I’ve heard lots of people remark “Ugh! I’m hungry… Last thing I ate was a piece of toast at 8 this morning!” or something to that effect around 7 in the evening.
I personally don’t follow the three meals a day most of the time. I’ll eat an ok sized lunch then a late dinner… Sometimes just a few medium sized snacks in the afternoon and a meal at around midnight or one in the morning. I do notice, however, that the rough number of calories I eat (I get bored while waiting for stuff to cook and read all the words on a package) is usually much lower than 2,000. On occasion while roughly adding it up in my head it will be far over, but I’d say that’s one in ten days at the most. All in all my eating habits are far from your three squares a day.
I’m just shocked at how often I hear something close to the quoted remark above. A piece of toast or a small cup of yogurt for a full day of work and then a few hours more? By then I don’t think I’d be able to move…
I have an extremely high metabolism (it runs in my family, my dad has fainted because he didn’t eat for 7 hours in a row)… If I go a long period of time without something to eat I get really shakey and feel nauseous. I probably should eat a bit more but my snacking habits make it so I’m ok.
So, a poll… Do you eat the 3 squares a day? If not, how is yours different? If yours is drastically different (like the one piece of toast) how do you feel? How does it affect your body, mentally and physically?
I generally do 3 meals a day, somewhat spread out. Breakfast is usually toast or cereal or eggs or oatmeal. Then lunch around noon, but I’m not really starving most of the time by noon. The times I skip lunch, though, I’m hungry by 2 or 3, and sometimes it’s not convenient to eat then so I tend to try to get something in the 11- 1 range.
We eat dinner late - usually between 6:30 and 8. Depending on when I had lunch I might have a snack a few hours before dinner.
I wouldn’t say I have a fast metabolism, but I can’t really go all day without eating either. I get shaky and crabby if it goes too long. Mr. Athena can go longer than me, but it gets to him, too. He’s funny about it, though - it never occurs to him that the reason he feels worn out sometimes is because he had half a hardboiled egg for lunch and nothing else for hours and hours. I’ve learned that the first thing to ask him if he’s getting cranky or complaining that he doesn’t feel well is “what did you eat today?”
No, I don’t. I usually eat one big meal, a smaller meal, and maybe some snacks. At irregular hours, too. I quite often get up at 7:30 or so and then eat my first something between 1-2. I usually eat dinner, but it’s often between 8-9.
Upon further thought, I eat one meal and some random stuff about half the time.
During the week I don’t usually eat breakfast or lunch. I have a large dinner at 8 or 9pm. On the weekends I sometimes eat breakfast, but no lunch still and then I eat dinner at 8 or 9pm.
I usually eat 3 meals a day, but that’s because of the dining hall hours at school. If I could go eat whenever I wanted, I’d probably eat 4 smaller meals, at about 8, 12, 4, and 8. I get hungry every few hours, which leads to a lot of snacking (usually things that are bad for me, since I don’t really have access to a grocery store or anything). If I go too long without food, I get all shaky and irritable, and then I eat too much when I do get the chance.
I don’t usually have breakfast - I have to be out of the house quite early and to be honest I just don’t feel like food at that time in the morning. Instead I have a bowl of fruit in the office (usually apples, oranges and bananas) for snacks later in the morning.
Lunch is usually around 1pm, I’m not hugely fond of sandwiches so it’s often stuff like mixed bean salad and coleslaw or a bowl of soup and some bread. My main meal is in the evening, usually between 7-8pm which is generally cooked from scratch every night and quite often I’ll make extra so I can either have the other half for dinner the next night, or take some leftovers for lunch instead.
I’m a vegetarian and I don’t count calories. I know I weigh more than I should and at my age I expect it’s my metabolism slowing down. But I’m sure things will equal out when I go back to the gym next week. (Famous last words…)
I don’t have any eating habits. I really don’t. Sometimes I eat breakfast, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I eat lunch, sometimes I don’t. Ditto with dinner.
I usually eat 2 - 3 breakfasts, starting as early as 3:00am (I often wake up in the early morning hours hungry as hell, and don’t have a prayer of going back to sleep unless I eat something). I also eat lunch around 11:30 if I can.
After that I’m often not really hungry at all, and could easily skip dinner altogether. However, since the hubby and MIL need to eat (and are the opposite of me: no breakfast, just lunch and dinner), I end up making and often eating dinner around 8:00 - 9:00pm.
