As you know, I get up early, much earlier than most people with 9 to 5 type jobs. About 6 months ago I changed my schedule at work to arrive around 7 and leave around 4 or 4:30. Of course, that doesn't always work out and I seldom get out of the office by 4:30, but often enough I am leaving before 5. In addition to getting to work early, I like to exercise before I go to work. In order to get a solid workout in and have time to eat breakfast and relax a little bit before my day starts, I need to be out of bed by 3:50 or 4:00. The flip side of that is I go to bed before 9:00 every evening. I like this schedule. I like getting up early and don't have any trouble getting out of bed by 4:00 and being fully awake. I don't mind going to bed early. I've always been a morning person, so this schedule feels natural to me.
While my sleep schedule is fine, I have had a problem adjusting my meal schedule. I have discovered that it works better for me to eat my breakfast before I work out. I started doing this a few weeks ago so that I could work out with Lauren from 5:30 - 6:30, take a quick shower and be at work by 7:15. To make this happen, everything else, including eating breakfast, has to be done before she gets here in the morning. Before I started working out with Lauren, I would exercise first and then eat breakfast. It turns out that it is much more pleasant to go from bed to my cozy nightgown and breakfast than it is to go from my bed to workout clothes and a run. I enjoy my mornings a lot more when I eat breakfast first. So what's the problem? I am eating breakfast at about 4:20 in the morning. Because I am eating breakfast so early, I start getting hungry by about 9:30 in the morning. To compensate for this I started packing a morning snack. I'd eat my snack around 10:00, then I wouldn't be hungry for lunch until about 12:30, and I'd eat dinner when I got home around 6:00. What's the problem with that? I wouldn't be done eating dinner until about 6:30 which is way too close to bedtime. I think this had a lot to do with why my weight was creeping up, even though I felt like I was doing everything "right."
Then, a couple of days ago, I had an epiphany. Why don't I just eat lunch around 10:00 in the morning and dinner at about 3:00 or 4:00? This would put me on basically the same schedule as someone who eats breakfast at 6, lunch at noon, and dinner at 5 or 6. This schedule eliminates the need for a morning snack. Also, when I get home from work I am not hungry, so I don't immediately turn to the nuts for a quick snack. The other thing that was a problem with my old schedule, was I was eating a relatively large dinner, because I was pretty hungry by the time I got home. A big meal an hour or two before bed is not a great idea if you are trying to lose weight.
For the last two days I have tried this new schedule and it is working out great. I don't know why, but it seems a little odd to eat lunch at 10:00 in the morning. I can get used to it though. When I start heating my dinner up in the afternoon, people say, "Oh, you're eating lunch late." And I say, "No, I am eating dinner early." I don't know why this took me so long to figure out, I guess habits are called habits for a reason. You do them because you do them, not because they make sense. I will keep this new food schedule for the next few weeks and see if it continues to work for me, but so far, so good.
One of the reasons this works well for me is because I prepare all of our meals for the week on Sunday. Therefore, it is easy to pack my lunch and my dinner to take to work with me. Here is a photo of my meals, all ready to go into my lunch bag:
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| Chicken and cauliflower chili with avocado chutney for lunch, Roasted chicken & root veggies and green beans for dinner. Apples for dessert |
And now it is time for me to get dressed, pack today's meals, and head to work. Have a grand and glorious day!!!
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