Improving my breakfast and other meals: a paleo progress report

Jan 26, 2012 · 3 minute read · Comments
dietcookingpaleo

In the past couple of months, I’ve made some large changes in my diet. Fundamentally, I’ve moved in a paleo direction. The largest change was breakfast, where I completely gave up my old breakfast and replaced it. After some experimentation, I’ve finally arrived at a breakfast template that seems optimal for me (as gauged by my morning energy level and other criteria I discuss below).

As an example, here is what I ate this morning:

The ingredients, and what has changed, and why:

Recipe

• ¹⁄₂ tsp coconut oil
• 2 eggs, fried
• ¹⁄₂ clove of garlic
• some shakes of seasoning mix (salt, pepper, etc.)
• a dash of turmeric
• some red pepper flakes
• butternut squash
• spinach
• uncooked extra virgin olive oil on top of the veggies
• about 7 walnuts
• 1 tsp flax seeds, sprinkled on top of everything at the end
• 1 prune on the side

Changes and rationale

Carbs

I stopped my short experiment of eating potatoes or rice with breakfast because I found that my morning energy level was simply better without those high-glycemic carbs. I think there is a legitimate place for such carbs, but not in my current schedule, which does not (yet) include intensive exercise before breakfast.

Additions

I now always eat two eggs, instead of one. One wasn’t really enough to make me feel satisfied.

I recently added coconut oil, which I had not been using because some past experiments did not work out well. I think that was because of using too much. So I’m not using much now. Amusingly, my main use of coconut oil up till now has been to rub onto my skin during this dry winter season.

I’ve added more spices such as turmeric and hot red pepper to my breakfast because I like them and because they seem to give me a little wake-up boost and stimulate alertness.

The flax seeds are new, as well as the prune. The prune is probably not “paleo”, according to someone or other, but as I’ve mentioned before, I get confused by the different paleo schools of thought, and I don’t follow any of them, but just use them as practical sources of ideas for self-experimentation. I have a very specific rationale for the use of flax seeds and prunes: I have to confess that I dealt with constipation issues when initially moving away from my big oatmeal breakfast to my paleo-style breakfast. I tried various solutions, but one that seems to have worked is the addition of flax seeds (which I typically only add for breakfast, but sometimes will also do for another meal too) and the prune. I have had no constipation issues since adding these to my breakfast.

Other meals

I have been trying to kick my “addiction” to rice. I have gradually decreased my consumption of rice (white or brown). Almost imperceptibly, my craving for it has decreased continually. It’s now been a couple of days since I have been doing without rice for lunch, but I am still eating it for dinner.

I still love pizza, and have not yet eliminated it. It’s very hard to avoid both convenience and temptation when it’s provided at talks and meetings. However, on days when I plan to eat pizza, I have tried to get my metabolism up before eating it. That seems to help. I’ll still keep in my mind the idea of giving up pizza.

Conclusion

My experimentation with diet have continued over the months, and will continue.

I hope my report may be of use to you if you are considering changing up your breakfast patterns away from the “standard” American sugary breakfasts.

What do you eat for breakfast that works for you? What do you similarly or differently from me?