Dear LPG,

I cannot help it, I love to look at statistics, and I have another arguably annoying habit and that is that I seem to wake up earlier and earlier these days.  Combining the two with the electronic tablet that I now keep next to my bed, got me thinking about another of my arguably bad habits.

I am talking about eating habits.  I don’t think that much has changed over the years when I refer to the fact that, when I was young, my Mum and so many Mums of my friends, made a point of forcing breakfast down us before school each morning until I became old enough to make my own choices.  I have no doubt that for most children, during the decades, breakfast continues to be the most important meal of the day.

That habit stayed with me throughout my life.  The habit of eating a mouthful or two of something continued to be the unmentioned part of that ‘up, washed and dressed’ routine that preceded college and then work each morning once she was not there to lay it all out on the table for us. 

But once we retire we don’t have to get up at a certain time and it is worse if we live alone, while being locked down has taken away even more incentive.  There is no work we need to get ready for, or specific time that we need to get up by, the whole routine leaves us and while we get up and dressed in case someone comes to visit, breakfast can often get forgotten.

The problem for me is that one’s state of dress is obvious, but there is no obvious difference if you have skipped that first meal of the day.   According to some statistics I found online, 30% of us will lose appetite as we reach our 60s because we don’t do as many exercise related tasks.  I know I am putting on weight, and thinking that eating less will make a difference, I try to eat only when I feel really hungry, which is often not first thing in the morning. Others get to a point where they stop enjoying the taste of the food they eat and that is before we think about all the things that are good and not good for us.  We oldies have had a lot more time to learn about all the contradictions the world offers on that subject.

Once you retire, the truth is that you don’t have to actually get going by a certain time in the mornings and if there is no compulsion to do that, the last thing we want to do is start cooking. 

I suppose one of those breakfast bars or cereal pots can be an alternative.  The television adverts always show some young student leaving home while eating one, but I just can’t imagine one going down with my first cuppa of the day, but there is an obvious answer.  I found myself taking a look at one alternative on-line and that is breakfasts you can make the night before and, having taken a look, I thought it would be a good idea to share my findings in the hope that some of them might inspire other LPG readers to prepare for the morning after, the night before…

MH, Lewisham

MH shares some of the ideas she found for making breakfast the night before…

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 …and the statistics that prompted her thoughts in the first place…

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