I need to set my meals in stone with a weird schedule, help?

[Betho]

Hey everyone

I'm sort of in a conundrum and was hoping you more experienced No S-ers could help me out.

My schedule is kind of odd, I get up about 7, do my workout, get the kids ready, head out, drop them off at daycare, go to work at about 9:30-10. I get home about 8pm. Normally what I'd do is pack close to a day's worth of food and eat it throughout the day, about 4 different times. I do normally eat quite healthy but I know part of the idea of no S is to eat more in actual MEALS.

I'm debating on when to have my meals. Right now I have a quick breakfast in the morning initially, another small one before I start work, then a quick lunch at about lunchtime, then my actual lunch at about 3 when I have my real lunch break, then I sometimes eat again about 6 just a quick snack, and then I eat a small dinner at about 8 or 8:30.

I think I eat a lot of small meals and I would like to reduce it to just 4 meals. I definitely need a quick meal early in the morning for working out, and I definitely need a quick meal in the evening when I get home (since it's usually been since about 5 hours since I had anything substantial).

So I'm thinking about this - try and bump up the "quality" of the meal I have first thing in the morning to keep me OK until about noonish. Noonish have a small mini-meal of some sort, then have my regular size lunch at 3. No more food after that until I get home, at which time I eat my dinner.

Do you think that will work? I just want to set it in stone because I need the formula to follow

[paulawylma]

It doesn't sound to me like your schedule is weird, the only thing that is strange is that you're eating 6 times a day, yet you sound as though you are always hungry! You probably aren't eating enough at meals.

You sound like you are currently eating about every 3 hours--this is normal only if you are on one of those 6 small meal a day diets or have some sort of medical condition and have been told to eat every 3 hours--if this is the case ignore eveything else in this post and ask your doctor about meal size and frequency.

Otherwise. . .
You said that you eat breakfast twice and then a snack and then lunch at 3pm and get home at 8pm. The gap between 3pm and 8:30pm (30 min to fix something) is only 5 1/2 hours. Meals should be about 5 to 6 hours apart (based on a "normal" schedule where lunch is a 12 noon and dinner is between 5pm and 6pm--"normal" breakfast depends on when a person gets up). I hope you eat after your morning workout. When you eat breakfast depends on how you arrange your morning schedule. I usually get up between 5:30 and 6am and eat between 7 and 7:30 normally but between 6 and 6:30am when I'm going in early for OT. I eat lunch usually between 1:15 and 1:45 (to miss the 1pm rush in the lunchroom) and eat about an half hour after getting home, which depending on OT and the weather (which has been snowy for the last 2 weeks) is usually between 7pm and 8pm--very close to your "weird" schedule.

I suggest you eat after your workout and before leaving for work, try eating twice as much or combining your two breakfasts into one meal. Eat a large enough lunch to get you through the 5 to 6 hours before you eat supper. You might still be hungry for a week at your usual snack times, but that's just because you trained your body to expect food at those times and it's learned to get ready for the incoming food. If necessary, you can drink milk or 100% fruit juice at your breaks (remember unsweetened liquids are not considered eating on no s). Drink lots of water, sometimes what you feel as hunger is really dehydration. Speaking of water, the first thing you consume in the morning when you get up is a glass of water, most people dehydrate overnight. It is especially important to drink water before working out in the morning.

Don't think of your schedule as weird; try thinking of it in terms of hours between meals. Try to schedule your meals between 5 and 6 hours apart. and don't eat right before going to bed.

I hope this helps,

Pauline

PS Most of my suggestions have been taken from previous posts by other people. the topic of scheduling meals and being hungry comes up frequently. I suggest you read some of the older posts and get a copy of No S Diet book. It has a lot of great suggestions.

[rose]

Why do you need the meal before your workout?
I would think, if you eat before your workout, then during the workout you will "burn" the quick-acting carbs in your meal... how about burning fat instead?
Or is your workout very strenuous?
If so, eating a full breakfast before the workout might not be a good idea either, as your body will be busy digesting all that food...

Also if you push back breakfast until after your workout, then you might not need the noon snack.

(anyway you can try one way for a week, and then try another way. You DON'T have to set it in stone. NoS is a learning process.)

FYI I always have breakfast after my morning workout, but that workout is pretty light.

[Anoulie]

Your schedule sounds pretty normal to me...

I'd say have breakfast right after your workout, bring lunch to work and eat during your lunch break (I'd set a time for lunch if I were you), and eat dinner after you come home at 8 pm.

[kccc]

I also eat after my morning workout (though I do have the equivalent of a glass of milk in my coffee before - I drink homemade cafe au lait). It's not a problem, even on days when I run, though it took a bit to get used to that schedule.

You might look at the thread on what times people eat to get some ideas. Some of the schedules are not that different from what yours could be.

If you CAN eat something at 12-ish for lunch, then have your real lunch then and use your 3:00 lunch hour for something else. Read, walk if you can, etc. Have a glass of milk/juice to get you through. (If it's an option, push the 12-ish closer to 1 to balance the time between breakfast-lunch and lunch-dinner a bit more.)

Now... with all that said, when I first started I found snacking the HARDEST habit to break because my body was so accustomed to eating multiple times a day, much as you describe. I phased it in, sort of like weaning a baby, dropping the easier snacks first, then limiting the hardest to drop to "fruit only", then "fruit only if I really need it". At the same time, I had to bump up meals to be more substantial than I was used to. (The "weaning a baby" is actually a good analogy - the body reacts to change like a child throwing tantrums, and requires the same kind-but-firm approach that a toddler might.)

It took time to make that transition, but at this point, I don't even think about food until right before mealtime. And I absolutely believe the "no snacks" habit is the most essential piece of No-S (at least for me). Meal food tends to be healthier than snack food, even when you think you're eating healthy snacks most of the time, and when you see it all at once, there's a real sense of how much you're truly eating that you simply don't get when grazing/snacking.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

[Betho]

OK I guess to clarify my schedule is weird because I have breakfast at a normal time (7:30-ish) and then lunch isn't until 3. I try to sneak in a quick snack around 1-ish when I have a 15 minute break.

So what I've been doing and I think it's working well is trying to eat a bigger breakfast in the morning and then I have a banana and yogurt or something at my first break, and then my actual lunch at my 3:00 time. Then I eat dinner about 8. The biggest gap is usually between breakfast and my noonish "meal" but I'm trying to ramp up what I eat for breakfast to help that a bit. My body likes to eat most of its food in the first half of the day which is why I used to eat several small meals in that time.

I've been good though, no red days except last Monday when I grabbed a soda without thinking about it. I rarely drink soda so trying to avoid it hasn't been on my mind, but we went out to eat and so I didn't even think about it till I'd already drank half of it. Other than that, I've been doing great. I even have a plate of beautiful tomatoes & Mozzarella and basil on my desk (a co-worker brought it for her team potluck and generously left me some) and I'm saving it for dinner It smells great but I'm not battling, and that's a great thing.