Day 2: Ask Yourself 3 Questions About Your Breakfast Habits

Day 2: Tuesday, March 4
Assignment: Review yesterday’s list and rethink your breakfast habits
The Cooking Cure: See all assignments so far here.

How did it go yesterday? Have any trouble remembering what you ate for breakfast in the last few weeks? Were you able to resist skipping ahead to thinking about your new breakfast habits?

Today we’ll go deeper. Let’s see which breakfasts you loved and which ones need to get the boot. Let’s think about what gets in your way when it comes to eating the kind of breakfast you want. There are probably some aspects of your breakfast routine that you’ve wanted to change for a while, but just haven’t gotten to. Now is the time to take a deep breath, assess what you want to change, and do it. We’ll help you.

Take a Good, Hard Look at Your Breakfast Habits: Look over the list you made yesterday with fresh eyes. What pops out? What breakfasts do you immediately want to make again? What breakfasts do you feel a little embarrassed about? Do you find yourself wishing that you ate less cereal and more eggs? Are you surprised at anything? Or feel like something is missing?

Also, look at your habits: Do you always start off the week making yourself good breakfasts, but wind up just grabbing something easy at the coffee shop by the end of the week? Are there days when you don’t get to breakfast at all? Why is that? Do you feel like your breakfasts are essentially good, but you’re getting bored of the same thing everyday?

The idea here is not judgment or self-recrimination, but gentle assessment. Be honest with yourself about things that you’d like to change and your reasons for doing so.

1. What Am I Tired of Eating? Now, take your pen and cross off any breakfasts or particular foods that you no longer want in your breakfast routine. Be ruthless! If you’re sick of oatmeal, oatmeal is out! If you’ve fallen a little too hard for the donuts lately, maybe commit to giving them a pass for the next month.
2. What Do I Love Eating? Go back over your list again, and this time, circle meals or foods that you love and want to keep. Maybe you want to eat more of them. Maybe you’re happy with them just as they are. Either way, they’re here to stay.
3. What Would I Like to Eat More Often? Off to the side, start a list of foods you’d like to eat more often in your breakfasts, or that you’d like to see your family or household eat more frequently. Bananas? Whole grains? Protein-rich foods? Whatever it is, add it to the list.

Now that you’ve asked yourself those questions, it’s time (you knew this was coming, right?) for some GOALS.

1. Set Three Goals: At the bottom of the page, set yourself three goals for the next month. Maybe you realized that the one thing keep you from eating healthy breakfasts is the lack of time in the morning — your goal might be to plan more make-ahead breakfasts. Maybe you’re switching to a paleo diet — your goal might be to find more recipes that fit with your new dietary endeavors. Maybe your goal is simply to eat more fruit with your breakfast! Think about your ideal breakfast situation and set yourself some goals to get there.
2. Share a Goal: We’re here, and the other 7000+ Cure Takers are here, to help you feel supported over the next few weeks. No pressure here, but if you’d like to share one of your goals with the community or get some help coming up with them, come find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We’ll be using the hashtag #cookingcure all this month to share our progress.

We’re not just making you do all the work (promise!). We’ll also pay attention to the most common goals and try to chime in regularly with ideas and resources to meet them. Here are a few Cure-takers (and goals) we anticipate seeing — can you relate to any of them?

1. The Breakfast Avoider: I just want to eat any breakfast at ALL! I acknowledge that black coffee isn’t really a complete breakfast and I want to shake my breakfast-skipping ways.
2. The Sweets Eater: I just love my sugar in the morning — doughnuts, cereal, you name it. I want to cut the sugar (and 11am sugar crashes) and eat more protein and fiber in the morning.
3. The Same Old Routine: I love breakfast but I eat almost the same thing every day. It’s good, sure — steel cut oatmeal, an egg sandwich — but I am getting tired of it. Help me add something new to the lineup!

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