My terrible breakfast secret.

No.  It does not involve cannibalism.

About a week ago, I was flying in on a redeye to London on a Sunday morning.  As the plane was approaching London, the crew came around offering breakfast.  Due to what I can only assume was a mind-distorting lack of sleep, I found my resolve melt away, and I went off the healthy breakfast reservation.  I had eggs.  And some meat.  I may have even had some toast with butter and jam.  The horrors of it all!!!  Given recent events around the world, this does not really seem to qualify as a source of national tragedy or even worth a tear-filled confession.   Yet, I still felt more than a little guilty and down on myself afterwards.

I have been on a breakfast roll for almost four years.  I am the self-proclaimed king of breakfast discipline.  I worship at the altar of regular oatmeal with fruit, 0-fat greek yogurt with grapes, and coffee.  While I have loudly touted my breakfast awesomeness for the past few years, I now have a confession to make.  I do once-a-weekend cereal splurge.

I grew up a big cereal eater.  When I say a big cereal eater, perhaps I should say a big bowl cereal eater.  As a kid, I used to hide the largest bowl in the kitchen (think small mixing bowl) so I could have it for myself to fill to the brim with cereal.  By the time I filled it with milk, my Oats of Cheery (see previous post on my use of generics food stuffs) would be spilling over the top.  Of course, I would compensate for the tastelessness of my fine generic cereal by using heaps of sugar.  It became my huge bowl of fake Captain Crunch.  And I loved it so.

Once a cereal eater, always a cereal eater I suppose.  Like all good Weight Watchers people, I discovered much later in life that a third of a box of cereal actually contains a great deal calories and that a third of a box should not be confused with what the manufacturers refer to as "serving size."  [As a side point, for whom is this serving size appropriate?  I'm guessing fasting Leprechauns.]  Like many dutiful Weight Watchers people, I made the shift to Oatmeal, and I've been very happy and satisfied with the change.

It doesn't look like such a terrible vice...

However, once a week, it seems I needed a secret splurge.  Most Saturday mornings I have a big bowl of cereal.  Second confession:  up to today, I haven't had the guts to calculate the PointsPlus values.  I was afraid just how many PointsPlus values would be in this huge serving.  It was time to man up and accept the consequences.  Here was the damage:

• two cups Special K Red Berries cereal:  6 PointsPlus values
• 1/2 cup Cracklin Oat Bran:  3 PointsPlus values
• one cup of 1% milk:  3 PointsPlus values
• Total damage = 12 PointsPlus values

This compared to 3 for my oatmeal with fruit.  Frankly, I thought the cereal damage was going to be worse, so I am somewhat relieved.  Nonetheless, it's obviously not an every day splurge.  Frankly, it feels a little disturbing to admit to inhaling 2 and 1/2 cups of cereal.  It's a little gross.  My only point of redemption is that I always get in a workout before I do the damage.  

This weekly indulgence aside, I have to self-administer back pats over the number of breakfast items that are now on my verboten list that used to be on my every day list:

• Breakfast burritos.  My all time favorite early morning indulgence.  
• Omelets with meat & cheese served with breakfast potatoes and toast.  I haven't tried to calculate the PointsPlus values on this and frankly I'm afraid to.  
• Muffins and pastry of all sorts.  This was a big change for me when I got serious on Weight Watchers.  I used to knock back muffins the size of Brontosaurus eggs.  I was once a completely unrepentant coffee cake trollop, until I discovered that the crunchy top effect was achieved by infusing gelatinized butter with a gravel made of sugar.  Scones were another big favorite that I later learned were about 500 calories a pop.  
• Toast.  Childhood favorite recipe:  spread butter on bread, coat with sugar-cinnamon mix and bake in the toaster oven.  It was my very excellent poor man's pastry.  These days, toast sort of feels like empty calories without enough taste (outside of the jelly) to justify.  
• Granola.  This one made me sad.  I freaking loved granola.  But.  It.  Just.  Had.  Too.  Many.  Calories.  And no, I cannot be happy eating 1/4 cup of it and calling that a meal.  

These days, I almost always treat the items on my verboten list as though they were heroin.  One shot and I'd be re-addicted, so I avoid at almost all cost.  

It's funny.  I write out the list of things that I now avoid like a bad case of the plague, and they don't seem nearly as appealing as they once did (except the breakfast burrito).  That said, I do question the all-or-nothing approach I sometimes take toward certain foods.  It feels as though I should be better at managing my indulgences, and that I should not have to be so black & white.    

Maybe I'm over-thinking all of this (try not agree to quickly).  Frankly, I like my oatmeal breakfast.  It's a lot of food, it tastes good, and it easily keeps me full until lunch.  It's not as though I am deprived -- far from it.  It just sometimes feels that way when I put foods on the banned list.  

What about my cereal splurge?  

Here's the thing for me.  I just weighed-in today, and I'm now 3 years at Lifetime at goal.  Throughout the past year, I have been having my little cereal blow-out once per week.  It obviously hasn't had any effect, so maybe I need to be a little less freaky-deaky (to use a technical term) and stop secretly beating myself up for this apparent vice.  I might also take a moment to laugh at my own ridiculousness for sweating an over-indulgence of Special K (you know, the diet cereal).  I mean really Dave, get a manly vice.  

In summary, I think I'm good with my effective ban on the aforementioned breakfast calorie bombs.  I'm also good with my weekly giant bowl of cereal.  It's a sad and un-masculine vice, but it's my sad and un-masculine vice.  

My learnings from this.  

1. Don't be a baby when it comes to calculating PointsPlus values for known indulgences.  Knowledge is power, and hiding my head under a blanket won't make the bad numbers go away.  
2. Openly acknowledge and incorporate my indulgences.  I recognize that if I ate my responsible breakfast seven days a week, I might run the risk of throwing the whole bit away. 

There.  I got the confessions off my chest.  Thanks for listening!  

Cheers,

David