Damn, breakfast is a trap. And large portion habits are hard to break.

[fuzzybabybunny]

So I recently started (again) to track my food calories. I'm continually surprised by how many calories food contains.

Despite being somewhat small, over all my years of having a high metabolism my body has gotten used to eating large portions as a norm, which means it's hard for me to feel satisfied with normal portions.

Anyway, after two weeks of not eating out, I decided to go out and order an English / New Zealand style breakfast.

- Two eggs sunny side up.
- Buttered toast.
- 1/2 cup sauteed mushrooms.
- 3 strips bacon (not as fatty as American)
- Half a tomato
- Two hash browns
- Large breakfast sausage (no where near as fatty as American)
- I added 150 cal of cooking oil as well
- large flat white w/ two packets of sugar

1550 calories. Holy hell. Well, my lunch and dinner are done.

The thing is, this portion size wasn't really that enormous to me. Sure, I'm satiated, but it certainly wasn't tough for me to finish. I don't feel uncomfortably stuffed. If I had had HALF of the breakfast above, I would have left feeling unsatisfied and certainly like my money was not well spent for the amount of food I got.

Crap.

 

[Carson Dyle]

So I recently started (again) to track my food calories. I'm continually surprised by how many calories food contains.

Did the tomato surprise you?

Despite being somewhat small, over all my years of having a high metabolism my body has gotten used to eating large portions as a norm, which means it's hard for me to feel satisfied with normal portions.

If you decide to fix that, you'll probably be surprised by how quickly you and your body will adapt. After a couple of months, a breakfast like that will make you sick to the stomach just looking at it.

1550 calories. Holy hell. Well, my lunch and dinner are done.

That's more than I eat most days now.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Bah, I just enjoy munching on things, almost continuously. And I like the taste and mouthfeel that you can only get from fatty, meaty things (I don't have much of a sweet tooth).

 

[hightree]

This fast food meat has something addictive in it. I don't know, maybe it's just salt or the fact that it doesn't have any fiber so it goes quickly down...

 

[vi edit]

Honestly, I think there is a lot of merit to loading up your calories in the morning. My Dad has always had a saying of...

Breakfast - Eat like a king
Lunch - Eat like a prince
Dinner - Eat like a pauper

We both have massive breakfasts most mornings and modest lunches. By dinner time I can eat very light and still be fine. I do my exercising in the morning so I get my metabolism firing, feed it a ton of calories early on and then just sort of coast the rest of the day. We are both very thin.

If I'm going to binge on a meal...breakfast it's going to be

 

[Kaido]

If you decide to fix that, you'll probably be surprised by how quickly you and your body will adapt. After a couple of months, a breakfast like that will make you sick to the stomach just looking at it.

Yeah, it's completely variable, just realize that it will take a few weeks of discomfort to get used to it while your stomach basically shrinks or grows. I did the "one meal a day" thing for maybe a year or so, but I really like the "smaller meals more times a day" approach for a few reasons:

1. Eating a lot of food at once tends to make me sleepy; I have low blood sugar & eating constantly helps me stay awake better
2. I like to eat, so more meals = more times I get to eat throughout the day
3. I get acid reflux; spacing out my meals into smaller ones & then not eating a couple hours before bed eliminates that

Right now I do 7 "meals", which is basically:

1. Morning snack
2. Breakfast
3. Brunch snack
4. Lunch
5. Afternoon snack
6. Dinner
7. Dessert

I've detailed this in another thread, but I pretty much lump my macros into a 7-way split. Roughly 380 calories, 20g protein, 10g fat, and 5g fiber per meal. I can adjust that depending on what I feel like that day. Like if I want to go out to eat & I know that dinner is going to be 1300 calories, I can either eliminate a snack or adjust a snack to reduce the overall macros for the day. But normally, it just lets me do a bunch of yummy small meal hits throughout the day...a parfait for a morning snack, a breakfast burrito & OJ for breakfast, a couple energy bites for a brunch snack, meatloaf & veggies for lunch, etc. It gives me something to look forward to throughout the day, especially now that I've gotten better at cooking & preparing things ahead of time.

