My Altered Breakfast Routine
I have never been a good breakfast eater. I am not a morning person and to be able to have a meal in the morning has always been a challenge, especially when I have to wake up early.
Because of this, I often look for to-go meal options. For a long while, fruit was how I kick-started my day.
Or I would eat a bigger traditional breakfast later in the morning, which I thought was a healthy option but in hindsight, I often felt very lethargic after eating it. Typically, that breakfast would be some combination of eggs, hashbrowns, toast, fruit, and a processed meat like bacon or sausage.
However, I have adapted my morning routine largely in part due to my nr-AxSpA diagnosis and I am finding a lot of success with it.
Altering my coffee intake was the first change I made
I was finding drinking a coffee every morning was leaving me feeling quite bloated and causing strain on my digestive system. I like to take milk in my coffee and a sweetener.
I no longer drink a cup of coffee in the morning, but when I do, I have made two changes to it.
Firstly, I use a milk substitute. I have found great success using oat milk.
Secondly, I no longer use white sugar as my sweetener. I have dabbled with honey and Stevia but ultimately settled on using maple sugar. It seems to be much less stressful on my body and I use less of it than when I used plain white sugar.
I have also implemented two breakfast options which I have most mornings
The big difference is I now incorporate protein and bananas regularly into my morning routine which is giving me a better start to the day.
The change was sparked by a visit to a naturopath, who suggested taking psyllium husk to manage my digestive irregularities. I don’t know if anyone has tried psyllium husk, but it is a complete pain in the keister, and I can put an unnoticeable scoop into these two recipes.
It’s also important to note, both of these recipes contain no added sugar.
Smoothie
Ingredients:
- Double shot espresso
- Ice cubes
- 1 scoop protein powder
- A good dollop of peanut butter
- 1 Banana
- Water
- Oat Milk
- Psyllium husk powder
This is my breakfast most mornings because I still get my coffee intake and I can take it to go. I use a Ninja blender cup, fill it mostly with ice cubes to add some thickness and then add in the rest of the ingredients. Smoothies, by nature, need to have high liquid content, so I add about half water and half oat milk once the ingredients are all in there. I get good nutrients from the banana, as well as protein from the powder and peanut butter. I use a sugar-free whey isolate protein powder, triple chocolate flavour, for this recipe. Yum!
Banana Pancakes
Ingredients:
- 1 banana
- 2 eggs
- Psyllium husk
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla
- Baking Powder
I find this to be a great recipe to have at home to break up the monotony of daily smoothies. Mash up the banana, add the eggs for protein and to bind it together, and it makes a batter to cook like traditional pancakes. The cinnamon and vanilla, just a dash of each, adds some nice flavour, and the tad of baking powder fluffs them up. One batch makes about six pancakes. I thaw and mash up some frozen blueberries to use as a syrup on top. They also work better than normal pancakes for leftovers and I will often make myself a double batch and save the rest for later in the week.
So that’s how I’ve change my morning routine to better cope with AxSpA and I’m finding some good success with it. What have you altered in your morning routine?
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