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Saturday, July 10. 2021Meals, hunger, false hunger, and satiety, Part 1 (re-posted)Where did the cultural habit of three square meals per day come from? It's quite recent, actually, and really a European cultural concept. More specifically, a British aristocratic concept because even today an Italian breakfast (except for the tourists) is an espresso or latte and a biscotti, and a typical French breakfast is a cafe au lait and a croissant. Typical Italian supper? Soup and bread, or cheese and leftovers. "Eating between meals"? I suspect people might feel better with 5 mini-meals - balanced snacks, really, because stuffed and lazy after supper is not an effective life plan. Stuffed and lazy after any meal is not a good plan except on Thanksgiving. Serious exercisers and athletes tend to discipline themselves to a 5 meal program to keep the nutrients flowing. They have to eat when they aren't hungry to maintain their level of fitness and power, and to keep their weight up. A mini-meal for many can be something like a couple of slices of chicken and a handful of olives, or an apple and some cheese slices, maybe a slice of pizza or a cup of yoghurt or oatmeal with berries. Volume and details depending, of course, on total muscle mass, body frame, daily physical demands, physical goals, etc. Body-builders need 4-5 full meals daily to put on muscle mass, while the old-fashioned three squares/day will make most adults flabby if not obese. To understand what your body needs, look at it nude in the mirror. One look will tell you what it needs in fitness and nutrition in terms of muscular development, leanness or fatness, posture, etc. When it comes to food, we can't listen to our body too much. It's a liar because it was programmed for scarcity a long time ago, before agriculture. Humans seem to have the instinctive inclinations (eat, nap, fight, play, sex, and repeat until dark when the predators come out) of monkeys, chimps, and gorillas but we have some added higher capacities, or so the scientists claim. A brief history of the origin of three meals/day. Part 2 tomorrow will deal with hunger, appetite, and satiety.
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In the morning I eat small breakfast - a handful or trail mix or maybe a couple of eggs. Lunch is SUPER early for me. Usually 11:30. Then I have a small snack around 3. Eat dinner around 5:30.
I hate going to bed with a full stomach. I never sleep well. Like about 4 or 5 hours after dinner before I go to sleep. Maybe one small snack before bed like a single cookie or popcorn. Humans seem to have the instinctive inclinations (eat, nap, fight, play, sex, and repeat until dark when the predators come out) of monkeys, chimps, and gorillas but we have some added higher capacities, or so the scientists claim.
Is this rubbish from an unknown catechism somewhere or is a kind of Darwinism aimed at humble-bragging a fancy secular lifestyle? No. There is always only one proper way to do anything, and it is whatever we say it is at the time. It will change, of course, often suddenly, as science is voted on by scientists and reality alters to reflect their new opinions.
(I liked the "humble bragging" bit. Bulls-eye.) To understand what your body needs, look at it nude in the mirror.
Hmmm. Needs ... clothes! I like a big breakfast; 2-3 eggs, hash browns, 4 strips bacon and a short stack, coffee. When I was younger that just wouldn't have been enough. I can eat a lite breakfast but I simply make up for it at lunch if I do. I like a simple dinner; meat, potatoes and a veggie. I have always snacked after dinner, sometimes chips, nuts, chocolate, cookies, peanut butter by the spoon, sometimes all of the above.
My favorite guilty pleasure is to stop by the theater at noon and buy one of those big buckets of popcorn and eat it for lunch or a Dominoes Pizza... I can't decide which. I've noticed that my 14-year-old stepdaughter, when she gets upset, tends to become RAVENOUSLY hungry within 10-15 minutes of her emotional turmoil.
Although physically she's not hungry (she eats regularly) it's clear that she perceives it as a deep, aching physical hunger - like all of a sudden she realizes she hasn't eaten for days. You do not want to get in between her and carbohydrates when this happens. Pasta and white rice are her favorites in this situation and they disappear quickly; it's like she's in one of those speed-eating contests when the food comes. It's not emotional eating in the sense of, "Boo hoo hoo I just got dumped/got a D on my term paper/whatever and now I'm going to have some ice cream so I'll feel better." That's conscious - when I do that I'm aware that I'm eating for comfort and I limit my intake accordingly. With my stepdaughter it's...different. She doesn't seem to perceive herself as engaging in comfort eating - she's thinks she's dealing with ravenous legitimate hunger and eats bowl after bowl of carbs without any consideration for the calories because hey, she's starving. Not to be judgemental but I've never seen anything like this before in my life. I think she might be on her way to an eating disorder (her mother engages in binge eating so these behaviors are being modeled in front of her). The dismaying part is her refusal to admit that the 'starvation' she feels when she's upset has any connection to her emotional state. As inspiration for me (an overweight lawyer) losing weight and getting in shape, I decided to watch "Oh My Venus," a Korean comedy drama about an overweight lawyer getting in shape. Maybe the routine in the TV show will work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_My_Venus Would it be OK if I cross-posted this article to WriterBeat.com? There is no fee, I'm simply trying to add more content diversity for our communzity and I liked what you wrote. I'll be sure to give you complete credit as the author. If "OK" please let me know via email.
Autumn AutumnCote@WriterBeat.com Please try to work the modern Spanish meal patterns into this work of fiction and try again......
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Yogurt - this is what little kids eat. Probably got it at Wal-Mart. Maybe even squeezed from a plastic tube. Yoghurt - Now you're talking. Much more expensive, probably Greek. Mix this with your granola and fresh cut fruit. Youghurt - The acme of cultured milk. Comes from free-range, organic goats that you milked yourself. Isn't Vegan, but should be. Wow. A post that simultaneously:
1. Says westerners dont need 3 meals a day. 2. Tells westerners to just look at themselves nude. 3. Says westerners must force themselves to eat 5 times a day. Eat while you are in the nude, standing in front of the mirror. That will put you off food for quite a while.
Any method of eating for weight loss and better health and nutrition can work but it always amounts to eating less in a week (daily consumption can vary and is not that important) along with seriously limiting terrible nutritional garbage.
Finding the right system that fits your personality preferences and energy needs is the key. Personally I like two systems: 1) eat disciplined M-F and eat what you like on weekends and 2) eat disciplined for any 2 of 3 daily meals. “Disciplined” means small portions but the type of food can vary depending on energy needs during the day. Both are easy to adapt to mentally since they fit other daily/weekly patterns we already live and they both accomplish a big reduction in food like fasting for 18 hours a day, which is another system that can work for some people (not me). I don't understand British eating habits, and this article gave some history but didn't clarify today's customs. It seems they eat fairly large breakfasts (I never heard of beans with breakfast until I visited a diner in Vermont). Then they eat a sandwich or a small pie at lunch. Then they have "tea" in the mid-afternoon, which seems to be a meal with "biscuits", which we call cookies. Then they have supper late in the evening. That's a lot of food.
Never heard of beans for breakfast? You gotta get out more. What else would you serve as the side dish for huevos rancheros?
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Part 1 is here Now to the related topic of Satiety. It was not long ago that being pudgy or having a bit of a gut signaled prosperity, and leanness signaled lower class. Now it's the opposite. With incredible food abundance, and with obesi
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