Friday, March 23, 2007

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper

A while back I lamented about my too sweet American breakfast and I was going to search for a less sweet alternative. Ultimately, I switched my bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch to a bowl of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal with non fat milk and some blueberries for my fruit. The new cereal is less sweet, full of fiber and whole grains, so I was content. But something happened over the last several weeks when I started to increase my weekly running miles. During my lunch time workout, I was starving, even though I ate my new whole grain cereal and having a mid morning snack (a banana). I realized I probably needed more protein in my morning meal.

The other thing that hit me was we generally desire meal variety at lunch and dinner, but for breakfast many of us are creatures of habit and eat the same thing most mornings. We even get upset when the box of cereal that we each morning is empty forcing us to find something else or just skip breakfast. To get more morning protein, I needed to break my breakfast habits, so that means variety.

I remembered an old German proverb;

"Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."

This eating pattern makes a lot of sense. The problem is who has the time to cook for a king in the morning. I need to have a variety of healthy protein filled breakfasts that can be made in minutes. Leftover homemade pizza, seems like a natural, as do some sort of breakfast egg sandwich and something with peanut butter, along with my standard cereal and my favorite oatmeal. I will try 5 different breakfasts next week and report if my breakfasts are fit for a king.

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