Breakfast

Before I started my healthier lifestyle, you could describe my daily eating habits as indulgent, gluttonous, unhealthy...you get the idea. My idea of a snack was a family-sized bag of cornchips and a few gulps of sugary soda, followed by a chocolate and jam doughnut. Lovely. Nowadays, however, I have a better idea of nutrition and I'm much happier with the choices of food that I make, but sometimes I still find myself craving some of the stuff I used to eat before my personal health revolution.

So what do I do? Give in to temptation and stuff my face with whatever comes to hand? No. Instead, I decided to give my favourite meals a mini-makeover, making them healthy for me to eat without the unavoidable guilt-trip, and stifling my cravings all at the same time.

One of my favourite meals of the day is breakfast. I don't know why but there's just something about eating at 7:00 am that calls my name. It's true! The first thing I think about when I get up in the morning is, "What am I gonna eat?" And my favourite breakfast meal: cereal. Yup, plain old boring cereal. But the problem was that I never left my cereal boring for long. I used to choose the cereal that had the most sugar/chocolate/additves etc., add full-fat milk and, as a finishing touch, crushed chocolate sprinkles for that added sugary goodness. (Yeah, I was a serious chocolate junkie.) Well, that was never going to contribute to a healthy diet was it?
So I decided to give my morning breakfast a little (ahem, big) makeover and opted for homemade muesli instead.

Here's a little recipe that I use nowadays for my breakfast (which I like much more than my previous chocolate overload):

2 tbsp oats
apple, chopped
banana, chopped (for sweetness)
almonds, crushed (I like a little crunch in my cereal, much better than chocolate)
grated cinnamon
skimmed milk (200ml) or low-fat yogurt

And there you have it; cereal that makes me want to get up in the morning and which I know we'll keep me going till my next tasty meal (and not a trace of chocolate anywhere!)

Kayti