Protein for Breakfast!

I wanted to share with you a little experiment I have been performing on myself. I have mentioned in a few recent posts that I have been feeling sluggish on some recent morning runs and workouts – and not specifically during the workouts themselves, but in particular after the workout. I was feeling like this sweaty, miserable mess:

Although I do try to follow a pretty healthy diet, I have been reading some articles recently about the benefits of incorporating more protein into breakfast – especially for us, athletes.

Typically before morning workouts, I grab a half Picky Bar, a few slices of dried fruit (mango, apricots, etc.) depending on what’s on hand. After the workouts, I would come home to my usual morning breakfast consisting of yogurt and fruit cup, and a bowl of whole grain cereal with almond milk. Although the yogurt serving includes a good amount of protein (approx 7g per serving) as well as a little in the cereal, I figured I could try stepping it up a notch.

This article by Livestrong suggests estimating your body’s daily protein requirements by multiplying your body weight in pounds by 0.4.

So… I guess I’m officially posting my weight on the internet:

126 lbs x 0.4 = 50.4g is Katie’s suggested required protein daily

Since I figure I should try to have 1/3 of that (simple math) for breakfast, that’s about 17g. I could probably even beef (pun intended?) that up a bit considering the protein is needed for muscle recovery post-workout... and since I’m always starving in the morning.

I also recently attended the Ladies Night event at Philadelphia Runner, where we were lucky to hear Ali Shapiro (Board-certified holistic health counselor and Regular health contributor to the NBC 10 here in Philly) speak about women’s relationship with food. She focused in particular on women’s relationship with sweets, and how incorporating more protein into breakfast can help reduce sugar cravings later in the morning. This sparked some research on the topic, and I came upon quite a few articles that backed up this theory.

So, I decided to give it a try and see if added protein would improve how I felt recovering from a workout later on during the day.

Over the past two weeks, my breakfasts have looked something like this:

 

Yogurt Bowl:

• 1 cup Stonyfield Low-Fat Plain Yogurt (7g protein)
• 1 cup strawberries/mango/blueberries (approx 1g protein)
• Handful (1/4 cup-ish) sliced almonds (5g protein)
• Sprinkle of chia seeds

Meat:

• 3 Slices of organic sliced turkey breast (11g protein – yay!)

Other:

• 2 Slices dried mango (0g protein, wah wah)
• Coffee!

Total protein for post-workout breakfast = 24g which is almost ½ of my estimated recommended daily value. Nice. Basically, I ditched the cereal and incorporated the turkey – it was kind of weird at first not having my ritualistic morning cereal, but I noticed I was surprisingly full as soon as I finished the turkey. Since I still love my cereal, I’ve been bringing little baggies of it to work to add some crunch to my lunch salad (we’re still friends).

Results:

Two weeks of experimentation later – I feel good! Whether or not my muscles are recovering better than before I suppose is an unknown; however I am injury-free (knocking on wood) and am not noticeably sore – which may also be due to increased amount of stretching post workouts.

However, the biggest difference I have undoubtedly noticed is how much more satisfied I feel for longer throughout the morning. I usually have my new breakfast around 7:00 AM, and begin looking for my daily apple or pear snack around 11:00 - which is an improvement. And by the time lunch rolls around at 1:00-ish, I’m usually not running to the fridge, as I was previously. So, I’m definitely going to try to stick to this routine, but am looking to incorporate different protein-rich food variety into my breakfast.

Of course I recruited Joe into my experiment, as I’ve noticed he always makes delicious post-run breakfasts for himself. I had him snap this photo - this morning, Joe enjoyed:

 

Joe's Breakfast!

• 3 eggs (3x6g = 18g protein!! Yowzas)
• 1 cup spinach (1g protein)
• 1 slice Rudi’s Organic 100% Whole Wheat Toast (4g protein)
• 2 tbsp PB&Co. Crunch Time PB (7g protein)
• Handful (1/4 cup-ish) sliced almonds (5g protein)
• Coffee!

Total protein in Joe’s breakfast = 36g which means Joe totally wins. (Because everything is a healthy competition with us!)

