We've Gone Horribly Wrong With Breakfast

One of the biggest problems with a “regular” diet in America these days is breakfast.  Think about what most people eat for breakfast each day:

• Cereal
• Milk
• Waffles
• Pancakes
• Toast
• Danishes
• Donuts
• Juice
• Bagels
• Yogurt
• Fruit

ALL of these are full of sugar - yes, even yogurt and fruit.

We’ve been told for years that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but that’s actually not true - there isn’t necessarily a time of day that it’s most important to eat.  The important thing is to eat when you’re HUNGRY - not because the clock says it’s meal time.  If you’re not hungry, don’t eat.

But let’s get back to all that food I just listed.  Let’s take cereal.  A serving size of Cheerios is 1 cup - and let’s be honest - how many people measure out their cereal and only eat 1 cup?  That one cup of cereal has 20g of carbs - if you’re on a low-carb diet that’s your carb goal for the DAY (or at least a lot of it) and you’ve just knocked that out with ONE cup of Cheerios.  And I won’t even get into the ridiculous statement on the box of Cheerios (and other cereals) that claim they’re “heart healthy” from the American Heart Association. That’s a topic for another day.

Let’s look at the milk. One cup of 2% milk has 12g of carbs…and guess what those carbs are?  They are 100% sugar.  So now you’ve poured 12g of sugar over your 20g of carbs in your Cheerios and you’re up to 32g of carbs and all you’ve had is a morning bowl of cereal.  And raise your hand if you’re starving an hour later after eating said bowl of cereal - especially if you stuck to the one cup serving size.

The other items on the list are terrible as well.  Look at the total carb count per serving size of these:

*Waffles - 2 Eggo waffles are 28g

*Pancakes - 3 Eggo pancakes a whopping 45g

*Oatmeal

• 1/2 cup of Quaker oatmeal 27g
• 1 packet of oatmeal from those boxes average 19g to 41g per packet depending on what kind you get

*Toast - 2 slices of Wonder white bread 29g

(And lest you think that’s bad because it’s white bread and whole grain bread is better…Oroweat whole grain bread has 21g PER SLICE!  So that’s even worse than the white bread.)

*Danishes - maybe you stop at Starbucks each morning for a coffee and a danish..check out these options from Starbucks:

• Coffee cake - 43g
• Blueberry muffin - 52g
• Morning bun - 46g

*Donuts - your average Krispy Kreme glazed donut - 21g

*Juice - this is one of the biggest problems!  This is basically candy in a glass.  One 12oz glass of Tropicana orange juice has 39g of carbs and 34g of that is sugar!

*Bagels - maybe you think grabbing a bagel is a good breakfast.  Take a look at how many carbs are in these options at Panera Bread:

• Cinnamon Crunch Bagel - 82g
• Blueberry Bagel - 69g
• Whole grain - 67g

*Yogurt  - this is another item that many think is healthy but you have to check the labels.  Low fat Yoplait Cherry yogurt has 27g of carbs and 19g of that is sugar and the other 12g is ADDED sugar!  So that 19g wasn’t enough they added even MORE!

*Fruit - this is another type of food that people think is completely healthy because it’s “natural” and something we need.  I’ve talked about fruit in depth before but take a look at how many carbs are in various forms of fruit on average:

• Apple - 20-25g
• Banana - 25-30g
• Orange - 15-20g

Let’s put this into comparison - think about how many grams of carbs and sugar are being consumed in all of those breakfast foods and now look at how many carbs are in various candy bars.

• Reese's Peanut butter cup - 23g
• Snickers - 35g
• Milky Way - 37g
• M&Ms - 35g

Do you see the problem? A lot of those breakfast foods have MORE carbs/sugar than a CANDY BAR!

So what do we do about this?  Stop eating the Standard American Diet - all of these foods that are horrible for us.  We’re just feeding ourselves tons of sugar by eating these things every morning.

Some great breakfast foods to eat would be:

*Eggs - this is a perfect food for the macros we need in our bodies and lots of ways to cook them. Here are just a few ideas:

• scrambled
• fried
• poached
• hard boiled
• egg salad (use quality mayo!)
• omelet

*Bacon - yes, bacon is fine to eat

*Avocado

*Cottage Cheese (watch labels for added sugar)

*Berries (still have some carbs/sugar but much lower than most other fruit)

*Bulletproof coffee

You can even make a lot of the things listed above like waffles, pancakes, bagels, etc. by using low-carb alternatives like almond flour and coconut flour and by using sweeteners like erythritol, stevia, or monk fruit.  There are TONS of recipes online for some great breakfast options.  We will be adding recipes to this site each week too to help you make great meals for yourself.

So just say no to those options you’re used to and find alternatives.  Your health will improve and you’ll be thankful later on. ;)