Everyday Systems

I'm not usually hungry in the morning, in fact I usually don't want to eat anything until about 11am. I am thirsty though and in need of caffeine, so I have coffee and occasionally juice. I end up getting hungry in the late morning so sometime around 11ish I'll eat... then I'm not hungry at "lunch time". We usually eat dinner around 6pm +/- an hour.

Here's the problem... Eating only twice a day leaves me feeling deprived. I still have a plate/meal left so I often will have something late at night, say a sandwich and milk or left overs. But that leaves me feeling as if I've cheated.

I'm wondering how others handle this. If you don't eat at "meal time", or within a reasonable window of time, do you consider that a missed meal not to be eaten later, or do you save that eating event and use it later in that same 24 hour period?

Heidi

I never deliberately "save" a meal for later, but with a small baby in the house often meal times are pretty erratic, especially over the Christmas holidays.

I don't have any issue with eating my three plates when I have a window. I prefer to be hungry for me meals.

Well, you already know you can't sustain eating only two plates a day, so plan your third one. How about brunch at 11 am, dinner at 6 pm, and a light supper at 9?

I'm also rarely hungry first thing in the morning and am not hungry until closer to lunch time. I usually eat only lunch and dinner. If I get hungry prior to 10 AM, I'll have toast and fruit. If I don't get hungry until after 10 AM, then I wait until lunch. I may have lunch a little earlier than usual if I'm really hungry and it's possible.

I'd say that developing the habit of meals at specific times is most important.

I"m curious to know why you think you need No S in the first place. When are you overeating?

Before I started No S, I wasn't hungry in the mornings, either, but that was because I was eating erratically a lot of the time and thus overeating between 3 p.m. and bedtime even though I wasn't hungry. When I started, I ate small breakfasts and consistently stuck to moderate meals; then I was hungry in the morning!

After 2 1/2 years, my appetite has decreased and I vacillate between coffee breakfasts and small ones. I'm also experimenting with lighter lunches and dinners and am finding that hunger is sometimes back in the morning.

My work has a specified time for lunch, though I don't always share it with others, but I prefer to keep my routine matching the social one for now. When I tried intuitive eating, I wasn't hungry at times others wanted to eat and it was cause for failure often. The random nature was, too.

But I would also work on my thoughts about deprivation. I had to work on my thoughts about being deprived of eating sweets every day or not getting to eat randomly. I would remind myself that if I was eating good meals with delicious food and being hungry for appropriate amounts of time (not just having urges to eat), I was not actually deprived. The thought of being deprived is often just something your brain makes up as a way to try to get you to repeat the habit of eating when you're not hungry for pleasure or soothing or whatever. It's a habit. If you're not actually hungry, then what are you being deprived of? Just a momentary pleasure that you've gotten used to for a possible variety of reasons, none of them really good reasons to eat. If hunger is not the problem, food is not solution. The best solution is productive or pleasurable activities that divert you from the urge until you brain makes a new pattern.