starting again (Monday!) - meal duration question

[g'majudy]

I fooled around with this diet last year but let vacations etc. mess me up.
One question I have is the time a meal should take, e.g. if I have left room for fruit on my plate can I wait for an hour or so to eat it or would the fruit then become a "snack"? I have some nerve worrying about this since it is bags of popcorn and 1/2 dozen or so cookies that are my problem!

[BrightAngel]

I fooled around with this diet last year but let vacations etc. mess me up.
One question I have is the time a meal should take, e.g. if I have left room for fruit on my plate can I wait for an hour or so to eat it or would the fruit then become a "snack"? I have some nerve worrying about this since it is bags of popcorn and 1/2 dozen or so cookies that are my problem!

Yes.
Under No S Diet Principles,
I think there can be no doubt that
waiting to eat part of one's meal "later" is still snacking.
This holds true no matter what the food is.

Whatever is meal-time for a person, equals that person's meal.
The amount on the plate eaten at the meal just determines whether it is a large or small meal.
Outside meal-time, eating is a "snack"
which doesn't change into part of a "meal,
whether it is fruit, popcorn, cookies, or any other solid food leftover from a meal.

[TunaFishKid]

... can I wait for an hour or so to eat it or would the fruit then become a "snack"?...

I feel safe in saying that if an hour has passed, that piece of fruit is now a snack. Let's put it this way...would you sit at the dinner table at home or in a restaurant for a whole hour before eating your dessert?

[g'majudy]

thanks! The concept of the time (< an hour) that I'd ever sit at the table is useful.

[ThomsonsPier]

would you sit at the dinner table ... in a restaurant for a whole hour before eating your dessert?

With the service in some places around here, there's not much choice.

In response to the thread question, however, I'd class that fruit as a snack, but I wouldn't relate it so much to the time consumed as to the reason you want to delay it. If you're sated by your meal, then wait an hour and eat some more, it's a snacking mentality. If you have to stop your meal to do something else and then come back to what you didn't get to eat, then that's rather a greyer area. If you can't manage food at your mealtime, there's too much food. Eating it later just puts back the excess you trimmed.

[oolala53]

I agree with what the reason is. I'm a teacher and our mealtimes are notoriously short. If I confer with a student, call a parent, or answer even one email, I may likely not get to finish my lunch, which is always a reasonable amount. Even if I forget my lunch and have to go to the cafeteria, it cuts way down on chewing time, and I like to chew. No gulping oatmeal for lunch here. If I don't get done, I feel perfectly okay about finishing it after my next class, but I do try to avoid that. Put it all on one plate, chew it up, wait for the next meal 4-6 hours later is how I try to plan the day.