Just starting. What do you eat for breakfast?

[BellandBeast]

Hello everybody. I am new to the boards and excited to have found this W.I.S.H. area! I have read a few threads and everyone sounds very nice and extremely supportive without judgment. I have recently started trying to loose weight again. I have lost weight in the pass using Weight Watchers, twice actually, but have gained everything plus more back each time. I am at my all time high around 260 pounds. However, I am committed to loosing weight now as I am beginning to have health issues from my weight and my husband and I want to have a child in the next year or so and I know having so much belly fat like I do will make it difficult. I would do weight watchers again, but my always changing work schedule and tight budget keep me from being able to go that route again.

The hardest part of sticking to my weight loss is breakfast. I work retail so some days I have to be up extra early and some I don't which makes getting any type of routine started difficult and I only get 1 30min break in my 8 hour shift so I am starving by lunch if breakfast is to small. I am also on thyroid medication so I can't have anything containing dairy or soy with my breakfast.

So I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what you enjoy for breakfast that keeps you full. I appreciate any advice because I am stumped on what to eat.

 

[mchllevns]

I've never tried Almond Milk, but this may be a good alternative for the am dairy/soy problem...that said, my most filling breakfast is a whole grain cereal with blueberries or another fruit mixed in. Or, an egg omlet (1 whole egg and a couple egg whites) with whole grain toast...

good luck!

 

[MaggieMollyMom]

Hello everybody. I am new to the boards and excited to have found this W.I.S.H. area! I have read a few threads and everyone sounds very nice and extremely supportive without judgment. I have recently started trying to loose weight again. I have lost weight in the pass using Weight Watchers, twice actually, but have gained everything plus more back each time. I am at my all time high around 260 pounds. However, I am committed to loosing weight now as I am beginning to have health issues from my weight and my husband and I want to have a child in the next year or so and I know having so much belly fat like I do will make it difficult. I would do weight watchers again, but my always changing work schedule and tight budget keep me from being able to go that route again.

The hardest part of sticking to my weight loss is breakfast. I work retail so some days I have to be up extra early and some I don't which makes getting any type of routine started difficult and I only get 1 30min break in my 8 hour shift so I am starving by lunch if breakfast is to small. I am also on thyroid medication so I can't have anything containing dairy or soy with my breakfast.

So I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what you enjoy for breakfast that keeps you full. I appreciate any advice because I am stumped on what to eat.

If you can have eggs...or egg substitute, i used to make these great little omelette cups for me and DH because we were in a hurry every morning......I would scramble 12 eggs (or 8 and then 4 or 5 whites) and line a muffin pan with turkey bacon, pour the eggs in, (I would sprinkle with cheese but you would have to leave out unless there is one with no dairy or soy), broccoli etc, Mrs Dash...then bake em up the night before. All you have to do is pop em in the microwave before you leave ( I would eat 2 usually...low carb) and eat them on the road. It was very easy.
Good luck!

 

[JacksLilWench]

I make steel cut oats the night before for a few days. If you get McCann's Irish Oatmeal, it's delicious. You make four servings at a time, and portion it out. Then to reheat it, I break it up in a skillet with a little milk (I've never tried soy, but I'm sure it would work fine) and then sprinkle a little brown sugar and cinnamon on top. It keeps me full for HOURS, even when I work retail!

 

[kcool]

I have been having a piece of whole wheat bread, 1T peanut butter, and about 1/4 banana sliced on it! It keeps me so satisfied! Best of luck to you!

 

[J-2]

I usually eat a slice of Ezekiel bread (sprouted whole grain) with SunButter and a little bit of homemade jelly.

I have tried over and over to like oatmeal, but I can't seem to get over the texture. However, I'll sometimes make oatmeal pancakes and those are good and filling!

 

[erinna]

Hi B&B --

I feel your pain about the crazy schedule and the cost. Right now, I'm doing WW online, which is working pretty well for me. You may want to take a look at it.

I like vanilla soy milk, Fiber One and a banana for breakfast. This combination really keeps me going until lunch!

 

[rubato]

I make steel cut oats the night before for a few days. If you get McCann's Irish Oatmeal, it's delicious. You make four servings at a time, and portion it out. Then to reheat it, I break it up in a skillet with a little milk (I've never tried soy, but I'm sure it would work fine) and then sprinkle a little brown sugar and cinnamon on top. It keeps me full for HOURS, even when I work retail!

HUGE fan of steel cut oats. I will try reheating them, because it takes forever to cook them. Thanks for the tip.

 

[BellandBeast]

I've never tried Almond Milk, but this may be a good alternative for the am dairy/soy problem...that said, my most filling breakfast is a whole grain cereal with blueberries or another fruit mixed in. Or, an egg omlet (1 whole egg and a couple egg whites) with whole grain toast...

good luck!

