It seems that if you have the ingredients on hand, you could make yourself a “McNotAMuffin” with the components you want in about the same amount of time as it takes to stop and order a custom one from Mickey’s. You’d be able to control your intake precisely and probably save money, too.
I can make myself a couple of over-easy and toast in about 3-4 minutes, or a fold of scrambled for the Mrs., starting from “Hmm, that sounds good.” And have time to pour a glass of OJ to go with it. So… just sayin’.
I bought a whoopie pie pan a while back that is awesome for baking an egg in that is just the right size to put on a english muffin. I would bake them on Sunday and bag up the cooked egg with a Jimmy Dean turkey sausage patty and in a separate baggie, my muffin. Then I could grab and go and heat it up at work or heat it before leaving the house and eat in the car.
With a toaster and microwave at work, you could make it when you get there. Toast the english muffin, microwave the eggs, add a slice of cheese and presto, homemade mcmuffin.
Or you could do the eggs at home the night before, and just reheat them at work.
Exactly my suggestion - I mean, they even have frozen versions of this in the freezer section of any grocery store, so I can imagine if you prepared this the night before and wrapped it in plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight - and then just nuked it for about 30 seconds at work the next morning, it should be fresh and relatively healthy - and most importantly, filling!
When I was on my diet, I particularly liked cottage cheese with pineapple - those small individual containers. They were very filling and quite tasty and kind of fit in with required low fat/low calorie and somewhat healthy as well.
Oh! I’m just heading out to Safeway for some Tofurky deli slices because I forgot to buy some yesterday so I’m going to check out the freezer section - thanks!
Go ahead and eat the regular McMuffin. Eating that many calories that early in the day is probably fine. Sometimes I just get Mickey’s sausage biscuit, which is pretty tasty (and cheap, too).
That’s what I was going to say… you’re still talking about not many calories, particularly if you’re imagining that breakfast is going to be your “big” meal of the day.
The problem with regular McMuffin (or homemade) breakfasts is that there’s not much in them other than calories (in fat/protein/carbs).
Eat a bigger breakfast, and figure out how to add some veggies to it.
And should you not find what you are looking for, here is how to make your own - freeze a whole bunch for the week(s) ahead! (You might want to forgo the bacon and/or cheese, but it shows you how to do it from scratch…)
If you have a little time on the weekends, you can take a muffin pan, spray it, then pour in a little bit of chopped up sausage, canadian bacon, bacon, ham, or some other meat. Scramble some eggs, then add spinach, cheese, onion, and green pepper to it. Pour it onto the meat until it’s about half way up the pan, then bake them until the egg sets. When they cool, put them in the fridge.
A few seconds in the microwave to heat it up and you have a great tasting breakfast that will keep you going until lunch with as many or as few calories as you want (by choosing leaner meats and adding more vegetables).
You missed this part: 780 mg sodium, or 33 percent of RDA.
At Home
Whole Wheat Bread (one slice): 69 calories / 0.9 g fat / 112 mg sodium.
Egg: 78 calories / 5g fat / 62 mg sodium.
[ul]
[li]One egg scrambled on one slice toast: 147 calories, 6 g fat, 174 mg sodium.[/li][li]Two eggs scrambled on two slices toast: 294 calories, 12 g fat, 348 mg sodium.[/li][/ul]
What’s your time worth to you, the rush to get out of the door or getting up earlier and have a less expensive and more healthy (relatively speaking) breakfast at home? Or more directly, the rush to get out of the door or the rush to end up on a hospital bed?
FWIW, I often switch between four Weet-bix and milk, with two eggs and toast (with milk) in the morning.
I know I should just make my own for breakfast in the morning but I have a homemade, healthy lunch and dinner almost every day of the week. Occasionally on a Friday I’ll have a sub for lunch but that’s mostly it.
Breakfast is the one thing I’m not that keen on spending too much time or effort. I would definitely rather sleep an extra 20 or 30 minutes than get up, cook breakfast and eat it. I’m not even hungry when I first get up. Yes, I could prepare it all the night before but I spend a day on the weekends preparing all my dinners for the week so that I don’t have to do any food preparation during the week.
I do that so I can go to the gym for an hour after work knowing that I don’t have to go home and start doing a bunch of food prep. My meals include tons of fruits and vegies, lean, healthy protein and usually brown basmati rice and lentils with my dinner.
Two healthy meals a day and an hour at the gym is about all the effort I can put in to diet/exercise. My crappy breakfast is the one thing I don’t worry about too much.
I figure an English muffin, an egg, some grapes and a cup of tea aren’t all that bad really.
There are various products that make microwaving eggs into omelets easy and fast. This one is by Tupperware and I have it and it really does work incredibly well. I just pour out a serving of some kind of egg beaters, microwave it according to the instructions while my bread toasts and then slap them together. You could easily make your own breakfast at work in under 5 minutes and all you need to do is stash some egg beaters and bread at work.
I hardboil a lot of eggs and poach a lot of chicken. I prefer wholemeal english muffins but mash up an egg with a bit of light mayo or avocado or salsa or ajvar or anything and spread it on a hot wholemeal muffin (no butter type product required) and it will keep me powered for hours. I lost 75kg eating well, just going for the best bang for my calorie buck. White bread is like throwing newspaper on a fire for me, it just makes me hungrier.
An Egg McMuffin is a perfectly reasonable choice, provided the expense doesn’t make a difference to you and you don’t have any issues that would suggest limiting sodium. The worst thing for a sensible eating plan is to aspire to a perfect one that you aren’t really willing to stick to. That leads to fantastic logic like “I will plan to make breakfast every morning, but over sleep half the time, and so since I am off plan anyway, eat doughnuts”.
Try it for a few weeks. If it leaves you hungry and you are going off plan other places, reconsider.
Bing! I just can’t commit to making breakfast every morning, or even doing it the night before which is why I just have a breakfast bar. I know I’ll just be setting myself up for failure and I really don’t want to do that!
I’ve had those, the ham variety. They’re not half bad, for a microwaved sandwich.
I think Manda Jo is right - better you follow a good plan that you can stick to than try to do something perfect and fail. I’d say two healthy meals a day is absolutely terrific. Some days some people don’t even have one healthy meal a day. And an English muffin, an egg, some grapes and a cup of tea are a great breakfast, if you like it and it satisfies you. Add in a Special K egg sandwich, a lighter Egg McMuffin or even a regular Egg McMuffin occasionally when you need something more.
Frozen breakfast sandwich thingy = not too shabby!
I will continue with the breakfast sandwich, fruit and tea for my breakfast. The larger breakfasts and smaller dinners are working out perfectly so thanks for all the advice and opinions!
Is there a lunch room/area? Would a toaster be allowed/appreciated?
Buy a package of English muffins, and keep a small serrated knife in the lunch room (if you don’t have insane security), otherwise, slice them at home and wrap each individually in plastic wrap (the air-tight wrapper is a good idea anyway - freshness).
Might be better to wait until you are actually hungry to prepare the food, instead of eating because of schedule.
You’ll probably get a better quality muffin, and can control the stuff that goes on it.
Or pick up a bagel or muffin from a hole-in-the-wall shop, or whatever serves the purpose in your town.
Fast food versions of stuff didn’t used to be all that close to real versions - they had distribution and shelf-life issues.
