My Morning Ritual, Part 2: The Cereal Killer

A month ago I shared with you the first part of my daily morning ritual, the upon-awakening agenda that consisted of a perfectly toasted Thomas English Muffin with a thin spread of Philly Cream Cheese and a hot cuppa joe.

But that’s just the breakfast preliminaries I partake in as I pick some tunes, skim the online morning headlines, read any interesting articles I might come across, return email, check my blog, see what my idiot friends are up to on Facebook … you know, important stuff. This usually takes about an hour, depending on how many news or sports stories I linger on, or how many links I follow. Why, the latest celebrity gossip alone takes a good 30 minutes, but a guy’s gotta keep up!

But after an hour the messing around is pretty much over, and it’s time to focus on my workday. And for that you need a heapin’ helpin’ of nutrition, so ladies and gentlemen, behold: the nuts and bolts of my morning breakfast ritual!

The view from above.

As you can see, it all revolves around the bowl of cereal, with this morning’s choice being Trader’s Joe’s excellent Whole Grain O’s, which are basically whole grain Cheerios (and, yes, feel free to make wisecracks about my nerd cereal bowl).

Let me say right now that I am a cereal killer. I loves me my morning cereal! Be it flakes, O’s, squares, puffs or any combo thereof, I loves me my morning cereal! The only stipulation is that they need to be healthy, preferably whole grain and nothing coated with sugar or chocolate (Honey Nut Cheerios might be the only exception – there’s not that much sugar in there). Bran flakes are my favorite. A big bowl of that, some cold skim milk – man, la dolce vita!

Accompanying my cereal is a nice bowl of plain nonfat yogurt, which I gussy up with a bit of honey, a sprinkling of flax and a topping of some kind of seed or nut (we went with sunflowers seeds this morning). There, waiting dutifully nearby, is a nicely toasted slice of whole grain bread, topped with a spread of all-natural peanut butter (for energy).

If I’m still hungry after all that I might go for a banana or orange slices, but no matter how you slice it, I’m now rarin’ to go for the tough commute ahead … straight from the kitchen into my home office for a day of work.