 

[cbrunny]

- Two eggs sunny side up.
- Buttered toast.
- 1/2 cup sauteed mushrooms.
- 3 strips bacon (not as fatty as American)
- Half a tomato
- Two hash browns
- Large breakfast sausage (no where near as fatty as American)
- I added 150 cal of cooking oil as well
- large flat white w/ two packets of sugar

1550 calories.

I know it isn't possible when you eat out, but a few small changes would cut the calories on that quite a bit and make it more healthy:

- non-hydrogenated margarine instead of butter
- whole wheat whole grain bread for toast
- peameal bacon, cut off the fat
- use an actual potato and bake instead of fry
- I don't know what a flat white is but I think that's a coffee type drink. Sugar doesn't belong in coffee if you count calories (or at all really, but that's subjective)

But it isn't all bad as is. Sausage is really hard to get really lean, so hopefully you're right that its a good cut. Mushrooms are very healthy, can't really go wrong there. Likewise with tomato. And I'm all on board for eggs.

Personally I'd be inclined to swap out the sausage for a small bowl of fruit or something like that too.

Eating out. Sure is fun. Looks delicious.

 

[slag]

I used to eat like that all the time and wondered why I was always 280 lbs. Now I look at that and think, wow, that would be lunch and supper for me probably with food left over. Two sources of meat protein, two eggs with grains, plus carbs in the hash browns and lots of fat in the sauteed mushrooms.

Last night I had some chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks for supper, a couple of each I don't normally eat crap like that and man, I had a gut ache afterwards. I think it was my body telling me to stop. Pre cancer, that would have been nothing for me and I could have taken it in stride. Weird how our bodies react to food sometimes.

 

[deadlyapp]

I know it isn't possible when you eat out, but a few small changes would cut the calories on that quite a bit and make it more healthy:

- non-hydrogenated margarine instead of butter
- whole wheat whole grain bread for toast
- peameal bacon, cut off the fat
- use an actual potato and bake instead of fry
- I don't know what a flat white is but I think that's a coffee type drink. Sugar doesn't belong in coffee if you count calories (or at all really, but that's subjective)

But it isn't all bad as is. Sausage is really hard to get really lean, so hopefully you're right that its a good cut. Mushrooms are very healthy, can't really go wrong there. Likewise with tomato. And I'm all on board for eggs.

Personally I'd be inclined to swap out the sausage for a small bowl of fruit or something like that too.

Eating out. Sure is fun. Looks delicious.

I'll argue with your comment regarding butter. Butter gets a bad rap and I'd much rather suggest sticking with high quality butter (which still only has ~70 cal per tbs). The problem with FBB's meal is the extreme amount of carbohydrates. I suspect hes somewhere around 50-60% carbs and around 20% fat and protein. Cut out the toast (or go to one slice) and get rid of the pre-made hash browns and eat roasted potatoes if you really want a lot of substance.

My standard breakfast consists of bulletproof coffee (~20oz coffee, 2Tbs butter, 2Tbs MCT Oil), a cup of greek yogurt, and about 6oz of fruit (usually cantaloupe). On weekends if I eat breakfast it's usually a cup or more of egg whites with 1-2 chicken sausages chopped into it.

Usually I eat only enough at breakfast to get me to my first snack at 9am and lunch at 11 am (which is my big meal).

 

[cbrunny]

I'll argue with your comment regarding butter. Butter gets a bad rap and I'd much rather suggest sticking with high quality butter (which still only has ~70 cal per tbs). The problem with FBB's meal is the extreme amount of carbohydrates. I suspect hes somewhere around 50-60% carbs and around 20% fat and protein. Cut out the toast (or go to one slice) and get rid of the pre-made hash browns and eat roasted potatoes if you really want a lot of substance.

