Breakfast is for champions!

A lot of you have emailed/facebooked/texted me to ask me about how I changed my diet once I started my journey to get fit.

I'll probably have a longer post sometime soon about food, but here's a big-small change I made half-way through this year.

Before that, three things:

First, let's get rid of the word "DIET", mmkay?
A diet suggests something that is short term, and really unsustainable over time. When I was in high school, my dad made me go on a soup diet.

I.Kid.You.Not.

For days, we drank this watery soup made pretty much only of celery and tomatoes. Every single meal. Soup. And not even good soup. For like 2-3 weeks!! The only result was that I had to pee like a racehorse every day.

It's pretty much a miracle I'm alive and it's not a coincidence that the first three letters of the word diet are D-I-E.

Secondly, whatever dietary changes we make are really something that we all need to figure out on our own. Paleo, gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, carb-free, wagyu beef-only (mmm..beef)...deciding on what to eat is something deeply personal and really depends on your own body.

Thirdly, I am not a dietitian. I am not a nutritionist. I really don't know anything, and am pretty surprised people are even reading this blog.

O.K. That having been said, I think the biggest change I've made in the past year, nutrition-wise, has been eating breakfast. And eating the right kind of breakfast. Especially mornings when I know I have a workout during the day.

I don't know how you guys feel about breakfast, but last year, just thinking about breakfast made me want to throw up. The only thing I would really be able to stomach was fruit and yogurt..and even that was a stretch. At first, it was okay. But as my workouts ramped up, I would either feel really tired or really barfy. Let's also not talk about that embarrassing time that I actually barfed at the gym.
I tried changing the times I ate breakfast, the amount I ate, the length of time between breakfast and workout but nothing helped.

The trainer I had been working with heard about my ridiculous breakfasts and took me around the gym. She essentially asked a million guys what they ate for breakfast.. and every single dude listed eggs, some other type of protein and a healthy fat. Eating a high-protein diet has also been linked to weight loss (although, for every article about weight loss, there is a corresponding rebuttal, so take this as you'd like).

So, the next morning, I fried myself two eggs, two slices of back bacon, and a few slices of avocado. When I looked at the food in front of me, I felt like this again:

(omg. is this blog is becoming a tumblr gif site...)

But I figured, I could either feel barfy at the gym or barfy during breakfast.

The workout I had that day was the best workout...ever.

I had so much energy, that queasy feeling was gone, and the mechanics of my movements were so smooth.

There are a million studies on whether breakfast is important or not, and a BSc hardly makes me a scientist, but this is definitely something that has changed up the way I feel when I exercise. I eat breakfast almost every day now. And I really feel it on the days that I don't. On those days, I'm usually low-energy, grumpy, hangry or grumpyhangry by late morning/early afternoon.

I always have two eggs. I try to switch up how they're prepared, but they're usually sunny side up or poached. On a Treat-Yo-Self day, I make myself an omelette with cheese (!) and veggies.

I also usually have some other kind of protein with my eggs. It's most often bacon (regular or back bacon), but if I'm really loving life, I'll have some grilled chicken or turkey bacon.

Finally, I try to have a healthy fat in there like avocado or a slice of toast/1-2apple slices with almond butter.

This was my breakfast this morning. (It looks big, but the plate is really small..another trick for another blog post)

Later this week, a recipe for breakfast-on-the-go! What do you guys eat for breakfast?