Recently somebody teased me that I am someone who loves routines, and I love living a boring life. It made me think how true it was. I am so boring I eat the same thing for breakfast every single day more or less, and I love the simplicity. However, the day I started writing this post I actually had a Large Veggie Hungry Howies pizza for brunch, but this is an exception(Yes it is, please don’t get tempted). Before I reveal what that special dish is, this is my first blog post in my own website 🥳. I created this site for the sole purpose of applying to jobs, instead of feeling guilty for leaving the website field blank. However, this may turn into something more. I aim to write at least one blog post a month, let’s see what happens.

A small disclaimer to point out is that I do not follow the conventional timings of eating food. I have 4 meals a day, my first meal is a protein shake, banana and blueberries with some coffee. The second meal is what I want to highlight in this post, I call it Praba’s© breakfast, but technically it would be brunch/lunch because I have it around 12.30pm every day about 30-45mins post workout(I like taking a long hot shower don’t judge me 😬). I have my lunch around 5pm, and dinner around 9pm. Is this completely healthy? No it’s not. Ideally one should follow the circadian rhythm while eating and try to finish dinner by couple hours post sunset as the digestive power of the body is like a normal distribution(bell shaped curve) which peaks out around 1pm and almost zero by the time we go to sleep. Knowing this fact I try to eat light food for dinner, but fortunately I am still young, so my body can digest heavier foods in the night.

Praba’s© breakfast is easy to make and only takes about 15 mins. Is this the best looking breakfast out there? Hey beauty is subjective 😋. You probably already know how to make a bread omelette, this dish is just a slight variation in that. Here are the steps to prepare this dish in case you are a beginner. Not joking, but this one friend actually asked me how to heat the store bought chapati(tortilla) in a pan 😂.

  • Break 3 eggs into a bowl
  • Add some cottage cheese for that extra protein
  • Add some salt, pepper, chillis, and any other seasoning like coriander(cilantro) leaves and mix thoroughly
  • Spread a nice amount of butter in a pan
  • Pour the egg mix
  • Take a couple slices of bread and place them on top of the spread and flip them such that both sides are wet.
  • After some time flip the whole omelette
  • Add spinach in between the bread
  • Decorate with some nuts, ketchup(or your favorite spread)

Why do I eat the same thing every day?

First, it’s the perfect breakfast, period, end of discussion. And also, it gives the most bang for the buck in terms of nutrition per time spent preparing the food. Yes, I prioritize minimizing the time taken to make food, that’s why I make very few dishes and include a lot of canned food into my diet. More on that in a future blog post. My breakfast has close to 30g protein, decent carbs to fuel me post workout, and it has good amount of vitamins due to the spinach, and good fiber from the nuts and the bread. I eat the Orowheat whole grain bread which has the most fiber and whole grains compared to any other brand. I am aware that it contains preservatives and other ingredients that won’t be present in freshly baked bread, but I am currently valuing shelf life and convenience more due to my living conditions. It definitely is something which will change in the future.

There’s also another reason why I eat the same breakfast. And that is also the same reason why Steve Jobs wore the same black T-shirt every single day.

Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue is a psychological phenomenon where the ability to make quality decisions depletes over time. This can lead to procrastination, indecision and can hinder productivity. By minimizing the number of trivial decisions like what to have for food, I can streamline and focus more effectively on tasks that require deeper thoughts(Leetcode 😖). Making decisions burns our decision-making capacity which is a finite resource. The only way I find effective to refuel it is through a good night’s sleep.

At one point of time, the first thing I did after waking up in the morning was browsing Instagram Reels, Reddit, swiping through Bumble, cleverly crafting messages in Hinge, then wasting my time planning what to do the rest of the day, burning through my brainpower just in the first 2 hours after waking. This lead to an increase in stress, me eating a lot of processed crap and outside food because I didn’t have mental energy to decide what food to make, and increase in spending $$ because I was paying for Doordash and Bumble premium. The point I am trying to emphasize is that dating apps don’t work for South Indian men who are under 6 feet tall 😝.

So over time I changed my habits, and became more disciplined. This lead to the creation of my daily routine which abstracted away the mundane parts of my life and I only had to focus on the tasks at hand. Just like how React abstracts away the configuration for tools like Webpack and Babel, making it easier for web developers to focus only on building the independent components(please give me a job 🥺). This consequently lead to more mental peace, forming better habits and allowing me to channel my energy to more meaningful tasks.

You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. —James Clear, Atomic Habits

In summary, I value routine and simplicity. A good daily routine lead me to having to less decision fatigue, which meant an overall improvement in productivity.