My standard breakfast consists of bulletproof coffee (~20oz coffee, 2Tbs butter, 2Tbs MCT Oil), a cup of greek yogurt, and about 6oz of fruit (usually cantaloupe). On weekends if I eat breakfast it's usually a cup or more of egg whites with 1-2 chicken sausages chopped into it.

Usually I eat only enough at breakfast to get me to my first snack at 9am and lunch at 11 am (which is my big meal).

haha i knew someone would say that about butter and you are 100% correct in that it is definitely hotly contested. I'm not a nutritionist, but I'd lean towards margarine. Butter is not the worst thing on that plate though. I still eat butter, just not often.

I'd contest that the proportion of carbs is actually just fine, depending on your fitness goals. If you are like me and focus more on endurance/cardio, 60% carbs through the day is just fine, and depending on your definition of "endurance" can be low. If you are focused more on weights and lifting, obviously that's not true and you are probably correct.

 

[Kaido]

Last night I had some chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks for supper, a couple of each I don't normally eat crap like that and man, I had a gut ache afterwards. I think it was my body telling me to stop. Pre cancer, that would have been nothing for me and I could have taken it in stride. Weird how our bodies react to food sometimes.

You know, I think food is highly underrated for health. Food is like the central, core, principle foundation of good health. Having lived with severe food allergies for ten years, I learned a lot about how food affected my body & all of the crap we put in our food...it got to the point where I was actually allergic to corn & corn derivatives...corn syrup, HFCS, dextrose, and the other 60+ names for corn were all murder for my stomach. I've learned first-hand exactly how much your gut controls the rest of your body & also your mind. I had pretty bad brainfog & ADHD for a long time due to food digestion problems, plus problems sleeping & a bunch of other issues related to food. It just has such a huge impact on your health & it's hard to realize it if you feel good all the time because it's so easy to take it for granted.

 

[Kaido]

I'll argue with your comment regarding butter. Butter gets a bad rap and I'd much rather suggest sticking with high quality butter (which still only has ~70 cal per tbs).

I'm glad that natural fats are back on the list. I binge on bacon, lard, and butter these days

 

[deadlyapp]

I'm glad that natural fats are back on the list. I binge on bacon, lard, and butter these days

I had a pair of coaches that swore by ketosis and had regular meals of bacon and eggs with butter smeared on both. I won't argue that ketogenic diets work for some people, but it doesn't sound remotely appetizing to me to put butter on -everything- you eat.

 

[SlitheryDee]

You can have a filling breakfast without taking in too many calories. You just have to make a few adjustments. Eliminating carbs will help more than anything else. Lose the toast and hashbrowns. The next worst offender is the sausage. I'd cut that in half and and add a couple of more eggs to the plate and perhaps even 3 more slices of bacon.

Also I believe the added cooking oil is included in the calorie count of food items in most apps. If you look up sunny side up fried eggs the calories are actually slightly higher than a raw egg of the same size. That's for the cooking oil, so I take the 150 calories for cooking oil off the tally.

Just like that your 1550 calorie breakfast becomes a 950 calorie breakfast that is both more filling and less likely to leave you hungry quickly due to the increased protein and reduced carbs. Do a little exercise later in the day and you could add a couple hundred calories to what you can eat, probably leaving you enough headroom for a decent dinner.

 

[deadlyapp]

You can have a filling breakfast without taking in too many calories. You just have to make a few adjustments. Eliminating carbs will help more than anything else. Lose the toast and hashbrowns. The next worst offender is the sausage. I'd cut that in half and and add a couple of more eggs to the plate and perhaps even 3 more slices of bacon.

Also I believe the added cooking oil is included in the calorie count of food items in most apps. If you look up sunny side up fried eggs the calories are actually slightly higher than a raw egg of the same size. That's for the cooking oil, so I take the 150 calories for cooking oil off the tally.

Just like that your 1550 calorie breakfast becomes a 950 calorie breakfast that is both more filling and less likely to leave you hungry quickly due to the increased protein and reduced carbs. Do a little exercise later in the day and you could add a couple hundred calories to what you can eat, probably leaving you enough headroom for a decent dinner.

