Healthy Eating Part 1: Breakfast

Last year I made a commitment to becoming healthier, resulting in my transformation into a triathlete. In addition to exercise and cutting out alcohol, I also made an effort to eat healthier. I had been cutting back on red meat for years, and cooking vegetarian meals a couple of nights a week. I'd also gradually phased out most dairy.

Over the winter I shifted from cereal (with milk) for breakfast to smoothies, initially using yogurt, then completely dairy-free. I felt better, and while the occasional bacon and egg breakfast was delicious, it made me feel gross afterwards, making it lose its appeal. As I trained for my race season, I learned what I could about the role that nutrition played in fueling exercise and aiding in recovery. In particular, my post-workout eating and pre-race meals became very deliberate.

Over the summer, after lots of reading and thinking about my diet, I've stepped up my nutrition game even more. Reading stuff from people like Rich Roll, Brendan Brazier, and Matt Frazier, the whole-foods vegan philosophy of eating made a lot of sense to me, and I realized I had already been heading in this direction. I'm not quite there in terms of a full-on vegan diet, but I've committed to it for the two meals a day where I'm on my own: breakfast and lunch.

I've been doing the smoothie thing all year, but have now put more effort into making nutrient-dense smoothies that include protein and omegas. Last year it was basically bananas and berries mixed in a blender - now I'm including dark leafy greens and grains/seeds.

NoMeatAthlete has a good smoothie formula. Mine's a little more simple, and rotates a few ingredients around the base of bananas. I include a lot of dark leafy greens (kale, chard or beet greens), another fruit (blueberries or mangos - I buy a bag of frozen organic stuff from Costco), water, and either chia seeds or a mix of hemp and ground flax. I've also been taking advantage of our rhubarb patch this summer but that won't last much longer.

To save time in the morning, eliminate the need to fire up the blender should the baby still be sleeping, and ensure that my greens are nice and fresh, I premake the week's smoothies on sunday. They go in single serving container and into the freezer. I take them out the night before and I'm good to go for breakfast.

I also eat a small bowl of oatmeal (actually more often I just eat right out of the pot) mixed with a tablespoon of almond butter. Then I'm off to work nice and full and with a solid start to the day. And ultimately that's not much different than what I'd been doing on race mornings, and it's always good to avoid giving your body any surprises on race day.

Next, I'll talk about what I'm doing for lunches.