Breakfast!

Whether it be a soft scramble covered with a generous handful of parmesan, served with buttered sourdough and paper thin slices of prosciutto...Or a chewy bagel slathered with whipped cream cheese...Or my favorite breakfast dish of all: blueberry pancakes slathered with melted butter and whipped cream...breakfast, in any form, is meant to be the most important meal of the day.

Until very recently, I never ate breakfast. When I was in high school, I would roll out of bed just in time to brush my teeth (most the time), wash my face (frequently at most), and change my clothes (this was constant) just in time for me to leave the house. In hindsight, I probably should have brought a granola bar or at least a banana with me for my commute to school...Oh well. Breakfast just never seemed that important to me. I was surviving without it, and I was never too fond of the traditional breakfast foods such as oatmeal, cereal, toast or even yogurt.

In my first three years of college, I kept my routine of barely making it out the door in time for a morning class. I relied on a medium black coffee with two sugars either from Dunkin' or Starbucks, and that kept me fueled until I had time for a real meal. There were some days where I made breakfast a priority and those were on Tuesdays and Thursdays because of the blueberry pancakes and bacon being served at the dining hall those mornings.

It wasn't until this past summer when I started to eat breakfast every morning. I spent my summer interning, and quickly realized that working on an empty stomach was excruciating. No amount of black coffee was able to override the noises my stomach was making. I made it a point to have breakfast every morning, and even a mid-morning snack to tide me over until lunch. The difference between school and work was that I was stationary at work. I was at my desk from when I arrived at 8:30 AM until lunch which was four hours later. While it seems counter-intuitive, sitting at a desk somehow makes one hungrier than being on the move, walking to and from class and running errands.

During my 10 week internship, I had three significant breakfast phases. The first phase comprised of a plate of fresh papaya and an orange. I paired my fruity breakfast with an equally fruity mid-morning snack of grapes and a banana. I soon began to crave a much more substantial breakfast. This led me to my porridge and clif bar phase. Clif bars and I have a deep, complex relationship. I relied on one too many to serve as meals during my junior spring semester, especially during final exams. They were comforting to eat, but their sweetness often left me feeling guilty for having consumed so much sugar. Porridge was the ideal on-the-go breakfast. Sure, it tasted slightly like cardboard and wasn't entirely pleasant to eat. But, it did keep me warm (which was important as my office was perpetually freezing), and kept me full for a long time. My last phase involved a cup of hot honey lemon water and special K cereal with unsweetened almond milk. Honey lemon water brings a special warmth to my chest, and its sweetness never fails to perk me up. I would have three, sometimes even four cups a day.

The most significant change in myself from being a first year undergraduate to being a fourth year is that I wake up every morning at 6:30 AM on the dot, and I eat a nutritious breakfast. I have special K red berries with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, Greek yogurt and a fruit. Quite the change from my past fads, I agree! I never thought I would be that person who woke up dreaming about their first meal, and yet here I am, writing this while slurping away at my cereal.