7 Healthy Breakfast Recipes | Getting Back to Fitness

I’m already four weeks into my #notlambFIT series, where I’m documenting my journey back to fitness after my pre-Christmas injury.

This is is my second update, and this time I’ll be focusing on what I put into my body after talking about getting my mind back into a good place where my health and fitness is concerned (A.K.A. finding your mojo). This post contains 7 healthy breakfast recipes – all wheat-free, high in protein and delicious!

Before I talk about my diet plan, I’ll make a confession and say that this week I purposely haven’t done a weigh-in. I did say I would do it every two weeks but as this weekend was Easter and we also just had a birthday in the family – meaning [ahem] large meals and birthday cake – I did indulge a little more than usual… eeek!! But I’m not too worried, as long as those sorts of indulgences are infrequent and I keep the exercise up. Therefore, in order not to get upset about any potential weight gain or a plateau, I thought I’d skip it till next weekend when I’ve worked hard to get back on track (and backed off from the cake) during the week.

With hindsight I also think photographing myself every two weeks is too often to really see a change, so I’ll do it once every four weeks instead – the next standing-in-my-leggings photo will be in update no.3 on Sunday 10th April.

Read on for my healthy breakfast recipes…!

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So as promised, this week I’m talking about the food (specifically breakfasts) I eat. In general I have a pretty healthy diet, my problem (when I’ve fallen off the wagon) is that I eat everything unhealthy on top. I find it hard to say no to puddings and chocolate and ice cream when they’ve been offered to me – I most definitely have a sweet tooth.

But over the years I’ve trained myself to substitute certain foods, go off others altogether, and generally think about what I’m putting inside my body on an everyday basis. Here are some of my permanent habits:

I always eat breakfast (and a lot of it)
I never drink regular tea or coffee, only green or herbal tea
I never, ever drink fizzy drinks, only water (Coke is like the devil’s drink to me – there’s no way I’m putting that sugary c**p in my body or ruining my teeth)
I eat protein with every meal, e.g. whey protein powder, eggs, oily fish, chicken
I have almond milk instead of cow’s milk
I don’t add sugar or salt to anything, either during cooking or at the table
I never eat sliced white bread and tend to have rye bread instead of other breads
I very, very rarely eat takeaways/fast food (I can’t even remember the last time we did)
I try to limit the amount of fruit I eat and stick to apples and berries only
I try to eat a selection of vegetables every day
I ensure I get some essential fats into my diet every day, e.g. nuts, oily fish, avocados

My healthy diet daily essentials:

BPA-free water bottle | MyProtein True Diet Whey Protein | Breville Blend-Active blender (a cheaper – but excellent – alternative to the very popular NutriBullet)

The whey protein powder that I use is the MyProtein True Diet which comes in chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. I haven’t tried chocolate but I can say the strawberry and vanilla make delicious smoothies and the vanilla also works really well in one of my pancake recipes (see below).

If I’m having to rush out the door in the morning, I’ll often chuck all the ingredients for a smoothie into my smoothie maker, blitzing it in a few seconds to take it with me (the bottles come with sports-bottle lids which is really handy). That way I never, ever miss breakfast and don’t have to succumb to croissants or sugar-laden muffins on the hoof.

Do note that for the following recipes I’ve had the pancakes and green smoothie ones written on Post-Its for years where I scribbled them down from a magazine or similar, so they’re not originally mine. So do please let me know if you’ve seen the recipes anywhere so I can credit the person that came up with them…!

Here are a few examples of some of the breakfasts I regularly make.

Breakfast recipes

HOMEMADE PORRIDGE WITH LINSEEDS

⅓ cup plain porridge oats
⅔ cup water (or just use twice as much water as oats)
Agave nectar
1tsp linseeds
A dash of almond milk (optional)

Mix the oats and water and cook for two minutes in the microwave. Stir in a squeeze of agave nectar and sprinkle on linseeds and milk (if required) and serve with a glass of strawberry and banana protein smoothie (see below). Oats are a great slow energy-release food so will keep you full for much of the morning.

STRAWBERRY AND BANANA PROTEIN SMOOTHIE

200ml almond milk
One scoop strawberry whey protein
A handful of strawberries
Half a frozen banana
1tbsp chia seeds

Blend all the ingredients together and serve. Switch up the strawberries with raspberries or blueberries for a change. This smoothie is very high in protein from the whey protein powder and chia seeds.

BANANA AND APPLE SMOOTHIE (a variation of Bob Harper’s Skinny Meals Apple Pie Smoothie recipe)

200ml almond milk
One scoop vanilla whey protein
½ frozen banana
½ apple, cored
Freshly grated nutmeg
A sprinkle of cinnamon

Blend all the ingredients together and serve. Tastes strangely similar to apple pie, but very delicious and filling – and again, very high in protein.

GREEN SMOOTHIE WITH APPLE, PEAR AND AVOCADO

A handful of spinach
½ apple
½ pear
½ avocado
⅓ cucumber
1tsp chia seeds
200ml coconut water

Blend all the ingredients together and serve. This smoothie covers most of your five-a-day, so even if you don’t get any other vegetables all day you’ve done pretty well with this.

SCRAMBLED EGG ON RYE BREAD WITH TOMATOES AND MUSHROOMS

2 eggs
Pinch dill and black pepper
Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
Baby mushrooms
1 slice rye bread (toasted)

Scramble the eggs with the dill and black pepper. Lightly fry the mushrooms and tomatoes and serve with the eggs on the toasted rye bread and a glass of green apple, pear and avocado smoothie (above).

WHEAT-FREE DROP PANCAKES

1 egg
50g low-fat cream cheese
¼tsp baking powder
½tbsp vanilla whey protein powder
Agave nectar, to sweeten
Handful blueberries and/or raspberries

Mix the egg and cheese together, then mix in the protein powder and baking powder. Drop batter in 1tbsp-sized amounts into a hot frying pan. Cook till lightly golden on both sides. Drizzle over agave nectar and berries. Eggs and whey protein powder make this breakfast very high in protein.

PROTEIN CINNAMON PANCAKES WITH BERRIES

4 egg whites
½ cup oats
Pinch cinnamon
½tsp vanilla extract
Agave nectar, to sweeten
Handful blueberries and/or raspberries

Mix the egg whites, oats, cinnamon and vanilla extract together and drop batter in 1tbsp-sized amounts into a hot frying pan. Cook till lightly golden on both sides. Drizzle over agave nectar and berries. These have a delicious wholemeal-like taste to them due to the oats/cinnamon mixture – completely different to the wheat-free pancakes which are smoother and creamier.