Dinner
Americans have their dietary days backwards. I’ve known this intellectually for years but on a deeply ingrained cultural and social level I’m still working hard to know this in my heart. We save the biggest meal, the one with the most calories, for the end of the day. We’re just about to use up our monumental reserves of energy to… go to sleep. Maybe watch some TV first. Yet that is when we are most likely to sit down to a huge 1,000+ calorie meal.
What are we thinking about?
Well, partly we’re thinking that the end of the day is when we can come together to a family to sit down to a meal. Dinner is the meal we cook, whereas lunch is the meal we throw into a bag and breakfast is the meal we grab on the go. Dinner is most likely to consist of the foods we look forward to.
Yet dinner is a big reason that dieters fail. I know it has always been a stumbling block for me. I get so hungry in the middle of the afternoon and even if I’m looking forward to dinner because I have something exceptionally yummy planned, I need the calories sooner. I need them when I’m working, playing, thinking, and exercising.
One thing you may now know about me is that I have binge eating problems. And 90% of those problems occurred in the afternoon when I was depriving myself of food because I had 600 calories left and I needed to use them for dinner. I would already have those calories written into my journal so they were as good as gone and psychologically I’d have no out. I’d try to eat a piece of fruit or even a salad tossed with light dressing, but it didn’t always work. And then came the guilt. Oh, no! I’ve eaten too much. I can’t have dinner now. The day is ruined, I may as well eat a bunch of cookies.
Mindful eating is about listening to your body. It’s about eating when you’re hungry and not eating when you’re not. This doesn’t just mean during snack times. If you’re not hungry for dinner, why would you eat?
Yet we do.
I just ate a peanut butter cookie. I made a batch of them this morning for a family get-together tomorrow and they smelled so delicious! I couldn’t resist having one cookie this afternoon. And okay, I might have licked my fingers a bit while I made the cookies in the first place. Now I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t have a lot of calories “saved up” for dinner at this point. The old me — the mindless one who used journals for permission to eat — would be freaking out right about now. But the new me, the mindful eating me, realized something.
I’m not hungry.
Yeah, I’m not hungry. I just had a cookie, probably closer to 1.5 or 2 if I count the batter-licking. I had a pretty small breakfast because I wasn’t feeling all that hungry this morning, a larger lunch (including seconds after the allotted 15 minutes had passed) because I was, and I ate some cookies. Now, is it the end of the world?
No, it’s not. Because dinner is the least important meal of the day. If I’m not hungry, I’ll skip it. I’ll have to find ways to bond with my family that doesn’t involve food. If I am hungry, I will have a small portion.
As an aside, I hate the ad campaign that suggested families eating dinner together was some kind of magical solution to children’s behavior problems. Do you remember the one I’m talking about? It was ridiculous even at the time, even before I got mindful about eating. Families need to spend time together. It doesn’t have to be over food.
Quick Dinner Tips:
1. Try to eat dinner early. I know it’s tough if you work, but late meals just sit in your stomach while you sleep.
2. Eat half as much dinner as you think is a normal portion. Wait fifteen minutes before deciding you want more. (In reality, dinners should be no bigger than any other main meal. Arguably, they should be smaller.)
3. Be willing to simply not eat dinner if you’re not hungry. If you were looking forward to that meal, save some of it to reheat for lunch the next day.
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