About my breakfast

[JC23]

I need to lose a little bit of weight but I'm not interested in diets or extreme calorie reduction, I just need to make better choices.

For breakfast I have this massive smoothie which keeps me going until lunchtime and sometimes beyond.

200ml rice milk/almond milk/coconut milk
1 teaspoon cottage cheese
1 large teaspoon peanut butter
2 shakes of ground cinnamon
A handful of frozen blueberries
Smallish banana
20mls linseeds/flaxseeds
20mls chia seeds
60mls quick oats

Do you think I should stick with it despite the many many calories? Or cut out/substitute some of the ingredients? I'm going to aim for the milk substitute with the lowest sugar in future but I'm torn on the other ingredients.

Peanut butter should be illegal. Lovely stuff and theoretical nutritious but so calorific.

That sounds a very heavy concoction TBH. Isn't it hard to digest?

Looks good to me. Full of protein, good carbs. Do you need both sets of seeds?
Maybe alternate each day?

If it's filling you til lunch it's taking the place of breakfast and a healthy mid morning snack so for me, the calories would be offset.

How many calories is it? Could you reduce it a bit and see if it still keeps you going eg 150ml or no cottage cheese etc?

Can you reduce the milk? I don't think it offers a lot of nutrition which isn't already in the other ingredients and it usually has added sugar.

I think there are only 13 calories in 100ml of unsweetened almond milk (no idea about most calorie counts but this is on the box in big letters). I'd keep that and ditch the peanut butter. Can you work out the total calories? They do say "breakfast like a king" so maybe look at your later choices and your trigger times. I'm actually trying to gain a bit of weight and find that I eat most as soon as I come in from work.

Do you mean 60g oats? I'd suggest that and the peanut butter are the biggest calorie contributors to the smoothie, so if you wanted a lower calorie version that's where I'd make changes. And there will be more sugar in the banana than in the milk.

How many calories is it in total? What do you eat the rest of the day?

I did work it out on mfp a while ago... I think it was about 700kcal!
I guess I just need to experiment with cutting and reducing here and there and see whether it still keeps me full or not

Think I'd halve the seeds and oats and see how things go. Peanut butter tasty and healthy fats, although large teaspoon could be more like a hefty tablespoon and one of the biggest horrors of my life was weighing out a 100 cal portion of that stuff. SO LITTLE. Caution +++ with portion size.

Almond milk is fairly innocuous, fruit is good, cottage cheese adds some protein, although tsp v little.

Yes, 1 teaspoon of cottage cheese is hardly any!

Cut the peanut butter and seeds, increase the cottage cheese and have a hard boiled egg on the side.

700 is a LOT for breakfast! I'd be cutting some of the seeds and peanut butter to be honest.

If you DO mean 60g oats, that's 220 calories right there. Depending on the size of spoon, probably 200 in the PB as well, and 100 each for the banana and each lot of seeds.

Well this morning I ditched the peanut butter, added more cottage cheese and halved the oats and seeds. I was starving by 10:30am!

It is 60ml of oats, not 60g, as I use a measuring cup to scoop them.

The protein keeps you going. Almond butter might be better then peanut butter though. Google almonds and weight loss. Can you use half the banana and 10mg of oats

Alternatively just drink half and save half for the next day.

700 calories is not a normal breakfast. 350 or 400 should be fine to keep you going till lunchtime.

What do you eat the rest of the day?

The peanut butter is what is keeping you full. I would ditch the oats and keep the butter.

It varies a lot. DH does the cooking so I eat what I am given at dinner time. I need to watch my portion size and be careful about his tendency to use cream and bulk meals out with too much pasta/rice.
I'm usually pretty good during the day because of my big breakfast. I just have a salad or sandwich and don't need to snack.
To be honest I'm not sure why I have started piling weight on in the last six months. It must be down to the fact I used to exercise a lot but haven't done anything since DS was born nearly 14 months ago.

To the PP who said 700cal is a lot for breakfast... It depends.

If your total calorie needs for the day are 1900/2000 then yes it's a large chunk of this and will mean a light lunch and dinner.

At the moment I need 2600/2800 a day so a 700cal breakfast plus a morning snack are fine for me.

OP it's hard to say whether this breakfast is right for you or not without knowing you. Everyone needs a different amount of food based on age, gender, height, weight, activity levels, muscle mass etc. Some posters will tell you that this is a huge breakfast, because it would be for them, I would tell you that this smoothie would leave me starving by about 10:00.

I know you said you don't want anything too complicated but without an understanding of how many calories YOU need per day every food choice you make will be just a stab in the dark.

I would recommend finding an online TDEE calculator, to work out how many calories you need, then spend a few days logging your food honestly on MFP (I know, I know) , and see how much you actually eat and where you can easily make cuts.

Good luck!

Yes I've done the same. Not exercised for a while and put half a stone on.

Pasta is an easy thing to cut back on. My weakness is snacking after 7

OP - have you come across PB2? It's peanut butter powder, but you make it up yourself, so it is fewer calories. You could just put a scoop in your smoothie - a 12g serving is only 53.3 calories, so save you calories without losing the taste.

I was just about to suggest PB2!