How I Began Eating Breakfast

For the majority of my time in college, I haven’t done a great job of eating breakfast. Now, I know—I know—breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But I just always found myself rushing getting ready to go to work or class and not having enough time to sit down and eat breakfast. This year I really wanted to integrate breakfast into my schedule, though. In the past, I’ve had to go hours without eating and have always known that if I prioritized breakfast, I wouldn’t be so hungry and drained by the end of the day. While my journey to eat breakfast is still a work in progress, I’ve managed to find a few ways that have made it a lot easier for me to make time for breakfast.

Keeping Food on Hand

Several college students don’t feel that they have enough time for breakfast, which is something I completely relate to and prevented me from eating breakfast in the past. But I’ve found that a good way to get around this is by having foods in your dorm or apartment that you can just grab and eat on your way to class. My favorites for this have been cashews, a banana, grapes, and granola bars which I pair with a hugeee smoothie some mornings. This is a super-easy way to always get some sort of breakfast while not having to sacrifice too much sleep time! 

Prepping Meals Ahead of Time

Another way that I’ve been able to integrate breakfast into my schedule has been through meal-prepping. I really do not have the time to cook breakfast every morning. I’m also not too fond of waking up even earlier in order to have time to cook breakfast. Yet, I found that a way around this is by meal-prepping my breakfast on days when I don’t have too much to do. My Mondays are really relaxed, and I have a pretty open schedule, so I dedicate Monday evenings to meal-prepping breakfast so that I can have everything already cooked for the rest of the week.

Meal-prepping can sound pretty intimidating to a lot of people, but I have found that you just have to figure out what meals and methods work best for you. I really love yogurt and try to have a filling breakfast since I don’t always have time to eat lunch, so when I’m meal-prepping breakfast, I cut my strawberries up in advance so that I can make yogurt parfaits quickly in the morning. I also make a bunch of breakfast potatoes to eat throughout the week and turkey sausages and can just heat them up for breakfast every day. These meals are easy for me to make and don’t take up too much of my time. Having a combination of grab-and-go breakfast meals and meal-prepped foods makes eating breakfast super simple, and I have noticed the difference in my focus and health throughout the school year!  

A lot of folks don’t think about it, but skipping meals is a much bigger deal than it seems. Constantly depriving your body of breakfast isn’t just harmful because you’ll most likely be hungry for a large portion of the day, but it also lowers your productivity. Focusing on classes or any other tasks you have during the day becomes a lot easier if you eat something in the morning before you fully start your day, and you have a lot more energy to actually get through your day without feeling sluggish. Whatever your schedule is, there are several ways that you can integrate breakfast into your daily life, even if it’s just an apple or granola bar. Something is better than nothing!