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Fast Food Breakfast after Weight Loss Surgery



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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:

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

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!

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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.

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. LeighaTR

        I hope your surgery on Wednesday goes well. You will be able to do all sorts of new things as you find your new normal after surgery. I don't know this from experience yet, but I am seeing a lot of positive things from people who have had it done. Best of luck!

    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

        I don't know at what point my life expanded, was it when I lost 100 pounds? Was it when I left my walking stick at home ? Was it when I said yes to an outing instead of finding an excuse to stay home ? i look back at my last five years and wonder how loosing weight has made such a difference. Be ready to amaze yourself.

        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

    • CaseyP1011

      Officially here for a long time, not just a good time💪
      · 0 replies
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