWAYS COFFEE!!!!

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:46 pm

high fiber cereal with a scoop of protein powder, milk just to wet, and walnuts or flaxseed meal; maybe small fruit

two-egg omelet with veggies, maybe toast/tortilla/pita

real oatmeal, optimized similarly to Reinhard's

in warm weather, smoothie with greens blended in or plain yogurt with fruit and nuts

What are your dinners like? Many people who originally weren't hungry for breakfast grazed all day eating greater amounts into the night. Then the cycle repeated. After eating regular meals and just a moderate dinner, they start waking up hungry. That happened to me for the first two years. Now I play it by ear, but always have at least milk, either in coffee or not.

You don't have to spread meals evenly. If you aren't hungry in the a.m., you could still have your coffee and then a very small breakfast later, but only enough food so that you ARE hungry during the lunch window.

harmony · Post by **harmony** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 4:03 am

I wake up and start with just a cup of coffee (I drink mine black). Breakfast usually follows an hour or two later. The best breakfast that I have found that will last me to lunch and sometimes beyond (which I never thought would be possible) is two fried eggs on a piece of whole wheat toast. I am not always in the mood for eggs (or more accurately the work it takes to make the eggs), but the protein/whole grain combo does a good job of keeping away the low blood sugar symptoms I tend to get mid morning when I just have cereal with milk (my usual default).

My fast breakfasts - sometimes when I am in a rush, but I want breakfast to last, I substitute a cup of cottage cheese (I put pepper on top) for the eggs. I know cottage cheese is classic diet food, but I've always liked it.

I also have a recipe for lentils that are cooked in a tomato sauce with little bits of green peppers and carrots. I have made that in advance and kept it in the fridge. It tasted pretty good cold on toast.

I also had a phase where I ate a piece of some of that really hearty whole grain bread with cream cheese and some hard salami (smoked salmon would be good here too). I might have to pick up the ingredients for this one... yum.

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 6:05 am

I am still struggling to come up with good breakfasts for myself. The two breakfasts that satisfy me the best are: 1) Scrambled eggs mixed with some sort of veggies, a couple of strips of bacon, fruit. 2) a green smoothie made with unsweetened almond milk, a small amount of orange juice, a banana, one other piece of fruit, and either spinach or kale. I pair my smoothie with a Trio bar, because the smoothie by itself was not enough for me.

finallyfull · Post by **finallyfull** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 1:39 pm

I am never ever hungry when I wake up - so I eat breakfast whenever I get hungry, and call it breakfast. Usually that's between 8:30 and 11. Then I eat a good one (eggs, toast, maybe some sauteed veggies or a grapefruit). This has done an amazing thing for me: it keeps me full until a late lunch (like 2 or 2:30) which, while it's a change, has totally obliterated my afternoon snack attack! Because I'm full at snacktime. And the late lunch has obliterated the pre-dinner hungries, because I'm frankly not even really hungry at all until like 8 or 9.

This has really changed things. I now realize that I have less hunger than I thought, and still more food than I need, but I am going slowly! I realize now I probably don't even need much dinner at all, but I don't want to cut yet because I know my inner rebel wants dinner, regardless of what my stomach needs. Eventually I can see having a very light dinner most of the time. Huge change for me. I have considered dinner as the big meal, but now I see it as a little goofy because I'm going to sleep soon anyway, unlike breakfast and lunch which have to get me through like six hours of awake time.

The list of easy defaults is a good place to look for ideas.

emmay · Post by **emmay** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:18 am

My favourite breakfast is two eggs, fried or scrambled, with one piece of toast. This helps me feel level, without the blood sugar crash and burn that I get when I have a cereal/oatmeal breakfast.
I sometimes add a piece of fruit and some nuts, or some bacon and fried tomato on weekends.
My backup breakfast is full fat, plain Greek yoghurt with fruit and nuts.

r.jean · Post by **r.jean** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:00 am

I am pretty stuck on a routine breakfast.
Two pieces of wheat toast or wheat waffle with spray butter.
Small serving of cottage cheese.
Banana or occasionally a different fruit.
Small glass of tomato juice.

