Life is Healthy

I realize I have strange taste when it comes to food. I get reminded of that all the time by my family. “Ew!! How can you eat that?” is a phrase I hear often.

Do I let them stop me from eating what I want? Nope. I’m happy eating leftover asparagus and Shredded Wheat for breakfast or tomato soup and tofu paprikash for lunch. They can have their boring meat and potato dinner. Give me a huge cookie sheet of roasted turnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, red peppers and onions with a side of Ak-Mak crackers and PB2 and I’m set for the evening.

I’ve never been one who can’t eat in the morning. (Evenings, though? Not a big fan of food after 7.) That’s why I love breakfast most of all. I usually break breakfast into two parts: before workout and after workout. Before working out, I eat some protein and maybe a complex carb. After I work out, I have a protein and a fruit. I rotate through yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, maybe a smoothie once in awhile, plums, bananas, berries, what have you.

But once in awhile I treat myself to my favorite breakfast ever; the one I think about before going to bed and wake up eager to eat. (Yes, sadly, things really are that simple in Lynn Land sometimes. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.)

I give you: French toast and a mushroom omelet. Total POINTS: 3.5

I use ¼ C Egg beaters mixed with two egg whites (1.5 points) and two slices of lite bread (35 calories each, 4 grams of fiber, no fat – 1 point). I dip the bread in the egg mixture and cook it on a non-stick griddle. While that’s cooking, I sauté a cup of mushrooms, minced onion and minced garlic in a pan sprayed lightly with Pam. When they’re done, I pour the rest of the egg mixture on top and sprinkle with 2 t. of parmesan cheese (.5 point), tarragon and basil and flip it into an omelet. Sometimes I’ll slap a few tomato slices on depending on my mood. Then I get out the REAL maple syrup (2 tsp equals .5 point) and pour a teaspoon over each slice of French toast and there you go! My favorite breakfast ever.

Told you I was easy to please.

This hasn’t always been my favorite breakfast. Things have changed a lot in four years. My favorite breakfast used to be a toasted bagel with chive cream cheese and a big-ass latte from our local coffee shop. Easily 10 points. I used to love bacon sandwiches, too, and potatoes at Bob Evans, and three-egg “veggie” omelets (if you call bits and pieces of soggy tomatoes and peppers “veggies”) with a side a pancakes and hash browns at our local diner.

Now it’s my turn to say, “Ew!” I can honestly say I don’t miss those things. If I want a pancake, I have a few really good low-fat whole grain pancake recipes that I like very much. If I want hash browns, I make them without oil or I use butternut squash instead. A bagel and cream cheese is something I could eat if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. I’d get too full. I’d feel miserable afterwards. I used to always feel miserable and thought that was normal.

I like my new normal better. I like eating things that make my children say, “Ew!” In the long run I’d rather stay a size 6 than eat bacon ever again. Compromise? Perhaps. But I really, really love my French toast and mushroom omelet days. And that, as well as many other foods I choose instead, makes up for any food I might “lack” or say no to.

What’s your favorite (healthy) breakfast? The one that gets you out of bed in the morning? The one you wish would last all day?