Surviving An Otherwise Crazy Morning

Given how crazy things have been around here, I realized that I've come up with a few coping mechanisms for getting through a crazy morning without blowing my healthy eating out of the water.

And, since in at least my working experience far too many people have crazy mornings, I thought other folks might benefit from what my default settings tend to be on days like that.

1)  Get yourself some EAS Myoplex Lite Cinnamon Roll Crisp nutrition bars as a grab and go emergency stash.  Sometimes, you get a nutrition bar that tastes like a piece of cardboard and fiber bits laced with chemicals and god knows what else.  These EAS cinnamon roll crisp bars taste wonderfully like some sort of sinful pastry concoction, and they aren't horrible for you in terms of calories.

I don't use a nutrition bar very frequently, but when I'm pressed for time, these are the ones I can stomach.  And they taste lovely in the car while you are trying not to spill coffee on yourself while driving.


2)  Set up your crockpot and make some steel cut oats with cut up apples and liquid.  You throw all the ingredients in and, voila!, they cook up into creamy awesomeness overnight.   Most recipes call for about 4 cups of liquid per one cup of oats, but I like to add more liquid (somewhere between 6 and 8 cups, and a mix of water and fat free evaporated milk) so that the oats don't stick and burn -- they turn out creamy and delicious this way.  Lots of ideas here for folks who want exact recipes.

3)  Cut up a bunch of fruit in a bowl -- strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, kiwifruit, banana, whatever -- and dump in a carton of FF plain Greek yogurt, drizzling all of this with a tiny bit of honey if the fruit is a little tart.  Or use another healthy yogurt of your choosing.  Or sweeten with a little all-fruit spread.  Sprinkle on some ground flaxseeds and you are really good to go.

This one is great because you can toss it together the night before in a container and take it with you to eat once you get where you are going.  It's also fantastic for a snack or for lunch.

4)  Mix together some fat free cottage cheese, some fat free vanilla yogurt and a bit of cinnamon.  Tastes a lot like a cinnabon, especially if you use a LOT of cinnamon and sprinkle the top with some chopped, toasted pecans.  Nummy.  Again, incredibly portable and easy to throw together the night before.

5)  Two recipes I've already shared, but ones I use all the time:  easy egg bake (can make these in muffin tins and then you have individual portions) and a yummy oatmeal with bananas and chocolate.

If anyone has some favorite standbys to share, please do.  I'd love to hear them...

(Gorgeous photo by Darwin Bell.  Fantastic macro shot!)