I’ve been working with a nutritionist for several months.  She’s been very helpful and encouraging and full of good information about how I can make better choices during my eating day.

Fine.  I do my best.  I’m working nuts and seeds into my diet.  I’m de-emphasizing the white carbs.  Try not to eat late at night.  And I’m making progress.  I don’t look like an Olsen twin yet, but I’m making progress.

Breakfast on work days, however, remains a problem.  Getting up thirty minutes earlier so I can have a healthy breakfast at home sounds like a lovely idea, but in practice?  Forget about it.  The fact that I lumber out of bed at the horrifying hour of 7:00 a.m. is already a huge concession to the realities of having to earn a living.  Making it 6:30 just so I can have oatmeal is simply asking too much. 

It’s not my fault that there’s a McDonalds two blocks from my house, conveniently situated for me to grab breakfast. 

And it’s REALLY not my fault that my standard breakfast of a Egg McMuffin, hash browns, and a medium Diet Coke is quite possibly the world’s most perfect on-the-go morning meal.

I won’t elaborate on the self-evident uber-goodness of the Egg McMuffin and the Diet Coke.  The hash browns, however, deserve a little elaboration.

This IS a to-go breakfast, after all, and so what you are served isn’t actually hash browns, it’s a pre-formed, defrosted,  ellipse-shaped hash brown patty.  And my friends, it is simpy perfection.  McDonalds may be the Great Satan of nutrition, but they have gotten the Hash Brown Patty down. 

It’s just big enough.  It’s just hot enough.  It’s just crispy enough.  It’s just salty enough. 

If one were to discover a McDonald’s hash brown patty occuring natually in nature, it would be the strongest argument ever for the truth of Intelligent Design. 

The only thing wrong with a McDonald’s hash brown patty is that it isn’t TEN McDonald’s hash brown patties.

I have tried to explain this to my nutritionist.  I proudly tell her that, among the breakfast sandwiches available at national chain fast-food establishments, the Egg McMuffin is actually the healthiest, coming in at a mere 300 calories.

Sometimes I think the only thing that propels me out of bed in the morning is the knowledge that in just a few minutes, I get to eat that delicious, warm, salty,  golden-brown hockey puck.  Perhaps it’s actually addictive.  Perhaps McDonalds laces the potatoes with opium or nicotine.  Again, not my fault.

So, while I will continue to try to improve my eating choices at lunch and dinner time, if I have to drive to work at the godforsaken hour of 8:00 a.m., I have earned my McDonald’s breakfast.  Don’t try to take it out of my hands and no one gets hurt.