If I a having a hungry day, I might add an egg or some peanut butter on my bread.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:18 pm

So, maryashley, what's cookin'? Do you still feel the problem? BTW, I almost always have a cup of milky coffee, even two, between breakfast and lunch. It's a work ritual I enjoy. Sometimes I wait unitl I'm hungry to have the first one, but not always.

leafy_greens · Post by **leafy_greens** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:05 pm

oolala53 wrote:What are your dinners like? Many people who originally weren't hungry for breakfast grazed all day eating greater amounts into the night. Then the cycle repeated. After eating regular meals and just a moderate dinner, they start waking up hungry. That happened to me for the first two years. Now I play it by ear, but always have at least milk, either in coffee or not.

I agree. Even if you don't want breakfast, you should be eating it anyway, so you build the three meal habit. Eventually you will get used to it and wake up hungry. Almost everyone does better with breakfast. You are probably grazing because you don't eat a real meal at breakfast time.

Some people will say "You don't have to eat breakfast and Reinhard never specifies a number of meals." This is true, but he also specifies no grazing. I would say that anything outside of 3 meals is a "mod" and should be reserved for expert No S'ers who have all of their other problem areas under control.

BTW, I personally hate most breakfast foods, so I found two that I can deal with. My at-home breakfast is OJ and Bear Naked protein cereal (or similar.) My on-the-go breakfast is peanut butter sandwich and OJ. Find something that you can tolerate, even if it's not "breakfast" food.

maryashley · Post by **maryashley** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:37 am

Woah! I'm gone for a weekend and such good responses.

We have chickens and therefore fresh eggs, so, when I have time, a couple of eggs and a slice of whole wheat toast with fruit preserves (Crofters fruit spread, mm) is my FAVORITE breakfast. But that takes enough time that it doesn't always happen.. And I'm still not STARVING in the mornings!

I do have to agree with many of you saying that you don't have to eat right when I wake up. My job is nice in that I live where I work, so I've started grabbing my coffee (with cream or milk and a little raw sugar) and heading down to the barn to do some morning chores early, then circling back for the rest of my breakfast later. And, also as some of you said, I shockingly don't "need" lunch 'til after 1 PM.. Whereas most days I find myself staring at the clock from 10:30 on ready for a fair game lunch hour.

Hopefully I can train myself to crave that breakfast in the morning. Interestingly, on a Monday like today when I've had two S days of snacking, I am more hungry for breakfast than after an N day when I haven't eaten anything since 7 or 8 the night before. Something about the fasting?

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:56 am

leafy_greens wrote: I agree. Even if you don't want breakfast, you should be eating it anyway, so you build the three meal habit. Eventually you will get used to it and wake up hungry. Almost everyone does better with breakfast. You are probably grazing because you don't eat a real meal at breakfast time.

Some people will say "You don't have to eat breakfast and Reinhard never specifies a number of meals." This is true, but he also specifies no grazing. I would say that anything outside of 3 meals is a "mod" and should be reserved for expert No S'ers who have all of their other problem areas under control.

BTW, I personally hate most breakfast foods, so I found two that I can deal with. My at-home breakfast is OJ and Bear Naked protein cereal (or similar.) My on-the-go breakfast is peanut butter sandwich and OJ. Find something that you can tolerate, even if it's not "breakfast" food.

I have always found that if I eat a substantial breakfast, I'm more likely to want to graze all day long. Not only that, I will eat more at meals.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:58 pm

You're HUNGRY after the S days, or you just feel an urge to eat? I found if I grazed a lot on S days but didn't gorge, I was more in the mood more often to eat.

leafy_greens · Post by **leafy_greens** » Thu Apr 25, 2013 1:07 pm

wosnes wrote:I have always found that if I eat a substantial breakfast, I'm more likely to want to graze all day long. Not only that, I will eat more at meals.

Me too, but I have to stop myself from grazing, just as I have to stop myself from eating chocolate. I would rather eat breakfast, and force myself to not graze, rather than skip breakfast, be hungry later, and force myself not to graze.