Get a great start to your day!

If you are like me, you like variety in the foods you eat everyday. Although the "incredible, edible egg" is great for those of us following a Paleo lifestyle - eggs, every day no matter how you cook them, can get old. Sometimes I long for comfort foods. Growing up, oatmeal was one of them. But, as we all know, it is grain based. Not only are grains a poor source of vitamins and minerals, they yield a high glycemic load. Plus, sometimes the only way to make oatmeal taste good was to load it up with brown sugar.

What if I told you that you could have hot "cereal" that is NOT grain based? Yep, try this recipe out:

BETTER THAN OATMEAL

• 1 - 2 apple(s) cored, and chopped. (Leave skin on)


• 1 cup chopped nuts (I use almond, but any Paleo approved nut would work)


• 1/2 cup to 1 cup water (depending on how thick or thin you want it)


• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Place all in a blender. Blend until the consistency of oatmeal. Place in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds or until hot. Sprinkle cinnamon on top and serve. Peaches or mangoes may be substituted for the apples. Yields: 3 servings. Serve with a protein to keep you fueled all morning.

On Sunday, I take about 1/2 hour to make up the amount of servings for the week. It keeps great in the fridge for 3-4 days. This is a great breakfast when you are short on time.

NOTE: please follow the suggestions from Whole Nine and Paleo guidelines for the amount of nuts consumed.

The Importance of Breakfast

Before I dive into just how important it is to roll out of bed in the morning and head straight to the kitchen, let’s take a look at the meaning of the word. Breakfast simply means to break your fast. Think about it – let’s say you destroy the CFWH WOD at 5:30, immediately get your PWO protein and carbs, drive home, hop in the shower, and now it’s finally time for dinner. Depending on how far you are from the gym and how legit your skills are in the kitchen, I’m going to say you’re eating dinner somewhere between 7:30 and 8:30. Let’s say 8:00.

You coat the pan with coconut oil, throw some grass fed beef on the stove, maybe throw some veggies on the grill (or toss em in the microwave like me), slice up an avocado and you’re good to go. You drink plenty of water and down your fish oil just like a good CrossFitter should. You then proceed to get your SportsCenter fix, see what Snooki's up to and head for the bed. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you’re going to sleep at 10:00 and waking up at 7:00, getting a solid nine hours of sleep so all of those muscles you abused earlier in the day can rest and grow stronger.

So now what? You’ve gone eleven hours without food and you have a seriously important choice to make. Do you hit the snooze button or do you fight that urge and drag yourself to the kitchen? Here are my top three reasons (based purely on personal experience) why you should opt for the latter:

Not eating until lunch sucks. Using the example above, if we skipped our breakfast and ate an early lunch at 11:00, we will have gone 15 hours without food. Of course nine of those hours were spent sleeping so it was fairly easy to do but imagine being awake for 15 hours without eating? Not gonna happen.

You’ll be able to stay away from the SAD (Standard American Diet) crap. We constantly have people bringing in breakfast here at my work. What’s the problem with that? Well, it’s a lot easier to bring in a box of doughnuts and kolaches than it is to bring in the hundreds of scrambled eggs and insane amount of fruit, veggies, and healthy fat that it would take to properly fuel everyone in the office. I honestly think that people who bring in the crappy breakfast food know it’s crappy but just don’t know of another way to bring breakfast to the masses. So stay away from the bagel and take breakfast into your own hands long before you get in to work.

A healthy breakfast leads to a healthy lunch. And so on and so on. There’s no better incentive for eating a healthy lunch than knowing you already started your day off right with a healthy Paleo / Primal / (favorable) Zone breakfast. If you are striving for a perfect day of eating, the likelihood of your NEXT meal being perfect increases with each perfect meal you’re able to string together. This is what helped me get through the Whole 30 back in July. Okay, so Mel may have also helped just a little bit.

So these are just my top 3 reasons. What about you? Do you feel the difference on days where you skip vs. days you don’t? Does your performance suffer at work? At the gym? Have any awesome breakfast recipes you want to share? Feel free to chime in with anything and everything breakfast related.

-Ryan