If you are a breakfast food lover, it's hard to stay thin, but here is a way to enjoy a low-calorie French toast breakfast without blowing your diet.

I'm not sure what kind of food we'll eat in heaven, but I am sure hoping that breakfast fits in there somewhere. I am a breakfastfoodaholic. I love pancakes, waffles, French toast, omeletes, doughnuts, cereal, bagels, and biscuits and gravy.

I recently shared how I lost 18 pounds in less than eight weeks - and I'm still hoping to drop another five - and I can tell you that in those 8 weeks, I enjoyed none of those foods I mentioned. It just seems like all "good" breakfast food is just loaded with fat and calories. ( and if you are screaming about yogurt and fresh fruit, I remind you I specifically said "good" breakfast food)

Well, that has all changed. I felt like I should reward myself with one of my favorite breakfast meals - French toast and bacon. My French toast is fried until it is golden brown on both sides, lathered in butter, and then drenched with maple syrup. In the perfect scenario, several slices of thick cut bacon will accompany the meal.

But, here's the deal, I didn't want to completely blow my diet and watch the scales move in the opposite direction. So, out of the blue something hit me and I decided on a compromise. Baked French toast with turkey bacon - and I did it under 300 calories.

As it turned out, this meal turned out far different than my ultimate food fantasy. I had to make some sacrifices, but, I came up with something that is a pretty good substitute and satisfied my craving for French toast. Here's how  I did it.

For started, I went for the 45 calorie per slice bread. It's not the greatest bread int he world, and it's pretty thinly sliced, but it does the job. The bread is dipped in a mixture of egg and skim milk, (and a splash of almond extract!) and then placed on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. The toast is baked for 6 minutes at 500 degrees, turned, and baked for another 3 or 4 minutes. The toast came out of the oven nice and brown with a very solid texture, which I loved.

Zane Mathews
Zane Mathews
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I thought about doing a small application of butter, but ultimately decided that it was not essential, and I was right. I didn't really miss it. I believe French toast in heaven will indeed be lathered with butter, so I will just wait until then.

The final French toast sacrifice came by using sugar free maple syrup. Not quite like the real thing, but it wasn't bad. The key is to do the syrup in small amounts so that the sugar-free taste doesn't get overwhelming. Resist the urge to drench with syrup.

And then there's the matter of bacon. I love bacon as though it were my own child. However, once again, in the spirit of compromise and self-sacrifice - and for the sake of my waistline- I opted for the much lower calorie, and less-yummy tasting turkey bacon. As it turned out, I actually enjoyed my four slices of bacon tremendously.

No, this special meal was not as good as it could have been, but I can honestly say it was not  a disappointment at all. Quite the opposite is true. Perhaps going in with lower expectations helped to minimize the disappointment. But, the bottom line is, I was able to greatly  enjoy one of my most favorite meals and did so without any accompanying guilt or regret.

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