Hi, I’m Janet, and I’m addicted to cereal …
Those who know me will be quite shocked to hear that I no longer start each and every day with a bowl of cereal.
I know.
Who even am I anymore?!
A Lifetime of Loving Cereal
As a kid, I loved my Coco Pops (just like a chocolate milkshake only crunchy!) before moving onto (7 or 8) Weetbix (coated in sugar!) as a teenager.
As an adult I’ve been through a Cornflakes stage, a Puffed Wheat / Honey Smacks stage, a Weeties stage, and most recently my cereal of choice was Plus with iron.
I always woke up starving and looked forward to my cereal. Not a bad thing (or so I thought) – after all, breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day!
There were even lazy days where I had cereal for dinner as well!
In the past couple of years however, I’d come to realise that the amount of sugar I was adding to it was not such a good habit, so have been consciously working on cutting back. It was a big achievement when I started having cereal with no added sugar, just before Christmas.
I was very proud of my new, better, health habit – BUT I was about to be challenged to take things to a whole new level … and kick the cereal habit altogether.
Preventing Type 2 Diabetes
It has all been part of a major lifestyle modification; under medical supervision I have switched to a low carb diet. And a bowl of cereal with milk (even without added sugar) was packed with 80g carbs – quite a lot when a low carb diet is between 50 to 100g per day!
I was quite apprehensive – I mean, we are talking about breaking a habit (or crutch!) developed over a lifetime.
My blood sugar has been on the high side for a couple of years now, and a blood test in January revealed that I was rapidly approaching a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes.
My new doctor was great. When I’d previously been told to “just eat better” to try and stave off diabetes, I wasn’t given any information on HOW to do that.
It turns out that everything I’d learned about healthy eating since childhood was basically a lie.
Remember the healthy food pyramid, with cereals and grains as the very solid base, because they were meant to make up the majority of our diet? Well that’s what happens to us humans – we develop a very solid base – when we eat like this!
No wonder the majority of adults are overweight, or at the very least totally confused – we are constantly bombarded with so many mixed messages. One minute eggs are bad for us; then they are back in favour. Or it could be tomatoes, or dairy, or meat, or …
When my GP encouraged me to try a low carb diet for three months, she actually showed me the research to back it up. Fat is not the enemy; rather it’s the carbohydrates, which our body converts to sugar – and that constant sugar overload is what leads to obesity and diabetes. I couldn’t believe it. All those times I criticised the husbear for doing high protein diets … like Atkins or Keto … he was actually on the right track!
The good news is, it wasn’t as hard as I thought to break my addiction to cereal … especially with the help of my husbear …
Taking it Day by Day
Day 1 – The husbear woke me with a full cooked breakfast – bacon, fried eggs, and half an avocado plus my coffee. To be honest I really didn’t want it, but forced myself to eat most of it as he’d gone to so much trouble.
Sitting at my desk an hour or so later I felt a little queasy but that soon passed.
We stopped for a cuppa at morning tea time but I still wasn’t hungry.
Around 12.30pm the worms were biting, time for (a low carb) lunch!
Day 2 – Saturday sleep in … I wasn’t hungry when I got up, so waited until I felt ready to eat something for breakfast. I had 2 poached eggs, bacon and mushrooms. Couldn’t help but wonder if my taste buds were changing already as the mushrooms tasted sweet!
Later that day we snacked on some fresh raspberries – and either they were the best ones I’ve ever had, so sweet and juicy – or my taste buds really were changing!
Day 3 – Breakfast was a poached egg, bacon and mushrooms again. We have also discovered lemon water – so refreshing! The trick is to put heaps of lemon juice in, to give it a definite taste rather than just a hint of flavour.
Day 4 – Wasn’t really hungry – same breakfast as yesterday except this time I left out the bacon. Years ago I was addicted to Milo, so I cut it out of my diet altogether. Could I be doing the same with cereal?
Day 5 – Not hungry at all when I got up, so weird – when I was a cereal girl I pretty much always woke up absolutely starving! So I had a coffee and got on with my work day, sans breakfast. Around 11am I felt hungry, so made a pan of fried tomato, mushroom and zucchini – yummy – more of a brunch or lunch than breakfast I guess!
Day 60 or thereabouts – I started my low-carb, cereal-free lifestyle on Friday 19 January, so just over 2 months ago.
I haven’t missed my cereal at all!
Often I don’t have breakfast until later in the day as I’m just not hungry until then; and sometimes I don’t need anything at all.
My “usual” breakfast is a fried egg, tomato and mushrooms as I quickly realised I didn’t really want bacon or meat early in the morning. I’ve also enjoyed breakfasts that include nuts and fruit – for example a pear and some pecans, or a peach with raspberries, on occasion.
I’m due for a follow-up blood test next month and I can’t wait to see what impact my new eating habits have had on my health … but what I *can* tell you is that I’ve lost 5 kilograms already, by going low carb and kicking the cereal habit!
I don’t feel deprived at all and am enjoying our new eating habits (yes, the husbear is doing it too).
If we go out for dinner or with others I don’t worry too much about the carbs (so when our daughter-in-law made gnocchi I was like YES PLEASE!!!), and seem to be managing just fine.
The main items that are missing from our diet are those found in the pantry – the rice, the bread, the potatoes, the pasta, the cereal.
In fact, about the only time I feel a bit restricted in what I can eat is when I go to the supermarket. I can pretty much only shop the perimeter – the fruit and veg, nuts, meat, deli and frozen aisles. Almost everything in the middle, the “pantry staples” – is best left on the shelf. It made me realise how much sh*t the supermarkets sell and pretend that it’s food …
We’ve found our shopping habits have also had to change – little and often – as low carb foods are more perishable.
Another benefit – we now go out for breakfast dates. Can’t do that if all you will eat is cereal!
I never thought I could do it, yet here I am. I don’t even miss cereal anymore!
What healthy habit/s have you implemented lately?!