As part of our recent (and, I'm proud to say, ongoing) health kick, I resolved to start eating breakfast again. As of three months ago, I hadn't eaten breakfast for the last 8 years or so. Our mornings were always rushed - get up as late as possible, have a shower and jump in the car. One of the perceived benefits of moving to Cairns was trading in our hour's commute for a 15 minute one, thus affording us more time of a morning and afternoon. In reality, we simply adjusted to staying up later, and sleeping in longer.
Obviously there's heaps of research out there showing that Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, and that your body just can't function properly by eliminating it. A quick google search of "breakfast important" will yield heaps of information if you're so inclined. Without it, your metabolism gets all mucked up, your body has a hard time digesting food, you build fat instead of muscle, and all manner of Bad Things.
As mentioned above though, we didn't have time to prepare a three course meal each morning. So we thought we'd try something quick and easy - something that could act as the thin edge of the wedge in terms of changing our morning habits. Hopefully by establishing breakfast as a habit, we'll be more likely to keep at it. Once we get our bodies working better, we might find that waking up earlier isn't the complete torture that it currently is. Goodness knows where this madness might take us. Therefore, allow me to present The Breakfast Shake:
You start with:
1 x blender
1 x measuring cup
1 x cup of oats
1 x cup of milk
1 x cup of orange juice
2 x bananas
1 x handful of ice
Add the ingredients into the blender in the order above. I find it blends best this way, but your blender may be different.
Blend away to your heart's content, until you end up with a smooth, uniformly thick, foamy shake. Speed 3 on the blend-o-matic for about a minute and a half.
Once all blended, serve into tall glasses, and enjoy.
You can vary the taste by changing the percentages of juice and bananas. The recipe above with the two bananas makes enough shake for about 4 glasses. For us, this is too much (as I found out this morning), so will go back to using only 1 banana in future. This makes about 3 glasses - 2 for me, and 1 for Jess, and seems to suit our morning appetites.
All in all though, it's quick and easy, and a tasty morning treat. Once you've blended it all up, you can continue on with your morning routine - its easy enough to drink a shake whilst putting shoes on, especially compared to trying to eat soggy cereal.
So that's breakfast taken care of, the not sleeping in might have to wait till next week though...