I never thought of Almond milk. I will have to give this a try. Do you have a favorite whole grain cereal that you enjoy? Thank you for your idea!

 

[BellandBeast]

If you can have eggs...or egg substitute, i used to make these great little omelette cups for me and DH because we were in a hurry every morning......I would scramble 12 eggs (or 8 and then 4 or 5 whites) and line a muffin pan with turkey bacon, pour the eggs in, (I would sprinkle with cheese but you would have to leave out unless there is one with no dairy or soy), broccoli etc, Mrs Dash...then bake em up the night before. All you have to do is pop em in the microwave before you leave ( I would eat 2 usually...low carb) and eat them on the road. It was very easy.
Good luck!

This sounds delicious and a great easy breakfast! After you cook them the night before do you refrigerate them or freeze them? I will be trying this one soon, thank you for your idea!

 

[BellandBeast]

Thank you everyone for some great ideas! I really appreciate the help and am excited to feel like I can have something for breakfast again! I feel extra motivated to work towards my weight loss goals now! Thanks again, and feel free to keep posting more great ideas!

 

[JacksLilWench]

HUGE fan of steel cut oats. I will try reheating them, because it takes forever to cook them. Thanks for the tip.

YW!! I also tried the quick-cook oats from McCanns' this morning. They're not bad! Not the same as the regular "long-cook" kind of oats, but they are pretty good. They come in a white box, next to the other oatmeals, and only take about five minutes in the microwave!

 

[Zoesmama03]

I like to eat hard boiled eggs, low sugar NATRUAL peanut butter on whole grain/multigrain toast, Kashi go lean crunch(it has lots of protein, 8grams), fruit. Sometimes my breakfast consists of 2 mangoes. They add more calories but refresh me and hydrate me like nothing else after fasting all night.

I also like the occasional multigrain cheerios. I use almond milk and don't really drink the milk after I'm done.

For the longest time I was having oatmeal a lot. I'd mix in honey, flax seeds, a couple Tablespoons of brown sugar, raisins it changed all the time. blueberries sometimes YUM. I use quick oats but don't bother with the packets anymore.

 

[MaggieMollyMom]

This sounds delicious and a great easy breakfast! After you cook them the night before do you refrigerate them or freeze them? I will be trying this one soon, thank you for your idea!

I just refridge them...they go fast when i make 12!

 

[pjlla]

I've been doing WW for almost 4 years now (been in a semi-maintenance mode for almost 2 of those.... but still would like to hit a slightly lower weight). My usual breakfasts are something like this....

3 eggwhite omelet with low fat cheese (either half a serving or full serving, depending).... usually with some veggie (spinach, peppers, tomato, salsa). Sometimes with a half a whole wheat english muffin or toasted low carb pita (dry)..... coffee or tea or sometimes 1 C of the unsweetened vanilla almond milk (yup, another fan of almond milk here).

OR.... 1/2 C lowfat cottage cheese.... plain with added fruit (blueberries, peaches, strawberries, pineapple all work well with this) or the toasted onion and chive kind with fruit on the side..... coffee or tea.

OR.... oat bran cereal.... kind of like oatmeal, but much more fiber, healthier type of carbohydrate than quick cooking oats or instant oats (cooks up much quicker than steel cut oats of you are in a hurry).... texture is more like cream of wheat than oatmeal. Top with a packet of stevia (or 1 measured level tsp of brown sugar, if I feel like a splurge), and a splash of almond milk. Fruit on the side or sometimes a bowl of steamed broccoli..... coffee or tea.

OR.... toasted low carb pita topped with 1 TB. of natural peanut butter or a slice of lowfat cheddar, sometimes 1 C of almond milk. Fruit and/or veggies on the side..... coffee or tea.

OR........1 serving of Fiberone (the original), 1/2 C blueberries, 1 C almond milk, coffee or tea.

OR.......... 1 serving of greek yogurt combined with 1/2 tsp of vanilla and two packets of stevia.... topped with 1/2 serving of fruit if I have something available (peaches and strawberries are my top two choices). Sometimes a half toasted whole wheat english muffin or toasted low carb pita (dry), coffee or tea.

Those are my "usual" breakfasts. You will notice that they are pretty low carb. I started my own South Beach/Weight Watchers hybrid diet earlier this year and found it worked pretty well, especially on the belly fat. I hit a new all-time low in May with this "new" diet plan.

I know you can't eat the cottage cheese or yogurt for breakfast, but can you eat it at other times??? They make a great lunch or quick dinner too.

I STRONGLY urge you to consider giving WW another try. The plan WORKS if you stick with it! I don't know much about the new Points Plus system, but I've heard good things about it.

