Breakfast – It seems most people don’t have the time nor the energy in the morning to make themselves the healthy breakfast they need. I can already hear the groans and sighs. Look, unless you are a trendy intermittent faster who thinks it’s really cool to pretend like you’re not hungry, start eating real foods in the morning. Somewhere out there someone is reading this while enjoying their whole grain english muffin with peanuts butter, a bowl of Kashi Go-Lean, a banana, and a tall glass of orange juice. To you, I say enjoy the huge blood sugar spike followed by the ensuing fat storage. I don’t care that your Nooks & Cranny’s are made of whole grains, nor do I care that your orange juice is Florida’s best fresh squeezed with calcium. Food is fuel and carbs are fuel, but you have a finite ability to utilize carbs before they decide to take the insulin train to fatville where Wilford Brimley is the mayor. (Former Quaker Oats spokesperson, current Diabetes spokesperson). I know Fat Bastard said “Carbs are the enemy,” but they’re not if you just put them in balance with protein and fats. Cut the english muffin, not just because of carbs but because they contain gluten and lectins, which act as gut irritants in your body whether you believe it or not. Nix the orange juice because you are consuming about 2-3 oranges worth of sugar in about 3 gulps. Throw your cereal out. Stop it. Banana, sure, keep it, but you better throw in some friggin’ eggs. I don’t mean egg whites, where you get about 3-4 grams of protein and zero nutrients. THE WHOLE EGG and how about like 2-3 of them? Maybe some bacon, ham, chicken, turkey, steak, tuna. If you don’t eat eggs, that sucks, but stop thinking about breakfast as pancakes & waffles, and start thinking about it as a seriously important time to fuel your body considering you didn’t eat the previous 10 hours or so. Here is a picture of my morning yesterday.
“But Tim, you have all the time in the world!” Partially true, but couldn’t you wake up a whole 10 minutes earlier and scramble up some eggs, or sleep in and just pack up a morning snack the night before? No? You’re lazy. I’m mean. Seriously though, and without being accusatory, think about what you eat in the mornings. Let’s ignore lunch and dinner for now. Focus on one meal. Are you eating enough, too much, too many carbs? Here is the nutritional breakdown of my breakfast.
3 Eggs Scrambled with 3 strips of bacon, 2/3 avocado, 1oz goat cheese, 1/4 cup wild rice, 1 strawberry, 1/3 banana. Coffee w/ 1 Tbsp Half & Half
Total Fat – 60 grams (51%) – Probably a bit too much
Total Protein – 30 grams (25%) – Could have used a bit more
Total Carbs – 28 grams (24%) – On the higher side but not bad
I don’t count calories, but I’m sure there are a lot in my breakfast. i also rarely eat rice, but it gives an omelette nice texture. 28g carbs is on the higher side for me, but I’m not too concerned. A bagel has about 56 grams or double my entire breakfast. I’ll be good for about 4-5 hours.
Post any comments to the blog.
PR’s – There were a lot of PR’s Wednesday on the deadlift max efforts. Doug set a 40lb PR by pulling 325#. Erin, Meredith and Karen all broke the 200# mark, which I think is phenomenal. Steve got up to 350# and has 50# more until his goal. PJ pulled 300# which was his goal. Jeanne, who thought a 53lb kettlebell felt heavy, picked up 103# with ease. I know there are a lot more that I am missing here, but everyone gets the picture. Nearly all of the CF 908 members are getting stronger and that’s fantastic news. Keep picking up heavy stuff. It works!
Today’s Links –
Schedule –
- Foam Roll / Mobility Warm up
- Burgener Down & Up + Elbows High & Outside
- Pull ups – 10 minutes of Practice
- Jump Rope – Double Unders – 10 minutes of Practice
- Lunges – Walking 400m lunge. Complete 1 1/3 lap around the building lunging. (Not recommended for Tough Mudder participants)
- Stretch
Tim, I agree 100% about breakfast. I try to stay low carb and for me breakfast is the easiest meal to do so. Every morning it is 3 eggs (sometimes with cheese), some kind of meat, a fruit, and coffee. A few hours later at work I snack on nuts and a glass of milk, and my morning is set. I feed my kids the same breakfast as myself most of the time. Believe it or not there are full boxes of Captain Crunch and Frosted Flakes in the pantry. My girls prefer bacon and eggs and I am very proud.
Also for a quick calorie count on your breakfast. Protein and Carbs = 4 calories per g, Fat = 9 calories per g. So 30×4 + 28×4 + 60×9 = 120 + 112 + 540 = 772.
Vincnet – Good post. I am glad to see you are making the right choices. That was a lot of calories for my breakfast!
Eating my WHOLE eggs and bacon as I read your post!
NICE! Glad to see you are enjoying the fruits of the nutrition challenge. Bacon, Bacon and more Bacon.
My mom is going to be a better crossfitter than I am pretty soon!
Correction. Your mother is a better crossfitter than you.
P.S. for those peeps who say they don’t have time for breakfast…..3-4 cups whole milk. 450-600 calories with a good balance of P’s C’s and F’s
Pat doesn’t simply drink grass fed milk or eat grass fed beef. Pat unhinges his bionic jaw and crushes an entire grass fed cow without chewing.
I’m out buying more cows right now.
Pat Fact of the Day –
Pat shed a tear when he got “METAL” tattooed on his lip. But only because it was an involuntary response.
Let me bring some clarity to this fact. INSIDE of Pat’s lip.
Tim, as Vincent said I agree with you 100%. I can’t function without breakfast. I’ve always been a breakfast eater. Before joining Crossfit and before reading the Primal Blue Print I had my eggs but I also had oatmeal with it, plus fruit. I was always stuffed after and actually pretty bloated. I’ve made some changes and now eat an omlette very similar to what you ate a few days ago, minus the cheese. I’ll usually throw in cheese on the weekends as a treat since cheese is definitely one of my weaknesses.
But the reason for my post was to actually give a tip for people who don’t have time to scramble eggs in the morning. This may sound gross to some but during the week I’ll actually scramble my eggs the night before and then just microwave for about a minute in the morning. I don’t do this everyday but if I have a busy morning or have to get to work early and don’t want to get up earlier I do this and it gets the job done. If I were eating just eggs by themselves and then reheating, I’m sure I wouldn’t like it as much but when you are mixing in vegetables, avocado some type of meat and whatever else, it’s easy to get past the fact you are microwaving them.
I’m definitely too lazy to cook in the morning, I’ll admit. I want to sleep in for as long as possible! But… it does help having Tim as your chef in the morning 🙂
Must be nice to have Crossfits own, Emeril Lagassee cooking for you. I gotta tell you, I”m impressed with the presentation of the breakfast. The sliced fruit along side the plate was genious!
Tim –
How does this translate to dinner? I mean, would it be acceptable to have like a turkey club sandwich and fries immediately followed by a ginormous cobb salad?
You live off chicken parm for breakfast lunch and dinner so why do you ask these questions haha
My breakfast varies, but here’s my usual:
3 scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese
1 apple with ~3 tbsp almond butter
It takes me about 20 minutes to prepare and eat and is one of my favorite parts of the day. Keeps me going for about 4 hours.
I’m just hoping to get to Crossfit more often. Once Tim agrees to watch my children while I workout, I’m definitely going to be there at least twice a week ;0). Then, I’ll eat whole eggs with rice and beans and an enchilada.
Speaking of pancakes and waffles…..the Zone website (http://www.zonediet.com/?CATAdReferrer=RSM) offers some outstanding recipes. I eat the oat flour pancakes and waffles all the time. Easy to cook the night before and microwave before work. The site also offers lunch, dinner and snack recipes.