Oh hey, long time no blog post.

Solving this breakfast problem has been ongoing over the past year. The problem started when I began taking the antipsychotic Zeldox and mood stabiliser Topamax which supressed my appetite.  I can’t remember what I was doing for breakfast before that – I tended to sleep in until past midday so I probably wasn’t having it, although if I stayed up late enough I would get Macca’s breakfast before I went to bed.  Is that breakfast?  Or dinner?  I don’t know.

Anyway so I’m on this new cocktail of drugs and between the nausea and low appetite, I’m not eating much. When I do eat, it’s usually the wrong kind of food – something fast and easy.  And it’s usually in the middle of the day.  I never ate breakfast, even though on these meds I developed some more reasonable sleeping habits (mostly.)

So I lost a lot of weight. After about twenty kilos lost my psychiatrist referred me to a dietician to help me develop a healthier diet.  And of course when I gave him my first food diary the first thing he noticed was that there was no breakfast anywhere.

His first solution? Drink Up&go.

It’s quick, easy and much easier to stomach than solid food when I first get up. So I started having the up&go in the morning, every day until it became a habit.  I bought up on the supersize 12 packs in the strawberry flavour – has to be strawberry, can’t do any of the others – and that became my staple breakfast.

This went on for months. Then recently the dietician tells me that up&go isn’t good enough anymore and I need to start eating ‘real’ food for breakfast.  The up&go has too much sugar.

Habits are hard to break for me. I was in the habit of not eating breakfast, then I was in the habit of drinking these up&gos instead of breakfast.  It was only meant to be a stepping stone onto something more acceptable but I found that transition difficult.  When I get up I just don’t feel like going to the trouble of preparing something.

He had a few suggestions of what I could do instead. Poaching an egg – I’m useless at poaching so that’s out – or some cereal because he wants me to take in some milk, or yoghurt with fruit.

So for a week I tried eating cereal. I ate low sugar cheerios, which aren’t that great but were the best option we had in the house at the time.  And I gained weight.  I couldn’t believe it!  How could cereal affect my weight like that?  Did I eat too much?  I doubt it because I was eating out of a mug for portion control.

So cereal is out. The next idea I had I got from this blogger, I figure she looks super fit so whatever she eats must be all right.  She uses chobani yoghurts to make overnight oats which looked super easy so I thought I’d try it.  I liked it, although it took me awhile to eat.

So far the overnight yoghurt oats are a winner. The problem with up&gos is eventually my appetite started to come back and I started getting hungry midmorning but with the oats that doesn’t happen.

I’m still working on myself and working toward eating a proper balanced diet and will continue to pull apart the puzzle one piece at a time. So far breakfast is looking close to solved, and I’m happy with that for now.

Mac