Because prepared foods are to be avoided, and I need to eat a hearty breakfast, I have developed my own little recipe called power oatmeal. It has twice the calories as one of those little oatmeal packets, but also much more protein and fiber.
If you want to lose weight, you must stop eating prepared foods as much as possible. Prepared foods have either too much sodium, too much fat, too many bad carbs, too much cholesterol, or often times, too much of all the above.
Comparing my recipe to a little Quaker Instant Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal packet, for just about the same amount of dry ingredients, here’s the break down, with Quaker in parentheses:
- calories: 300 (160)
- fat 8g (2g)
- sodium 57mg (270mg)
- carbs 47g (33g)
- fiber 8g (3g)
- protein 12g (4g)
power oatmeal - dry ingredients
My portion is a bit bigger than the Quaker, plus my recipe uses some soy milk, not water, for the wet ingredient. I want more calories for breakfast, but look at all that fiber and protein! That’s the basis of a solid breakfast that will kick start your engine for the day.
To make this power oatmeal recipe, start with this:
- 1/2 cup rolled oats (not the instant kind)
- 2 tablespoons flax seed meal (secret ingredient for extra fiber)
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 20-25 raisins
- 1/2 cup soy milk (unsweetened if you can get it)
- 1/2 cup water
It’s pretty simple from there. Combine your dry ingredients (I guess you could do it the night before if you wanted), then add the soy milk and water. You could cook this over a stove for about 5 minutes, or do like I do: microwave for 1:30, stir, then microwave for another 1:30.
power oatmeal -finished product
That little bit of brown sugar goes a long way, so don’t over do it. Also, I’ve made this with just water and with just soy milk; the best flavor and consistency is using half water, half soy milk. You know, it just dawned on me, cinnamon would work with power oatmeal very well.
Do you have any good breakfast recipes that kick start your day? Leave a comment below and let me know.
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Hearty breakfast, indeed! But you know, you could also try different flavors for oatmeal other than the usual. Here’s one way you could add Asian flavors to plain old instant oatmeal – but cooks just as instantly.