Meals in the EDR (Employee Dining Room)

1. Eat to live, or Live to eat
2. Only eat when hungry.

I have seen both of those statements/quotes/mantras (whatever you want to call them) many times throughout my life.

1. Is one of your first thoughts of the day..."oh boy time to eat, what will I have today" the minute you wake up? Is the idea of eating yummy food the reason that you drag yourself out of bed?
When "living to eat", food is in control..you eat when you are bored, stressed out, and you probably grew up in the "clean your plate" club. It's hard to make healthy choices when your favorite foods remind you of visiting grandma as a kid, and she would make all your favorite treats.

Some of the best things my grandmother made was homemade beef stew, corn chowder, split pea soup with a ham bone and big chunks of ham in it, apple crisp, homemade applesauce with the peel left on so the applesauce came out red, corn bread, bread pudding, green bean casserole for Thanksgiving, homemade popcorn balls in our Christmas stocking every year, and I am sure that I am forgetting something. The point is...that none of those items have to be off limits, they just don't have to be eaten everyday. I can remember grandma without those foods.

Grandma also had the rules: no picky eaters allowed at her table, we all had to try a few bites of everything. We had to sit at the table until we were done (I fell asleep at the table once and finished dinner for breakfast the next morning) I became an exception to that rule afterwards.

2. At the present time, meals in our EDR are listed as BREAKFAST 6:30-9am, LUNCH 11am-1pm, and DINNER 4:30-6:30pm. As I am typing this it is 12:55, so lunch is about over. I never know what is going to be served until I walk down there. I didn't bother to go down today. The picture at the top of this blog is different random photos that I took of different meals in the EDR. Sometimes it's really good, and sometimes I am lucky if I can find enough in the salad bar to even consider it a meal.
On work days, I usually clock in at 2pm. So I will usually skip lunch and lately I am thankful that there have been hard boiled eggs on the salad bar so I grab one to eat before starting work. I consider them a healthy food that will keep me going while I am dealing with the public in my store. Usually I have a dinner break at 4:30 or 5pm. I am not sure how the employees dealing with eating dinner at 5pm and then not getting breakfast till around 7am. Not everyone has an access to a kitchen attached to their room. So glad that I do.

So if alot of weightloss "pro's" online tell you to only eat when you are hungry...well around here that would be a problem. Well actually I think it would be a problem for anyone in school or if you work a morning shift. How many schools and work places have a kitchen for you to use for whenever you get hungry? Bosses don't pay us to cook and eat (unless you work in a restaurant), so instead we have become slaves to a mealtime clock. Oh its noon, time for us to stop whatever we are doing and go get food. We ain't hungry but if we don't eat now then we "might" be ravenous later.

Personally I have fallen into that train of thought myself many times. Personally it is a very rare day when I feel hungry. When I am really good about following a low-carb diet then the hungry feeling disappears even more. Enough so I have to force myself to eat when I ain't hungry. Mostly I eat when bored or when the clock says it's time. Obviously from the picture in yesterday's blog, I get bored alot.

Anyways, I will probably walk down to the EDR later just to check out the salad bar.