I missed a meal once.
It was the summer of 2003, I was probably somewhere around six months pregnant.
I had a Chicken Parmesan Panini for lunch which made me so nauseous that I couldn’t bring myself to eat an afternoon snack or dinner.
Can you believe it? Not even dinner!
Wait – it’s slowly coming back to me…I definitely skipped dinner but around 9:00 pm I needed something so we went to get Ralph’s Ices and I had my favorite flavor- Snicker Fudge.
So technically, aside from a few bouts with random stomach viruses, the last meal I missed was eleven years ago.
Just like I can’t relate to people who want to run in the morning but can’t get themselves out of bed, I cannot relate to the people who forget to eat lunch, aren’t hungry for breakfast or skip dinner because they were too busy running errands late into the evening.
What do you mean it’s 3:00 pm and you haven’t had lunch yet?
What do you mean you had a big lunch so you won’t need dinner?
Not even a small something? A nibble of a sandwich? A salad?
How do you run on an empty stomach? Not even a banana? Okay, so you run better without eating first but what about after your run?
You don’t refuel within the 45 minute crucial window for proper muscle recovery?
Forget muscle recovery, AREN’T YOU HUNGRY?
Eating at regular intervals is kind of a big deal.
If you want a speedy metabolism, if you want to feel good, maintain or even lose some weight, you must eat. And eat often.
I eat when I wake up. I am starving to the point where I sometimes wake up at 3:00 am looking for a nibble just to get myself to 6:00 am when I typically eat my first breakfast.
I have always been this way, even before I started running lots of miles and well before I was even considered in shape. Which, by the way, Pure Barre challenges any belief of my being in shape. Muscle shaking is an understatement.
Breaking the fast in the morning gets your metabolism going, feeds your brain and your muscles and helps to balance out your sugar levels so that you don’t crash, burn and make poor food choices and/or overeat later in the day.
In fact, they say that people who eat breakfast on a regular basis are thinner than those who skip the meal altogether.
I am half serious here. Some studies show that having cake or a dessert with breakfast may lead to eating fewer calories overall and prevent bingeing later in the day.
If you don’t like traditional breakfast foods (which I can’t relate to) just eat something that sounds appealing to you.
Remember the other day I made my son blueberry waffles using Kodiak Cakes mix? I froze the leftovers and reheated them a few days later.
So I just gave you the green light to eat what it is you like in the morning, including cake, so I don’t even want to hear your excuse of having “no time” for breakfast.
No time to toast an English muffin and spread some peanut butter? No time for a container of yogurt on your way out the door?
No time for dry cereal, a cheese sandwich, cold pizza or a bowl of oatmeal quickly heated in the microwave or even better, reheated from the servings you thought to prep in advance for the week?
My son is so lucky, isn’t he? Not only do I prep oatmeal and share the servings with him, I voluntarily drop Trader Joe’s mini peanut butter cups into his bowl which also contains whipped in banana and raspberry jelly.
Please don’t tell him about the chia seeds, he has yet to notice.
Don’t you value yourself enough to take a few minutes to consider your meals and do a drop of planning the night before if you know you won’t have time to prepare breakfast?
Allowing for hours to pass between meals and not caring enough to put some thought into ensuring you are well fed speaks volumes about a person’s self-esteem.
If you love and value yourself, you would respect your appetite and the food you select to fuel your body and soul. Just a thought here. We may need to expand on this another day.
Exact meal times can be flexible. So long as you remember to eat, you can really go and do anything with proper planning.
If I have to be somewhere for an extended period of time which may interfere with lunch, I make sure to either eat my lunch in advance (and bring a snack) or, bring my lunch with me.
I don’t know what it is but there is something about a “Power Bowl” that always makes me feel good.
Perhaps a Power Bowl of some sort is what you need in the middle of your day to boost your mood, self-esteem and metabolism all while satisfying your appetite.
Sweet potato wedges with roasted brussels sprouts, plum tomatoes, roasted eggplant and chick pea/avocado mash with some extra avocado because it’s too good to stop at a little bit.
A lunch like this can come together real quick, can be prepared in advance, is totally portable and can be served hot or cold with no mess.
Am I the only one who has a stomach that can’t lose track of time?
I don’t even need a clock. We can figure out what time it is just based upon my appetite.
You don’t want to skip meals. Not only will it leave you ravenous before long, being ravenous can often times increase the chance that you will overeat or make less-than-ideal (fast food) meal choices.
If you haven’t eaten in eight hours, you are more likely to come home and polish off the entire container of mini peanut butter cups while figuring out what you will have to eat.
Try them with banana. Just do it.
Going too many hours without food will make you mean and can affect your metabolism by slowing it down.
When the body doesn’t receive food for extended periods of time and then suddenly receives some, it is more likely to hold on to every morsel you give it rather than burn it off as energy.
And we certainly don’t need our bodies holding on to every peanut butter cup.
I have been meaning to get to the post about how I don’t meal plan but do plan for having a variety of staples in my house in order to throw meals together quick.
Any day of the week you can come to my house looking for a balanced meal and I will have one for you in a matter of minutes.
I mentioned my son’s weeknight meal plan request for after camp but for the most part, that meal plan has been consisting of tacos or big sandwiches.
I have been rotating those until this week when I kindly offered to make him meatballs.
“Real meatballs” as he said which translates as, not meatless.
I definitely want to share the recipe for these turkey meatballs with you because even though I couldn’t taste them (vegetarian, remember?) he devoured them, asked for seconds and had them two nights in a row. I just need to make them one more time so I can pay attention to measurements a bit better.
Making meatballs from scratch is really easy, doesn’t take long and should leave you with some leftovers.
You can freeze your meatballs and easily heat them up for another meal which will help to keep you from skipping dinner or spending money on take-out.
I may have skipped dinner eleven years ago but I am pretty sure I have never missed dessert.
I am going through berries like crazy over here but I decided it’s okay because the season for delicious fruit will end before we know it.
By the way, I feel like it is my duty to inform you of the fruit recall at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Walmart and Kroger.
Be sure to check out what everyone else is eating today!
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Last time you skipped a meal?
Do you eat nontraditional breakfast foods?
Favorite lunch lately?
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The Cookie ChRUNicles 
