Breakfast

The most important meal of the day. I just wish I was a morning person ... I'm not. During my super super obese years I rarely ate breakfast .. maybe that helped contribute to my problem .. or maybe it was all the crap I ate ... or maybe I ate the crap because I skipped breakfast *shrugs* ... who knows ...

All I know now is that I do eat breakfast. I don't exactly eat it when I should, right after getting up, but I DO eat it which is better than nothing ... baby steps, at least it's my first meal if the day.

I pretty much have the same thing every day. I do occasionally switch it up with some eggs or maybe a bit of kashi berry crunch *yum* but in the long run this is better calorie wise for me and it keeps me satisfied longer, besides I like it.

I prefer Scottish Oatmeal because it cooks faster than regular. Bob's Red Mill makes a great Scottish Oatmeal, look for the little bags near the cereal aisle. I switch mine up frequently but I generally only have about half a portion of oatmeal which I doctor up with flax and chia meals, some dry powdered milk, real and fake brown sugar mixed with some maple flavouring or syrup and vanilla. I like to blend artificial sugars with a bit of real sugar/syrup because even a little addition of the real stuff can go a LONG way to making this taste authentic without all the extra calories. I created a *meal* on Livestrong that reflects my current favourite way to prepare this for easier tracking ;)

Lately I started making huge batches of all the dry ingredients and storing it in large mason jars. That way when I want breakfast I don't have to laboriously weigh every ingredient one at a time. I just pour anywhere from 40-60 g in my pot add an appropriate amount of water and bring to a simmer til thick. Much easier but I did have to modify some of the liquid ingredients to use all dry instead which may or may not be easy for you. For the vanilla I found a nice source of powdered vanilla not to be confused with powdered vanilla SUGAR ... the vanilla I use is just the bean with seeds in powdered form nothing less, nothing more. It's potent stuff and kind of expensive but luckily you only need a fraction of what you'd use if using liquid vanilla extract. For the maple flavour I substituted maple sugar, unfortunately I could not find a suitable sugar free powdered alternative so there you have it ... sugar doesn't add that many calories per se I just try and cut back on my all round sugar consumption as best I can usually cause my daily sugar totals are usually higher than I'd like. I DO have a sweet tooth :)

My Oatmeal as prepared with the extra chia and flax and more recently Hemp hearts as well, has about 6g of fiber which goes a long way to help me hit my daily fiber target. Something I often have to struggle to reach even though I eat more whole grains than ever before.

Oatmeal is also incredibly versatile and the variations you can have are only limited by your imagination. Add applesauce and cinnamon, banana or strawberry(puree or whole), cranberries, dried cherries etc.

I've also been known to have oatmeal for an evening snack, I add a Tbsp or to taste of cocoa powder or a bit of chocolate and a Tbsp of peanut butter for a mock peanut butter cup flavoured oatmeal, it was tasty but not exactly as advertised ;)  I have also added pumpkin puree and spices to make a pretend pumpkin pie treat ... like I said the only restrictions are your own taste buds and what you have on hand ... experiment! I mean can you REALLY have too much oatmeal? I'm not sure.

What do YOU have for breakfast?

IA