I know it sounds irresponsible but I have a (now) not-so-secret desire to skip dinner.
As you know, I’m trying to eat mindfully. I can’t say I’m particularly successful at the moment, but by not-dieting, I’ve reduced my binge-eating quite drastically.
Having fewer rules and regulations around what I can and can’t eat means that I’m not feeling deprived, but nor am I inhaling kilograms of chocolate and cornchips.
However… I still eat too much in the evening and still worship at the altar of the ‘dinner’ gods.
For some reason, no matter how full I am from a pre-dinner snack or how late it may be, I feel this compulsion to cook and partake in an exciting and delicious dinner.
As I’m not working my mealtimes are a bit screwy. I get up and have some diluted orange juice and then adjourn to my computer. As I’m doing now I’ll often pfaff about online and not breakfast until almost mid morning. That means I have lunch late.
On top of screwy mealtimes, if I have books (and readers of my Debbish blog will know I’m rationing myself because of my binge-reading habit) my bigger problem is my compulsion to loll in the bath and read before dinner. Quite often I’ll have some champagne in there and be enjoying the book so much it KILLS me to have to get out at a pre-set time (usually 8pm) to cook dinner before watching something on television.
Quite often it will occur to me that I’m not really hungry and could quite easily just stay in the bath and finish the bloody book. Instead I get out for an hour or so and often find myself back in there later to finish whatever it was I started.
I realise skipping meals entirely isn’t sensible so would have a protein shake or a scrambled egg in lieu of dinner, to keep my metabolism clicking over.
Last night was a perfect example. I wasn’t hungry. At all. So I told myself in a mantra-like way that I’d just scramble an egg with some ham. That would do.
But for some reason I decided that it was dinner time and I SHOULD have a proper dinner. I’m SO not tradition-girl so it’s strange that I cling onto old habits.
When I worked I used the excuse that dinner was the only meal I had the time to enjoy. As I’m not currently working and at home all day I cannot use that one.
It’s like I feel I’m missing out on something or some opportunity by skipping an exciting dinner in lieu of something that just offers sustenance. I’ve tried the old self-talk thing; telling myself I can have that mashed potato and steak with pepper sauce TOMORROW night for dinner, when my appetite will do it justice; I tell myself I’m not abstaining completely.
But alas, it doesn’t work. The habit or tradition of ‘dinner’ seems so ingrained that I can’t do without it. But… I’m gonna keep trying. Just to make sure I can!
Are you a stickler for your ‘three meals a day’ (and perhaps snacks)?
Do you only eat when you’re hungry?
April 12, 2013
Ohh I love a good bath and book too! Champagne on top sounds perfection. I’ve been sick for two weeks now with the flu and haven’t felt like 3 meals aday at all!
April 13, 2013
I saw you’d been sick – commiserations as I’ve been unwell as well. The bath and book thing is my sustenance in many ways. Makes me feel all is well in the world!
April 12, 2013
I think Dinner is the hardest meal for most people! I always feel like I’m missing some amazing event if I skip it too! It’s just food at the end of the day but can’t get over it!
April 13, 2013
Exactly!!!
April 13, 2013
I always have three meals a day and probably a couple of snacks too. I wasn’t always so anal about the three meal thing but once there’s kids on the scene it becomes compulsory. They don’t take too well to starvation and I don’t take well to whiny offspring.
April 13, 2013
Yes, with only me to please / worry about I have the opportunity to be flexible with my mealtimes. Which I think is a good thing. (Isn’t it?!)
April 13, 2013
I like to have three meals a day but often can’t be bothered with a proper dinner if my parents are away. Ned is such a fussy eater that I get lazy about cooking food knowing he won’t eat it anyway. If my parents are home we eat dinner every night at 7pm in front of the ABC news. We have done that since I was a kid. My mum was a caterer when she worked so is a great cook. We get some pretty good food around here.
April 14, 2013
How great that your mum is a good cook.
I’ve always lived alone so used to cooking for one. Many of my friends used to say they didn’t bother cooking if their partner / husband was away and just had something nibbley. I said that if that was the case for me, I’d never eat any real food!
But… I need to minimise the part my evening meal plays in my life I think! x
April 16, 2013
Though champagne + bath is the ultimate, if you want dinner but don’t want to put down your book for the night – just get out of the bath, make your protein shake and then slurp it while in the bath?
#livingalonecanbeawesome
April 16, 2013
Hmm… I hadn’t thought about that. Protein shake in the bath. Ingenious, thanks!!!
April 21, 2013
You know…this is interesting. In the past couple of years I’ve stopped wanting eat much breakfast and I think it’s because I take a thyroid medication upon waking and am supposed to wait an hour before eating. So, the habit I got into was having coffee and taking my other supplements and maybe eating a Gnu bar (not much food at all). I just wasn’t hungry and I reasoned that if I wasn’t hungry I shouldn’t eat. And it’s not like I would then pig out later in the day (especially in the winter when my appetite seems to lessen), but I would find myself sort of grazing rather than having a proper meal. So these days I am choosing to make myself a decent breakfast and to hold my coffee until afterwards (which, by the way, I’ve heard can positively impact cholesterol levels. Apparently, coffee has a form of cholesterol in it and on an empty stomach can increase levels!)
April 21, 2013
I didn’t know that about coffee Karen. Wonder if it’s something in the coffee or caffeine (I don’t drink coffee, but drink diet coke on occasion!).
I eat breakfast a bit later now as I get up and have some (diluted) OJ on waking and check emails etc before making breakfast which can sometimes be mid-morning.