It seems like eggs really kick butt in the whole protein department. Confession: I’m not very much of an egg-lover. Sure, now and then I like a good egg-white omelet, but I’m not an egg-a-day kinda gal. But here are some other high-protein foods that can easily be incorporated into breakfast:

• Eggs (6g protein each)
• Rolled Oats (7g per ½ cup dry)
• Quinoa (7g per 1/4 cup)
• Low-Fat Yogurt (7g per cup)
• Peanut Butter (7g per 2 tbsp)
• Crab Meat (10g per 2oz serving)
• Edamame (11g per ½ cup)
• Lean Meats (like turkey deli meat) (11g per 3 slices)
• Low-Fat Cottage Cheese (14g per 4oz serving)
• Whey Protein (Tera’s Whey) (20g per scoop) – Gotta get some more of this!

NaturaStride also offers a bunch of natual protein-rich products including:

• Picky Bars (7g per bar)
• Tera's Whey Protein (20g per scoop)
• Rokit Fuel Cereal Cups (9g per cereal cup)
• Rokit Fuel Energy Mix (7g per packet)
• SuperFood Slam ProBars (11g per bar)

Some other high-protein breakfast ideas from some favorite bloggers that I need to try:

The Healthy Everythingtarian’s Apple Cinnamon Quinoa

Runner’s Kitchen’s Power Frittata

Peanut Butter Finger’s Chocolate Protein Pancakes

A Healthy Slice of Life’s Greek Style Egg Wrap

The Break Up Note’s Healthy Breakfast Hash

Do you have any other high-protein breakfast suggestions? Do you have a morning breakfast or post-workout ritual meal?



Birthday Pie!

Hi guys! Hope you all had a fun weekend.

My weekend started out awesome because I arrived home on Friday with this curious box at my front door...

Yay! Puma Faas 300’s arrived!

These are Puma’s minimalist running shoes – I have never run in Pumas before, but I have heard rave reviews from a few running peeps about these so decided to give them a shot. I still love my NB Minimus, but needed a “recovery” shoe to give the calves a break during easy runs. So the plan is to continue using the NB Minimus for racing and speed workouts, but to swap in these Pumas on easy/recovery days and long easy runs.

Saturday morning I ran an easy 5 in them with no problems. They were instantly comfy and still very light. Sunday morning I felt compelled to get in some distance. I had a 7-miler planned which turned into a 10-miler in the Pumas! I haven’t felt that great running in a LONG time. I was psyched. I even incorporated some speed intervals in during miles 7 and 8, as an added bonus.

I haven’t yet decided for sure if I’m doing the Good Neighbor Day 15K on July 4^th. But this run definitely inspired me and picked up my spirits!

Anyways - Like I mentioned last week, Joe’s B-day was yesterday! He also asked for a “Berry Pie” instead of a traditional birthday cake. So, I found this recipe from Eating Well that I modified slightly, and it came out fantastic! I figured I’d share it with you since pie recipes tend to make Mondays less harsh, yes?

Raspberry (and Blueberry!) Almond Crumb Tart

Ingredients:

• ½ cup sliced almonds
• 6 tbsp granulated brown sugar
• 1 1/3 cups plus 2 tbsp whole wheat flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp almond extract
• 4 ½ cups fresh raspberries (I also added blueberries!)
• 1 tsp confectioners’ sugar

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Add almonds and sugar to food processor – mix until finely ground. Set aside ½ cup of this mixture.
• Add 1 1/3 cups of the whole wheat flour and the salt to the remaining sugar/almond mixture and blend in food processor.
• Add the butter to food processor 1 tbsp at a time and continue mixing.
• In a separate bowl, combine egg yolk, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Add this mixture to food processor and combine.
• Mixture will begin to form a dough. Set aside 1/3 cup of this dough mixture for pie topping.

• Transfer remaining dough into a pie pan, coated with cooking spray. Press down with fingers evenly throughout bottom and sides of pie pan to form the crust.

• Combine 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour to the reserved almond/sugar mixture. Add this 2 tablespoons of this mix to the raspberries & blueberries.

• Spread berry mixture over the crust in the pie pan. Coat remaining almond/sugar/flour mixture over berries.
• Create small crumbs with the remaining dough mixture and sprinkle over berries.
• Bake pie for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce heat to 350 and continue baking for 45 minutes.
• Allow pie to cool completely, and sprinkle confectioner’s sugar just before serving.

Enjoy!

So, how was your weekend?? What do you all have planned for the 4th??