Monday, March 21, 2011

Feeding Times....Do They Exist?



A few years ago, someone told me their mom had lost quite a bit of weight by changing a few things.

  1. Ate cereal for breakfast
  2. Had a large salad for Lunch.
  3. Ate anything she wanted for dinner with these exceptions:
    1. She could not eat after 6 p.m.
I thought this was crazy!!! But thought I would give it a try.  After only a couple of weeks my friend said, "Laura you have lost weight."  That made me smile.  But of course when I told them what I was doing they didn't believe me.  I am not a cereal eater either, but I realized I did like some cereal.

One of the side affects of this I saw real fast, was that I would wake up in the middle of the night starving.  My tummy would grumble like it had not eaten in a week.  I learned that water could quiet my stomach down enough until I could eat in the morning.  I stuck to my guns about not eating after 6 p.m.  On a few occasions I had to politely turned down someone's offer to eat after my dead line.  Some understood but many more let me know how ridiculous it was and tried to guilt me into eating. 

So again, my point here is changing another habit.  Maybe you cannot set a 6 p.m. deadline, maybe it is a 6:30 or 7 deadline.  But just like everything else we need to do in our lives, it needs to be budgeted.  When you don't budget the times, like everything else it can spin out of control faster than chocolate disappears from a chocoholic's hand to their mouth.  In other words, DON'T BLINK.

Find times that work for you and your family.  It may be difficult at first to get everyone together for dinner, but keep trying till you work out the quirks.  It will come.

I am interested to hear if anyone else has set feeding times?

3 comments:

  1. It wasn't exactly a set feeding time but when I was in high school I noticed that if I ate breakfast I would be starving by the middle of 5th period (I had lunch right after 5th period) but if I didn't have breakfast (and most moringings I choose the snooze alarm over breakfast) my sstomach wouldn't be growling at lunchtime. Did it make a difference in what I had for lunch? (French fries, can of pop, and usually a candy bar or dessert; unless it was pizza day then I had a slice of pizza too) Probably not.
    Today was a bad day a work. Just over the top depressing and when I went to lunch I thought "how great would it be to just drown my sorrows in a large pop and fries". I resisted. My day didn't get any better but I'm sure it wasn't due to the lack of fries. :/

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  2. I have always heard it is best not to eat within 3 hours of going to bed. So if you go to bed at 8 it would mean no food after 5. I am pretty frustrated with myself I have been back to middle of the night snacking. I think my schedule is lacking routine. I have been working 6 day weeks and it is showing in every aspect of my life. I believe that feeding times exist.
    Jenny hang in there I know how hard it is. I recently found out that I have to go through a rehire process at my job after 10 years due to the move of our hospital. It is over the top stressing and depressing. I do inderstand.

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  3. @ Jenny.....Awww sorry.....I have had those kind of days too!! I was just noticing this morning because I did not have my normal breakfast of Grapenuts, yogurt and banana, by Noon I was starving!!! Luckily someone brought me an orange. Pretty good and enough to hold me over.

    @Rachel Sorry for all the stress!!! I am right there with you guys.....my computer crashed over the weekend. No job for over two years and now no computer. FUN TIMES!! Hang in there and do the best you can!! Hugs

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