"Healthy" breakfast more calories than "Unhealthy Breakfast"...

[bubblefish]

I'm confused. This morning I ate a "healthy" breakfast of rice flakes (1 cup), lite soy milk (2 cups - 1 for cooking, 1 for topping), raspberries (handful) and pistachios (15) and it added up to almost 1000 calories! Bacon and eggs would have been less! 4 hashbrowns would have been less!

It was filling and delicious but I feel like wasting half my daily calories on breakfast is not a great move. I'm also confused about whether this counts as healthy - obviously the ingredients are nutritious but almost 1000 calories!!!

Is this actually ok and I'm freaking out over nothing? Should I just be trying to make my lunch and dinner only 500 calories each? Is it ok to have a lower calorie breakfast of "unhealthy" foods like hashbrowns? Or should I just be trying to lower calories AND combine it with healthy foods (like have apples for breakfast)?

[libbydaniels88]

its the pistachio nuts that did it - nuts are apparently healthy, but high in cals, I've never eaten them as they upset my stomach and I've lived for 66 yrs and havnt missed them. I would lay off nuts if i were you x

[IndigoBlue61]

1000 calories? Really? That sounds an awful lot 😕 Did you double check you calories? I don't know how big a cup you had but rice flakes are about 100 calories for a 30g serving . . . Pistachios not THAT high . . . I have porrige with sultanas banana and chopped almonds for 450 calories. 😕

I know some cereals have high sugar content but even so that seems awful high 😕

Hope you have just made a simple error in the maths!! 😊

[bubblefish in reply to IndigoBlue61]

Maybe it is a mistake... My calorie counter app said that 200g of rice flakes is 738 calories - I used another app to work out how many grams in a cup of rice... On top of that the soy milk is almost 100 calories a cup.

How do you work out the calories? Maybe I need a better system =p

[IndigoBlue61 in reply to bubblefish]

200g?? That's a lot of rice flakes! It really is worth investing in kitchen scales, I doubt you ate 200g of rice flakes, 40-50 g is a more usual serving 😊

Good luck! 😊😊😊

[GoogleMe]

As others have said, that seems quite a lot and for most people would unbalance the day's eating.

I've been surprised recently by pistachios seeming relatively low calorie for a pleasing quantity cf many other nuts. A cup of rice flakes seems like quite a lot though and may not be especially healthy (unless wholegrain), and you probably don't need quite that much milk. I've discovered this with porridge - 30g rolled oats is plenty and I now make it with water and top it with double cream - feels luxurious but no more calorific. Worth experimenting to see what works for you.

I like and seem to do best on fairly substantial breakfasts. I like a lot of variety. I often have a fried breakfast - not pig bacon as I am a vegetarian and there are other health issues around that sort of meat, but veggie bacon, fried egg and a rosti I make myself of just grated potato (not peeled) which I microwave before frying so it holds together. Doesn't take a lot of oil.

I agree with you absolutely that sometimes the 'healthy' seeming thing is not low calorie, especially not in large enough quantities to be sustaining... and sometimes not even that healthy.

Enjoy your experimenting - at least this was satisfying and delicious and involved fruit!

[bubblefish in reply to GoogleMe]

The recipe I read called for a cup and it honestly didn't feel like too much - it was very filling but not uncomfortably so. In saying that my portion sizes might be too big so I'm not realising I could have less, I'm still getting used to eating smaller portions and maybe this is an example of where that needs to happen.

The rice flakes are made from brown rice - but you're right, I could definitely make them with water and use a little soy milk to serve.

I think some more experimenting is in order *nods* I can't believe eating healthy is so tricky =p

[Cooper27 Administrator]

That does seem awfully high, double check the calories! 15 pistachios are around 100 calories, handful of raspberries are also less than 100, so either the cereal is high calorie or the milk is. If it's the milk, then you can have other non-dairy, lower cal options, and you could swap the rice flakes for porridge.

I eat a nice big bit of fruit for breakfast with a few crackers, it adds to 150-200 calories. That is always a healthy and low cal option?

[bubblefish in reply to Cooper27]

I used an app to tell me the calories... It seems like maybe something went wrong, which would be fantastic because it was such an easy and yummy breakfast! The milk is 100 calories a cup which I don't think is that bad (I can always use water to cook and 1 cup of milk to serve) it's the rice flakes that seem ridiculous...

Oats make me quite sick so that's not an option but thanks for the fruit and crackers suggestion!