Now on to the non-traditional diet part of the equation. People are always looking for a magic bullet. Vegans swear by their diet but have no proof with regards to longevity, let alone quality of life. Yes, a vegan diet is better than a fast food junkie’s, but there simply is no proof that it is better compared to a variable diet. Then, we have the runners who feel we have the right to eat anything they choose as our running solves and balances out all negative food intake.
From the Vegan diet to whatever one chooses, as long as one is fit and it works for you, my belief is: get in the good stuff and if you want to eat the bad stuff, try to stay away from processed foods as much as you can. That works for me: I suggest to try it and see if it does for you what it does for me, haha sorry for the pun.
My morning meal sets the tone for my day. I run on an empty stomach in the early morning hours and after a shower, it’s breakfast time, where I am certain to break the traditions of breakfast. My breakfast consists of the following:
- half of a large bowl of organic chicken broth five to six spears of Broccoli and the same amount of cauliflower
- a handful of snow peas with carrots and one or two stalks of celery – all steamed in a steamer
- then they are all thrown into the bowl of steaming hot chicken broth
- add onion , raw chopped shallots with a mound of uncooked bean sprouts
- as for the steamer, put whatever you can find from regular fresh peas to cabbage,
- whatever you like, just throw them into the broth after steaming them
- I like to look for as much color as I can find and often will steam fresh beets as well
- then I add dry crunchy organic noodles to taste as a final addition
- a little bit of black pepper and I am a fan of Sriracha Vietnamese hot sauce as a throw-in, but this is my formula
The key is the veggies are off the chart nutrition wise. Also please change soup broth to taste such as beef broth or for the vegetarians miso or any veggie based broth.
The concept is simple: a mega nutritious breakfast that leaves you not stuffed, as you will see. And it sets the tone for the rest of day for the workplace, and for maybe another workout, like mine being an afternoon weight workout. As a method to enjoy the veggies, I use chopsticks to poke away at the individual veggie treats but of course, if a fork works better for you, that’s your choice, and of course, a soup spoon.
So why is this a life changer? Because we live in the world of temptation and us runners, reward ourselves for our hard work on the road, putting out such great amounts of energy. And for many, the work means food indulgence. So once we have the mega nutritious meal as our first meal of the day, it changes our thought process and our way of life. I could get on a long dissertation on how it changes our immune system as well, but I’ll leave that to the experts. For me, and I repeat, I am a blue collar thinker in this respect, these kinds of instinctive concepts as cross training being so important as we age, and the early in the day mega meal, is a major boost to our immune system, in this writer’s opinion.
So give it a try and see the results rather than traditional breakfasts. So does breakfast have to be breakfast? Well, I say NO.