My few bits of (unsoliciated) advise.....

weigh/measure every portion of food that you can! It makes a big difference. I STILL weigh/measure most everything I eat.... especially calorically dense foods like cheese, nuts, peanut butter and salad dressings. I use a digital food scale for most things, as well as a large collection of measuring spoons for stuff like the salad dressing. My family is used to seeing me with my scale next to my dinner plate. No, I don't get "weird" and take it out to dinner, but it helps me out a lot at home.

Get moving.... I resisted exercising for YEARS, even when I was doing WW.... but I've discovered it is absolutely NECESSARY for losing weight and maintaining a weight loss. You don't need to do crazy weight lifting or run marathons.... good brisk (really brisk) walking on a regular basis is a great place to start!

TRACK and JOURNAL every bite!!! This (IMHO) is CRUCIAL to success. I have journaled nearly every bite, every meal (except on a few vacations), for nearly four years.... I've got the notebooks to prove it! It is an absolute MUST.... no matter WHAT plan you are working with.

REMEMBER.... this is NOT a "diet". It is not a TEMPORARY quick fix. It MUST be a lifestyle change or you will NOT be successful in keeping the weight off. You cannot be constantly thinking about "when this is done I can eat....". If there are foods you crave, you must find a way to work them into your plan. It isn't practical to think that you will give them up forever (although that said, I have changed my habits enough that I have virtually given up many things that I thought I couldn't live without).

Good luck.......................P

 

[moonbill2002]

One of my favorite breakfast is steelcut oats and a cup of greek yogurt. Since you can't have yogurt, maybe you can try a cup of Eggbeaters for a good dose of protein. I use Trader's Joe's frozen steelcut oats. They are preportioned in single serving sizes, heat up in just a few minutes and are slightly sweetened (perfect for my tastes...we cut out using sugar and artificial sweeteners in our household back in March so most foods taste WAY too sweet these days....now we use a little bit of Stevia or occasionally some organic agave). That provides about 4g of fiber, then I add a cup of frozen organic raspberries to my greek yogurt, which is another 7g of fiber. So my breakfast along has 11g of fiber, which keeps me full for several hours. Plus, the greek yogurt has 23g of protein. Since you aren't able to do dairy, you could try coconut yogurt or the Eggbeaters. A cup of Eggbeaters is easy to make it the microwave. I used to do that at work as well. The Southwest flavor is pretty good....throw in a bit of fat free sharp cheddar cheese and it's really yummy!

 

[happily single]

Its time consuming but I've been making a homemade smoothie with unsweetened almond milk, a few tablespoons of cream of coconut (full of sugar but sooo yummy-plus coconut is good for weight loss), frozen blueberries and about 1/2 cup greek yougrt to thicken it up.

But, I regularly give my son the weight watchers breakfast sandwiches. They are very good and are very reasonable imo, about $2.00 or so for a box with 2 sandwiches

 

[mom2princesses2]

English muffin with 2 tblsp of peanut butter ad a banana.

 

[fromscratchmom]

I've come to learn that I don't do well with a lot of grains in my diet. The food pyramid is just wrong. If I had that much grain as the basis for my diet, I'd just keep ballooning up and I'm so thankful to finally be getting truly healthier.

I highly recommend that people who haven't found what works for them yet, try a more protein based breakfast. It doesn't have to be huge to really stick with you. I can always get by on as little as two Jones, gluten free, sausage links, or some similar small and simple protein and fat breakfast. Today I had ONE sausage and I didn't eat again until 1:30 in the afternoon. While I was at target after church buying my daughter a new pair of tennis shoes I had no problems with hunger or any sort of blood sugar issues. Whole grains, and I mean truly whole as-in-cooked-whole or ground fresh at home are sort of do-able for me in small portions. Refined grains are just awful for me and refined sugar even worse.

I did a "juice fast" a couple of months ago. I made fresh veggie juices right before drinking them. And it was great for me. But even with that, I needed true veggie juices, about 80% veg and 20% fruit even at breakfast time. I couldn't even do an all fruit type drink even with it being the natural fruit sugars without having some small side effects from the sugar in it. But I could do 20 or even 30 percent fruits in a drink easily if I moved my freshly squeezed veggie juice to my blender and put some soft fruit such as berries in so that the fiber from the fruit was also there. On the plus side, beyond the yummy-ness of putting the fruits in the blender, I got to "drinking" a lot of kale and spinach and chard (along with some celery & cucumber, some bits of tomato, garlic, etc.) and let me tell you.... that is so good for keeping me feeling healthy and fully satisfied, it was beyond amazing.

Everyone has to learn what works for them and everyone is truly different. Don't be afraid to ignore what everyone else believes to be healthy to the point of dogma. Seek out alternative ideas.