Another thing to note is that there is a fair amount of research behind having a larger portion of your breakfast macros being fats which curbs your appetite for a longer period of time (slows nutrient absorption or some such). The bacon and egg fried in coconut oil / butter / similar certainly lends itself to that.

 

[pete6032]

2 eggs and 1 piece of toast would be a breakfast in itself in my book. That meal is like 3 breakfasts.

 

[MongGrel]

I still like eating a big breakfast for dinner a lot of the time, bad for me as that is I imagine.

I've developed the bad habit of eating no breakfast, light lunch, and a big late dinner over time.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Run ten miles before breakfast and that's not too bad. But get rid of one of the hash browns and slices of toast and you wouldn't even notice it.

 

[fleshconsumed]

You know, I think food is highly underrated for health. Food is like the central, core, principle foundation of good health. Having lived with severe food allergies for ten years, I learned a lot about how food affected my body & all of the crap we put in our food...it got to the point where I was actually allergic to corn & corn derivatives...corn syrup, HFCS, dextrose, and the other 60+ names for corn were all murder for my stomach. I've learned first-hand exactly how much your gut controls the rest of your body & also your mind. I had pretty bad brainfog & ADHD for a long time due to food digestion problems, plus problems sleeping & a bunch of other issues related to food. It just has such a huge impact on your health & it's hard to realize it if you feel good all the time because it's so easy to take it for granted.

My GF has digestive problems about once a month, she can't eat a lot of foods such as mushrooms/potatoes/peppers/possibly too many tomatoes, and ironically enough she also has ADHD. I'm sure that no two people are alike, so her and you won't be comparable, but what you said definitely sparked my curiosity. Can you elaborate on your diet if you don't mind?

 

[TallBill]

Everyone needs a different amount of calories for a different body weight. I eat roughly 5k calories a day so that breakfast wouldn't kill my day. Then again I don't care if I go over by a few thousand either as long as it isn't too dirty too often.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Everyone needs a different amount of calories for a different body weight. I eat roughly 5k calories a day so that breakfast wouldn't kill my day. Then again I don't care if I go over by a few thousand either as long as it isn't too dirty too often.

Activity level has a whole lot more to do with it than body weight. BMR for someone 6'9", 350 lbs is about 2700 calories. Or maybe you weigh 800 pounds.

No need to detail your eight hour daily workout regime. We get it.

 

[TallBill]

Shrug, I'm 6'6" 280 and have an active job. If I was smaller and less active I'd eat less.

 

[ArchAngel777]

The appetite is a crazy thing... That said, I am with the OP. That breakfast isn't big at all. Not that I am proud of this, in fact, I am working to get it under control, but i have 7K calorie days about once a week. When stress hits, I eat more. That said, I am still relatively lean (12-14% with calipers). The reason I don't like eating so many calories is you almost always have subcutaneous water retention. That is the uncool part about it. The fat gain so far is minimal, if at all, but boy do I retain water. It takes about 4 days to get rid of it. The harder you train, sometimes the harder it is to control hunger. I guess if you think about it, it makes sense. Eating 2K Sun-Friday and eating 5-7K on Sat still ends up being on average, 3K a day, which is maintenance for me. Self control has little to do with it, either. Eating veggies, meats and healthy fats consistently, or almost entirely. I just think at some point the body revolts harder than others. That might be an issue when we move past our set point (mine seems to be 18-20% BF). I never have been naturally lean, so that could be part of it too.

 

[HeXen]

I just drink nutrition shakes for breakfast during work week and on saturday/sunday, I'll eat an actual breakfast, usually 2 eggs, hash browns and toast. Bacon is a rare treat, i try to keep it that way.

 

[HeXen]

Shrug, I'm 6'6" 280 and have an active job. If I was smaller and less active I'd eat less.

So that's why you're tallbill. Let this man walk on through!