Trapped in a Breakfast Cliche? Break Free! by Joan Kent, PhD

Yesterday at the gym, a co-worker eating a turkey sub with lettuce and tomato was laughed at by a gym member, who said, “Breakfast – the most important meal of the day, right?”

 

Guess the sub was funny because it wasn’t eggs and toast. Or oatmeal. Or pancakes. Or some other breakfast cliché.

 

Recently, a coaching client asked what I eat for breakfast. I described my breakfast that morning, fairly typical for me:  egg whites plus kale-and-spinach salad with walnuts, real sauerkraut (for the probiotics), olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

 

My client thought it was unusual. But I do what I tell my clients to do. I just do it in the morning, too.

 

Does Your Breakfast Look Like Dinner? Perfect!

 

It’s an unshakable idea that vegetables should be reserved for lunch and dinner. We believe breakfasts should resemble our childhood choices.

 

Unfortunately, some of us grew up when no one ate healthful breakfasts. I certainly did.

 

Back then, breakfast meant pancakes, French toast, waffles. Cereal was always available. Not healthy cereal, mind you, but the kind that inspired the comment, “You could get more nutrition from eating the box.”

 

An alternative was eggs and toast, with or without bacon. Compared to the other options, it would have been a wise choice.

 

As the world’s Foremost Recovered Sugar Addict, I preferred waffles or pancakes. Breakfast was my first chance of the day to eat white flour and sugar. Lots of syrup! Those were truly the bad old days.

 

Contemporary breakfasts still resemble the traditional. They’ve just morphed a little. But I digress.

 

Scandinavians, Asians, midwestern U.S. residents eat fish for breakfast. So who says a morning meal can’t be spinach salad? Or a turkey sandwich? I used to make a terrific vegetable soup that my husband loved to eat first thing in the morning.

 

My best clients are bodybuilders. They’re focused on results, so they eat whatever I recommend – and certainly don’t care what time of day they eat it.

 

Addiction Makes People Do Strange Things

 

Several years ago, I had a client who was addicted to fruit. In coaching sessions or during my presentations, he resisted my anti-fruit remarks with a cold, angry stare.

 

He also resisted my suggestions to switch to a breakfast that looked like lunch or dinner. No sandwiches or soup for him, thank you! He liked oatmeal.

 

During a phone coaching session, I finally uncovered the cause of his resistance. He said he planned to change his oatmeal to one that was lower in fat.

 

Now, the fat content of oatmeal is low and pretty consistent from brand to brand. I immediately went to my kitchen. When I told him my brand of oatmeal had much less fat than his new replacement, he confessed.

 

He wasn’t eating oatmeal for breakfast. He was eating granola, which contains nuts. The fat content on the label came from the nuts.

 

But granola also contains dried fruit. This client had lied in his food logs – and in our coaching sessions – to cover up his fruit consumption.

 

I can understand any food addiction. It took a while for him to decide to quit fruit. When he did give it up, his breakfasts started looking like lunches. He lost weight more easily. And he stopped the angry stares.

 

If you struggle with any type of food addiction, I would love to help so you can transform your health, your moods and your energy. Just visit LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free copy of “3 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Trying to Quit Sugar.”

 

Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar:  7 Simple Steps to Defeat Sugar Addiction, Lift Your Moods, and Transform Your Health.