Day Two: The Sad State of Breakfast Out

One of the more interesting presents I received for Christmas this year was a new Starbucks travel mug (the one with the numbers seen above) which came with a month-long deal: free brewed coffee during all of January. This morning I took my new mug into the Starbucks near my office to see if they were participating. While waiting in line, at this point about four hours after having eaten breakfast, I stared longingly into the bakery case next to the cash register. But for a customer sticking to a low-carb lifestyle for the year, there's little to be had.

If you've ever been in a Starbucks, you know what the standard fare is. For those who haven't been in a Starbucks (which is mind-boggling in itself), it includes small cupcakes, cake pops, loafs, doughnuts, bagels, scones, muffins, croissants, oatmeal, breakfast sandwiches and wraps, yogurt and fruits. Plus, there's usually a collection of drinks (sodas, juices, milk) nearby as well.

Notice anything missing? Yeah, protein. In fact only two items in the entire case offer more than 10 grams of protein: the multigrain bagel and the variety of breakfast sandwiches/wraps. There are two major problems with this.

First, to get the 15 grams of protein from the bagel, you have to ingest 60 grams of carbs -- which means it's completely off limits on a low-carb diet, especially the induction phase of said diet. The breakfast wraps are a little bit better but still range from 30 to 45 grams of carbohydrates. Eat that and it's basically all your carbs for the day. (Although one could go the route oft-used by lo-carbers: order it and eat the egg, cheese and meat out, leaving the bread behind.)

Another option is to try to limit the carb level, say by eating oatmeal. But then, it's low in protein too. It's hard to find a balance. Therein lies our second problem: the protein level in general. Disregard carbs for a second. If you follow the advice by Eades and others that, while you cut carbs, you need to maintain protein intake (so as not to lose lean mass), then a guy like me needs to eat somewhere around 100 grams of protein a day. Which works out to roughly 30 grams of protein at each meal. Maybe I'll go heavy at dinner or lunch and maybe I'll fit in an afternoon snack of pepperoni, but when all's said and done, I'm still going to need a good 20 or so grams of protein at breakfast. Exactly one Starbucks breakfast item, the Ham & Cheddar Artisan Breakfast Sandwich, has that much. Thus, the Starbucks fan-boy like myself is in a bind: I can't find a lot of protein at breakfast and, even if I did, it would be wrapped in carbohydrates.

I don't want to pick on Starbucks too much (because I love the coffee). At McDonald's I could get a Big Breakfast with 36 grams of protein or Sausage McMuffin with 21, a quarter or fifth of my daily protein requirement. Unfortunately, both have over 30 grams of carbs, a day's worth. How about the Double Loaded Omelet biscuit (32 grams of protein) or Monster biscuit (30 grams) from Hardees? Over 30 carbs again.

The truth is, to get enough protein at breakfast while eating out, you're likely going to have to sacrifice your carb level. Or waste money by eating just the meat, egg and cheese. Honestly, both of those options are personally not acceptable.

So, in the end, the best option may be to simply eat at home.