The morning rush is common, as your hectic schedule may include working out, packing up, getting your children off to school, and getting to work. It is no wonder, then, that nearly 1/3 of breakfasts are consumed away from home. You may find that you have no time to eat at home, and find yourself depending on a drive-through, coffee shop, or café for breakfast.

Fear not: you can get a healthy breakfast that keeps you going through the morning and fits into your weight loss diet. Just plan ahead a little!

What’s Wrong with Away-from-Home?

There is nothing wrong with eating outside the home – unless you are average. That is because the average restaurant meal has more calories, more fat, and more sugar than the average home-cooked meal. You can reverse this, though, with some awareness.

Classic Breakfast Sandwiches

The classic breakfast sandwich or burrito can have eggs, cheese, and meat. From there, the sandwich can vary widely. An egg white McMuffin from McDonald’s, for example, has 260 calories, while a Croissan‘wich with bacon and sausage from Burger King has 620 calories. Skip the butter and any fried potatoes, such as hash browns or shredded potatoes, and choose:

• Ham instead of bacon or sausage.
• An English muffin (or nothing) instead of a bagel, biscuit, croissant, or tortilla.
• Egg whites instead of whole eggs.

Café Choices

Coffee shops and bakery-café’s offer all kinds of fresh, tantalizing, and absolutely off-limits foods. Hint: you do not need a cinnamon roll with 50 grams of sugar to start your day. Stay away from the breakfast pastries and breakfast sandwiches on bagels. Instead, you may be best off with an “a la carte”-style breakfast. Look for items such as:

• Plain oatmeal or oatmeal with nuts as an add-in.
• Fruit cups or whole fruit.
• Low-fat cream cheese – you can spread it on half of a whole-grain bagel.

Smart Suggestions

Starbucks offers some hot breakfast options for under 300 calories – their egg white bites have only 170 calories – and Dunkin Donuts offers some DD Smart Wake Up Wraps for 160 to 240 calories. By the way, a Bismark donut has 490 calories. Subway offers egg whites, ham, and reduced-calorie cheese on 3-inch subs, so you can avoid too much bread.

Lunch for Breakfast

You may not need to depend on the breakfast menu if the restaurant serves lunch early in the morning. If that is the case, you may be able to get grilled chicken, turkey breast, and cheese on a salad.

Bring Your Own

There is a chance that you may not realize how easy and quick it can be to bring your own breakfast from home and avoid restaurants altogether. We understand if you have exactly zero seconds to dedicate to making your breakfast in the morning before you leave home. You can stash it in the car or fridge the night before.

If you have access to hot water before you have breakfast, these options can work:

• Protein Oatmeal with an apple or some walnuts.
• Protein Muffins in flavors such as Blueberry, Double Chocolate, and Maple Pumpkin.
• Protein Hot Chocolate with milk for extra calcium or protein.

If you are going to eat in the car or have no microwave at work, you’ll need something ready-to-eat. Consider:

• Protein Cereal in Honey Nut, Chocolate, or other favorite flavors.
• Oatmeal Raisin Protein Cookies.
• Fruit and cottage cheese or yogurt.
• A Protein Bar.

You can have the best of both worlds: a meal as quick and easy as a fast food meal, with nutrition that fits into your meal plan like a home-cooked meal. Way to start the day right!

I'm a purist, I like the traditional egg mcmuffin...which has 300 calories and 18 grams of protein.

But I can only eat half of that sucker.

So, I bring along a Caramel Premier Protein. Dump about 1/3 in a large black coffee, and eat half my traditional egg mcmuffin.

150 calories and 8g protein for my half sandwich

60 calories and 10g protein for my protein shake coffee.

210 calories and 18g protein breakfast on the go:) (or lunch, if you like breakfast for lunch)

If your dog is your copilot, chances are good she would take care of the remaining sandwich for you:)

Only thing that could make this better...is if I could teach McDonalds to use whole grain muffins.

Hello! What about the mcdonald’s egg burrito wrap?