Break the Fast

Mini-goal number 2: Eat breakfast. Go figure: Snap, Crackle, and Pop were right. I was not in the habit of eating breakfast consistently when I began my program. I ate some days, and I just didn't have time on other days. Not eating this morning meal caused me to indulge more often in my addicting mochas, and to think about nothing but LUNCH for approximately 2 hours before LUNCH. Waking up earlier is not an option. I enjoy sleep, and I refuse to give any of it up. Instead, I began packing breakfast in addition to lunch and snack.
I actually took this one step farther, and began eating the whole day. On my spreadsheet, I call my meals "breakfast", "lunch", and "snack", but I normally eat half my "breakfast" first thing in the morning, and have the second half about two hours later...whenever I am hungry. About 2 hours after that, yay! It's lunchtime! I take my walk and try to delay lunch until 1pm. This helps fend off "the five o clock feeding frenzy" a little bit, and also allows me to peruse possible leftovers from vendor meetings. (If you work in a place that does not have vendors, I pity thee. These are people that give you a free meal, usually including a cookie, and all you have to do is listen to a presentation about their product. Even better are the occasions when you do not have to attend the presentation, but you get to enjoy the cookies and sandwiches left over after the meeting.)
Vendor meetings are extremely dangerous to a dieter. Even though you may have just eaten a perfectly fine meal, a confrontation with a chicken salad wrap and a chocolate chip cookie, free for the taking, will always end in disaster. I find that I cannot win this fight, so at least I wait until the meeting is over before eating my lunch.
My lunches all include a piece of fruit, which I eat around 2pm. Then I have my last meal, a snack, at 4pm. They say eating breakfast helps get the metabolism moving, and I hope that eating every two hours for the whole day achieves the same effect, though I think it is fairly obvious that I am not a dietitian or a doctor and pretty much feel that insides are inside for a reason - they are icky. I do know that this system works for me because I get hungry, and I eat. Not a lot, just enough to allow my thoughts to focus on something other than dieting. In the end, my overall calorie intake is smaller because denying the urge to eat only makes me want to eat more, and I give in to myself eventually. My belly can be very persistent.