So, not really 3 meals a day, and some of the meal times aren’t, er, standard.
I eat pretty much all day. I always eat breakfast. If I don’t, I end up starving in the mid-morning and end up overeating on whatever junk happens to be around. I’m hungry in the morning anyway, especially after I work out.
During the week, I eat a decent breakfast, a bigger lunch, then usually a lighter dinner, plus a few snacks. Sometimes I do the mini-meal thing where I have basically 5 or 6 big snacks. On the weekends, I tend to eat more lightly during the day, or have a pretty large breakfast that holds me most of the day, then a bigger dinner, since that’s when we tend to eat out.
It depends on the day. Sometimes I’ll just have one meal, sometimes, three standard meals and sometimes five or six small things throughout the day. For some reason, I have lots of days when I’m just not hungry at all, but will have a piece of fruit or something because it’s best to eat at least one thing per day. It doesn’t seem to affect my energy level. I’m not an incredibly active person, but I do get 1-2 hours of exercise most days.
I’m one of those people who mentioned who talk about having one little thing in the morning.
It’s not because it lasts me, it’s because I get busy and forget to eat. I’d love to snack all day, or have regimented meals - I just often forget. Then I get bitchy and the Tashaboy shoves food in my face.
Usually I bring yogurt and a piece of fruit for breakfast. Occasionally I’ll eat lunch but often times I forget, so usually the yogurt and fruit last me until about 6:30, when I eat dinner. (Today is the exception - I had a McGriddles for breakfast - we’re out of yogurt and I didn’t have time to get to the store - and I’m planning on going out with my mom for lunch.)
I have learned through bitter experience that skipping breakfast = migraine for me. So I eat breakfast, and then I go on grazing on whatever I want until lunch.
Then I eat lunch. I take a pill in the afternoon which requires an empty stomach, so I go three hours without eating at that time. And it’s hard!
Then I snack until dinner, eat dinner, and most days manage to fit in a bowl of ice cream before bed.
It sounds like I should have a weight problem, but I don’t. I weigh myself every day, and if I start to go beyond what I consider acceptable, I cool it on the snacks for a few days.
Breakfast = black coffee
Lunch whatever is handy. Sandwiches usually.
Dinner is sporadic. 3 times a week I play racketball and leave the house at 330 and return at 930. Those days no food til late. Then I will eat a brick.
Pretzels are the snack food to tide me over.
My schedule runs sort of late–I am usually up at about 9:30 and get in bed around midnight (yes, I sleep a lot. Yes, I’ve always been that way. No, I can’t sleep less), which can make mealtimes sort of strange. I have a very small bowl of cereal in the morning, then lunch around 12-1. In the afternoon I have a big mug of tea and something small to nibble on. Dinner is usually around 7. Then, before I go to bed, I have light yogurt and maybe a piece of fruit, if I’m feeling very hungry.
Lunches and dinners are usually small portions of normal “meal” stuff–some kind of meat, some kind of vegetables, and some kind of carbohydrate. Sometimes I don’t have the carbohydrate with lunch, and have it with my afternoon tea instead.
For those of you who are on an eating schedule or ration where you either eat little or nothing for a good chunk of the day… How do you feel? The menu is fine to hear, but the reason I ask is to see if those with out-of-the-ordinary diets cope with it. Just fine? Or “woah… I gotta eat… now.”
I used to be poor, and I grew accustomed to not eating for long stretches. Now, the years have gone by and I’m not poor, but I still don’t eat for long stretches. I can’t even look at food in the morning. I almost never have lunch. Sometimes I may have a bag of chips or a bagel with cream cheese mid-afternoon at work. My wife and I have dinner between 7 and 9, and that’s my main food intake.
I can go a couple of days without eating. My wife eats lunch and dinner, but gets such hunger pangs before dinner that she says her stomach hurts. That’s something I don’t really understand. I can’t say for sure that I’ve ever had a stomach ache, and I can’t imagine eating if I had one. But I’ve never been so hungry between lunch and dinner that I was in pain.
It depends. I don’t eat early in the morning because I’ve found if I eat soon after getting up I feel slightly sick, and then hungrier than usual by lunchtime. I usually have a mug of tea (black or green) in the morning, and then wait to eat until I’m hungry.
If I go without eating for too long I still to feel phased out, irritated, and eventually tired, weak and grumpy. I try to eat often enough to stave it off, but quite often I’m too busy or interested in what I’m doing to stop to eat.