Late start but good morning!:)

So last night, I set my alarm to wake me up at 8AM this morning so I would be able to get my workout, run, and biking in all before lunch and still have time to shower and get ready to meet my friend Tommy at 1. However, that's not the way it played out. I vaguely remember my alarm going off and me hitting the down button to 'dismiss' to turn the ringer off thinking I'd just wake up in another 10 minutes or so. But no. I ended up sleeping in to a glorious 9:45 this morning. I'll just stick my workout in later, because who can really complain about the luxurious feeling of sleeping in? I guess I haven't fully bounced back from finals yet.

Usually every morning, I cook up 3 egg whites in a pan that has been sprayed lightly with olive oil spray. I then top them with cumin and halved cherry tomatoes (my favorite are the Nature Sweet Cherubs..I could eat them like candy and I often do!). Then I'll cut up half a banana (if it's rather large [6" or more], if it's on the small side say about 5" long I'll just use the whole thing) and half of a navel orange. Then I top these with a lot of cinnamon, and pour coconut milk on top and stir. I will tell you, cinnamon doesn't really mix well in the coconut milk and it takes almost 'folding' the milk and fruit to get it to mix but it can be done. I also almost always have a cup of Stash Chai Green Tea every morning rather than coffee.

I'll explain why it is I use cumin, cinnamon and coconut milk. I use cumin because it has been said that when mixed with the proteins of the egg whites, it helps to burn more fat. It took a little getting used to, but now I love it and it's especially good with the tomatoes on top. Another way to add flavor would be to chop a fresh herb like basil, cilantro or parsley and mix them in with the eggs when cooking or crumle up a slice of soy cheese and cook that in the eggs as well. Both are very good and they're also really good when you do both at the same time. I use cinnamon because one day I was looking through many of the health-food e-mails and recipes I get from fitnessmag.com and it was a list of all these different herbs and spices including the health benefits of each. For cinnamon it said that just 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon daily lowers blood sugar, LDL (bad) cholesterol, and triglycerides in people with type 2 diabetes. I have also read that it is believed cinnamon helps with memory, and from personal experience I'd like to vouch for that. Now I have tried many different kinds of lactose-free milk. Cow's milk with the lactose removed, soy (vanilla, light, vanilla light, unsweetened, original), rice, almond, and now coconut. I do not like the cow's milk because they talk about all the hormones involved in it. It is also completely unnecessary for humans to consume cow's milk. I was on soy for a long time and I absolutely loved it. Then I noticed it was hard for me to lose the extra couple pounds I wanted to get rid of for bathing suit season and soon after learned about a hormone in it that causes obesity when consumed frequently. I was also having skin problems and after talking to a lot of people who have broken out because of soy milk, I realized this was also a potential downside. While it tastes amazing (the vanilla tastes like melted ice cream), I just didn't think it was worth it. So then I moved on over to rice milk and only bought a carton of that because I just didn't like the taste. Then came almond milk, and once again I just couldn't really stick with it very long. Then I tried coconut milk. While it doesn't have a ton of flavor, that's kind of nice. I don't find myself going to the refrigerator every hour wanting something sweet and guzzeling down another glass of vanilla coconut milk. I actually just buy the original so I'm not even tempted to do that. If you want to try the vanilla, please let me know how it is:) While coconut milk has a lot of fat, it's good fat. This isn't the type of fat that will stay stored in your body because they are short and medium-chained fatty acid's that can actually help when trying to lose weight.

Even though for most of you it is now lunch time, I hope you had a great breakfast and have a great day!