Breakfast is for Eating

Hey everyone! I always feel that the beauty in food, besides its looks, is its wholesomeness. So choosing something healthy that will energize and nourish my body is first and foremost important. And that is exactly what lured me to cooking with various vegetables and grains many months ago as I turned vegetarian. Anyways what I'm getting at is that the food we eat has a bigger impact on our bodies besides flavor and texture. But thank goodness healthy food encompasses all those factors and much more! During my past struggles to learn to eat wholesome but without loosing taste I looked to a fellow blogger's recipes for insight. I truly can say that shes introduced me to things I never knew I would like...aka veggies for breakfast, tahini on my pancakes and the famous kabocha. I also learned how much food my body needs to be fueled, I'm differently a six meals kinda girl! Fortunate enough Heather decided to cross over to the food photography world and do a guest post!! Without further ado...Heather :)

First off, many thanks to Maggie for allowing me to do a guest post on her amazing blog. For those of you that don't me, my name is Heather, and after losing over a 100 pounds 10 years ago all on my own, I decided to start a blog called Heather Eats Almond Butter. The mission of my blog is to help others realize that weight loss through diet and exercise alone is within reach of anyone. I grew up overweight and just figured I was big-boned. Yeah, turns out I wasn't. My food choices and exercise habits simple needed some tweaking. :)

Like Maggie, I love breakfast! After I lost my weight, I started skipping breakfast, opting for cup after cup of coffee instead. Bad idea! No breakfast = a very caffeinated, yet very grouchy Heather. I would ignore my belly, telling myself that if I skipped breakfast, I could eat a bigger lunch and dinner. So silly. Now I eat a big breakfast everyday, and I enjoy every last bite. I'm much happier now, more productive throughout my mornings, and I don't stuff myself silly come lunch time.

What do I eat for breakfast? Oh, all sorts of things, everything from eggs to pancakes to roasted veggies. However, my favorite breakfast is probably oat bran, and I recently tried a new way of preparing it that I'd like to share with you.

First I cooked 1/2 cup oat bran with 1 1/2 cups water and a pinch of salt, stirring in 1 scoop of vanilla Sun Warrior rice protein powder after turning off the heat.

Inspired by Deb over at Smoothie Girl Eats Too, I then folded in 4 whipped egg whites for some extra volume and a little more protein. Just a side note, I would recommend cooking the egg whites on low until cooked through after folding them into your oats to ensure they aren't raw.

After topping with cinnamon and a big spoonful of almond butter, I had a HUGE bowl of complex carbs, fat, and protein, the perfect breakfast in my opinion. Deb, you're brilliant by the way. :)

Again, thank you Maggie for letting me share my yummy breakfast with all of your readers. Before I go, I wanted to leave all of you with a bit of advice, and that is to eat. We are all different. Some of us need more carbs while others of us thrive on a diet higher in protein and fat. There is no perfect diet for everyone, and what works for me may not work for you, but I do know one thing that ALL of our bodies need, and that is calories. Food = energy my friends. Don't deprive yourself of it, okay? I'm now off to energize myself with a little more almond butter. :)