We often get asked about breakfast ideas here at Lose Baby Weight.

While we would normally suggest you tuck into a Healthy Mummy Smoothie (see all our recipes here), we understand that some days you might fancy something else with your cuppa.

So today we thought we would take a look at ideas for toast, and the health benefits of each.

Using 2 slices of wholemeal toast (at 180 calories) you can easily check out the calories and nutrition information based on the average amount of spread you would use on top.

In general, you are making a good choice by using a whole food rather than a processed spread.

For instance you can use a whole tomato for less than 30 calories, or a boiled egg has just 73 calories; whereas a tablespoon of peanut butter comes in at 127 calories.

‘I’m a mum to 3 beautiful kids under 3.5. The youngest is 5 months old.

I’ve whacked on 30kgs in the last 3 years and I’ve been very unhappy and unmotivated until I came across Lose Baby Weight.

I bought the 28 Day Diet and Exercise Plan book and have lost 4kgs in less then 4 weeks.

I couldn’t be happier!

I’m still going as I need to lose another 23kgs.

Today I made this quick and easy dinner for my toddler, and ended up having it myself too, it was so tasty.

It’s always great to have eggs in the house for a quick and easy meal. They are packed with protein and fill you up so you don’t feel hungry later.

This recipe is easily adaptable to whatever you have on hand. Replace the spinach with grated zucchini or carrot; try cooked chicken instead of the ham; add some cherry tomatoes or even a tin of corn.

If you have time, you can make your own easy pesto and keep it in the fridge to use for all sorts of meals. Or the store bought pesto is great too and keeps well.

The best part is, you just need to pop it all in a dish and cook it in the oven. No stirring, straining or stove-watching required.

Keep an eye on the seasoning if you plan to share this with your children.

Why should kids have all the fun? Just because you have made some food for your little ones doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it too.

And more often than not, if you are cooking for your children you will be using healthy nutritious ingredients that will aid you on your weight loss journey.

Sometimes it is as simple as just a change in texture that takes food from adult to kid-friendly.

Try one of these ideas and see if it brings out the child in you.

• Mac and Cheese – when you are craving pasta there are ways to make it without a calorie explosion. Try our low fat mac and cheese recipe here.

• Custard (pictured) – no, not the store bought kind (can you believe a lot of them contain no eggs at all?). Try this simple recipe that your kids will love as much as you. It warms you up from the inside and feels like a big cuddle. Mix 2 eggs, ½ tsp vanilla, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp of cornflour together with a splash of milk. Add 500ml of milk and cook stirring over a saucepan of simmering water until it thickens.

Do you give your kids a large portion of greasy take away for dinner? Let them skip breakfast and then fill up on a pastry for morning tea?

Do you let them stay up late at night and then drink 2 or 3 coffees a day?

Give them a whole bag of chips to scoff in front of the TV, and encourage them to wash it down with a litre of soft drink?

No? Didn’t think so.

Yet for many of us there have probably been times when you have fed these things to yourself.

Isn’t it strange how some of the things you would never dream of letting your kids do, are the very things that you have done to yourself?

12 months after my third (and last) child was born I was keen to budge those ‘last few kilos’ that were left.

During my son’s first year I had managed to lose 5.5kg on plenty of walking and simply by changing my portion sizes.

Although this was good I still could not lose the extra 6.5kg to get me back to my pre-baby weight.

Than I came across Lose Baby Weight on Facebook.

Every month, a mum who is on the Lose Baby Weight plans will be writing about their journey, exercise, ups and downs and will be here to help motivate YOU and THEMSELVES along the way.

If you’d like to become our Motivating Mum for the month click here to find out more (we pay you for it too!).

Eleanor Hannah has been motivating us all with her posts for the past few weeks.

She has already lost 20kg and has overcome some major obstacles along the way. You can read Eleanor’s first and second posts here.

Today we received a great email from Eleanor. She says ‘I’m feeling motivated and awesome this morning so thought I’d do an extra post, hope thats OK.’

It’s not just OK Eleanor, it’s fantastic! We love the fact that you are feeling so good and we just hope that by sharing it with our other mums some of the enthusiasm will rub off.

Want to ramp up your fitness so that you see real results? Follow our 8 tips to get yourself (and the scales) moving.

Give it your all

You’ve committed to taking the time to exercise, so don’t waste it by going at 60% effort.

We’ve all seen people on the treadmill walking at the same pace as someone in the supermarket.

This is not the time to catch up on phone calls either.

Unless you’re huffing and puffing, it’s unlikely that you are doing enough to really shift the weight.

Likewise, don’t spend the first half of your workout getting your headphones working and the music just right. Just get moving!

I have been on my pregnancy weight loss journey since November, I embraced everything I could from lose baby weight, the 28 day diet & exercise plan has been my bible, the healthy mummy smoothies have been my saviour.  The facebook updates as welcoming to me as hearing from family.

The journey has been incredible! I was motivating mum of the month for March and enjoyed every second of it. I exercised daily ate healthy, enjoyed my daily healthy mummy smoothie/s!

And to date I have lost 36kg on the Lose Baby weight plans – you can see my weight loss story here where I talk about my journey.

But in April so far I have lost just over a kilo I have kept up everything I have been doing, but for some reason it all just stopped. I felt disappointed my lounge work outs weren’t doing what they had previously been doing.

My daughter had surgery last week to have her tonsils removed which in advance I knew would mean I would be hospital bound and house bound for 2 weeks.

I made a goal at this stage to not sit down from the moment of getting out of bed to the moment my children were all put to bed. Obviously I sat occasionally to feed my baby but more often I stood.

The first 2 days doing this were the hardest, toward the end of the day I would sit for 30 seconds at a time to take the pressure off. When I made it out of hospital with my daughter and we were home I all of a sudden could not believe that I was happy to be standing, I was amazed at the house work I was getting done

This simple vegetarian curry has become a new favourite at our house.

Store cupboard staples are all you need to bring it all together.

By avoiding curry pastes and sachets you are skipping on all the extra salt, sugar, oil and additives that are so often hiding away in there.

If you don’t have coconut oil you can substitute with olive oil. But it is worth seeking out coconut oil if you can, as it adds a healthy dose of sweetness to the dish.

Some research also suggests that using heart-healthy coconut oil in your cooking can reduce your cravings for sweet foods.

Sweet potato is a great vegetable to add to your shopping list when you are trying to lose weight.

As well as being low GI and high in fibre, they are also low in calories.

And the best part of this dish? It reheats beautifully for lunch the next day.